Can the Warriors Be Two Teams At Once?

The defending champions, the Golden State Warriors, are one of the greatest players in NBA history, with a bulletproof starting lineup that is operating at a higher and more dominant level than ever before. He was the perfect winning entitlement, the platonic ideal of the role-playing center, and the former no.One pick who reinvented himself as the perfect two-way complement to lead the Warriors to his seven games in his series. Any western team you could put them against would be the favorites to win. At the same time, they now have his 4-7 record, which places him 12th in the conference, and has also been disqualified from the hypothetical playoffs.

These are strange times for an ongoing dynasty. Warriors post-Durant Many of the biggest questions surrounding his revival have been asked and answered with titles. But at a basic level, you can feel the tension of a team starting a championship defense with just five credible rotation players. One of the worst plus-minus marks throughout the league so far. The stars are lined up for Golden State, but the Warriors have a lot to get right these days just to handle the regular business of his season. They have already lost four of his 11 games played in total, with Stephen Curry scoring at least his 30 points. Earlier this week, he stole his 47 from Steph and made a dramatic change in the second half of the team’s rotation, shifting the mid-game lineup to put him three behind the Kings at home.

It’s standard operating procedure for a championship team to gradually shape up for next season as its achievements fade and the hunger for competition increases. The veterans have already played hard and scored some serious time.According to NBA.com, the game-tested starting lineup of Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney will be on the full floor. Golden State outscored their opponents by 72 points in 123 minutes. in 408 other As much as the Warriors played with other combinations of players this season, they were beaten by 109 points.

Some of these groups are better than others, but they have common themes. The younger the lineup composition, the more likely it is to perform poorly. Just throwing Curry out with Golden State’s greener rotation contenders isn’t enough. James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody were overwhelmed, with Steve Kerr staggering the minutes of Kuminga and Moody, pulling Wiseman out of the rotation entirely.

Note that Kuminga and Moody are only 20 and Wiseman is 21. But Golden State based the logic of its entire rotation on the idea that the team’s young core would serve in the present tense. It was a respectable attempt to prepare the franchise for life after its heyday. We’re drawing an even clearer line between players who can manage the rigors of each night and those who haven’t yet done the job.

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Heading into the 2018 draft, Green became part of Warriors lore, advising the front office on who to pick late in the first round to help the team defend yet another title. provided pearls of wisdom. “We have 82 games of players,” said Green. Told According to Warriors assistant GM Larry Harris, “there are players for 16 games.” Draymond wanted the latter, a reliable teammate who could hold out not just for one series, but for four. The Warriors will be in a much different place in 2022. What they desperately need is an 82-game player. Here’s a team that needs help getting through a long road trip in December. We need a more realistic way to keep Curry, Thompson and Green’s minutes down. You don’t have to roll out a playoff rotation just to cap off a run-of-the-mill regular season win. We need some sort of roster failsafe in case any of the team’s core players have to miss minutes, let alone months of action.

Frankly, Golden State needs more than the next-generation Warriors could give. The situation is dire enough already, as we rely more on castoffs Ty Jerome and Anthony Lam than we do. literally instructed in the right place.Notably, neither Jerome nor Ram are 16-game players or 82-game player; two-way contract allows only 50 of Golden State’s regular season games to be active, and is not eligible to play in the playoffs at all unless a deal is struck. They’re strictly a means to tread water, to squeeze an extra 20-30 minutes off a bench with very limited options.

It’s already clear that the current champions are an imperfect project. Between now and the end of the season there is a great need for serious internal growth or external improvement. Bringing Donte DiVincenzo back from injury could help fix some issues, but the 25-year-old guard is still finding his way with his new team. Predictably, that potential savior feels a little heavy..Andre Iguodala will be back at some point and could make a real difference as an on-court chaperone for some of the youngest Warriors He also appeared in just 31 games last season and, with his 39th birthday approaching, shouldn’t be predicted for more than limited regular season action. Perhaps there’s a better way to work with JaMychal Green (who joined Wiseman as DNP-CD in this week’s game against the Kings)? It speaks to where the Warriors are now and how easily this could have been avoided.

After all, this is a situation at least partially created by Golden State itself. The Warriors effectively eliminated the bench that helped the team navigate through the 2022 playoffs, overestimating just how ready Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody are to compete. That the Warriors can punch the bench again after doing just that in the NBA Finals with current Raptor Otto Porter his junior or current Blazer Gary Payton II (albeit still recovering from offseason surgery) is clear. But in this situation, even Juan Toscano Anderson (now the Lakers) and Damion Lee (now the Sun) seem to be important sources of organizational knowledge about his second unit that lost it. You may feel Meanwhile, his 15th and final roster spot for Golden State remains open.

Golden State will inevitably play better than this.However how, Exactly?When ikuraThe Warriors aren’t missing much from the rotation, but they desperately need what they need.? Weisman, Kuminga and Moody have the opportunity to get closer to the players their teams need — even if they have to spend a few nights out of rotation along the way. Let Golden State choose between present and future if the Warriors want to Trading will be possible, including offers. The Warriors have options and, more importantly, they have time. It’s early in the season for Golden State to play strings for a few more months and hopefully find its way. It’s too early for the Warriors to deny what happened.