Golden State Warriors O/U 48.5
Steph Curry nearly won MVP and the Warriors still fell short of the playoffs. Can Klay and other reinforcements get them a top seed in the West?
What happened last season?
Two Warriors teams took the floor last season: one with Steph Curry and one without.
For each game that Steph suited up, the Warriors played like title contenders in the first and third quarters. Steph would typically play in every minute of those quarters, usually alongside Draymond Green. Green effectively ran point for the team, leading the team in assists by a wide margin as he and Curry bended defenses with the threat of Curry’s shot. Often two players would chase Curry either as a tactic or in a panic; Green punished this reaction by hitting cutters to the basket. Sometimes Green would set the screen himself and toss the ball to Curry, acting like he was the quarterback and offensive line at once. Steph in isolation was just as devastating – he leveraged the greatest combination of shooting and handle the league has ever seen for walk-in layups. And of course, the father of the pull-up 3 still gets his from there too. Altogether, Steph was an MVP candidate on a team that did not even make the playoffs.
That’s because the team without Steph Curry was miserable. Head coach Steve Kerr committed to resting Steph for the first six minutes of second and fourth quarters to keep gas in the tank for his 32-year-old superstar. The Warriors went from a top-5 offense to nearly the worst.
Green was typically also off the floor during these stints which left the Warriors dependent on Kelly Oubre Jr. and Andrew Wiggins to generate offense. Both have been historically inefficient at doing so and predictably weren’t up to the task. Oubre in particular was awful, posting a below average TS% (52.9%). He started the season 1-for-21 from three and was left open for the rest of the year. demonstrate Oubre’s poor play and fit most clearly, Oubre missed 15 of 20 games to end the season; the Warriors went 15-5 in this stretch. Both he and Wiggins, however, were strong defenders, each finally rising to the potential assigned to them early in their careers. Wiggins looked his physically strongest which he utilized around the basket and with an improved post game. His improved his finishing ability and a refined shot selection resulted in a career-best 52.9% two-point field goal percentage. His career-best three-point percentage (38.0%) can be attributed to finally having All-Star playmakers next to him.
Jordan Poole and Damion Lee developed confidence over the year, and they eventually became the focal points of the bench offense. They fully embraced Kerr’s motion offense with Lee playing the role of imitation Curry. Lee hit nearly 40% of his threes on 6.5 attempts per 36 minutes while Poole took a massive step in accuracy going from 28% to 35%. Juan Toscano-Anderson was another of Golden State’s 2019-2020 rebuild season finds that earned a role for this playoff contender, earning his keep on defense and scoring efficiently when the opportunity arose.
That rebuild season was anticipated to yield a new core piece that could contribute immediately. There’s still hope that second overall pick James Wiseman could be a core piece, but he didn’t come close to being an immediate contributor. Generally, he seemed to grow less confident with each passing game which manifested itself into worse and worse play. In mid-April, Wiseman injured his meniscus and would miss the final 19 games of the season, which happened to be the Warriors most successful stretch of play. It’s likely Wiseman would have been phased out of the rotation as Kerr turned his focus to qualifying for the playoffs. Sham 2019-2020 First Team All-Rookie selection Eric Paschall was also sidelined over this period.
What happened in the offseason?
Kelly Oubre was a predictably poor fit on offense next to Curry; both parties as likely happy to part with each other. In his place comes one of the best ever fits next to Curry, longtime teammate Andre Iguodala. Unfortunately, Iguodala’s shooting has regressed badly since the glory days of the pre-Durant Death Lineups. In those days, Iguodala’s three-point percentage hovered around 35%. In his last four years, he’s a well below average shooter (31%). While he still has some playmaking ability and overall smarts, he’s become a negative on offense. On defense he’s still effective so long as he doesn’t lose another half-step. At age 38, that time is around the corner.
The Warriors banked an additional lottery pick in the Wiggins-Russell trade. They came out of the draft with Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, players that were deemed lottery-worthy by the NBA draft prognosticators. They’re both just 19-years-old, the same age as Wiseman when he joined the Warriors. Kerr is likely to give both of them a shot early, an opportunity that naturally presents itself with Klay Thompson not ready for the beginning of the season. Warriors’ expectations are higher this season, so I’d expect a sink-or-swim approach for these two.
Otto Porter Jr. was once worthy of a $100M contract but he’s missed considerably more games than he’s played since earning the deal. Porter should fit in well with Warriors as he’s a career 40% three-point shooter and particularly excels from the corners. He’s also a rangy, effective defender. Porter offsets the loss of Kent Bazemore, a fine contributor to the team last season.
Nemanja Bjelica is the Warriors second add from last year’s Miami Heat squad. He fills an essential need for the Warriors as the team’s go-to stretch 5. I’d expect he’ll have some opportunities to close games if he can rediscover his stroke from his best days with the Kings. He’ll be an upgrade over Paschall who preferred to take his jumpers a full step inside the three-point line.
What will happen this season?
Projected Depth Chart and Minutes Distribution
Last season proved, resoundingly, that Steph Curry remains one of the best players in the league if not the game’s single greatest offensive threat today. Curry was league MVP in 2014-2015 and then the league’s first unanimous MVP the following year. He was arguably just as good last year.
Kerr and Curry had no other option but to lean on Curry, and Curry embraced the extra workload. He jacked up his three-point attempts to 12.7 per game, nearly 20% higher than the second leading launcher (Lillard, 10.7). Curry drilled better than 42% of them and led the league in threes made by a significant margin. Curry will once again be responsible for generating most of the offense this season, perhaps even more of it with the possession-eating Kelly Oubre gone.
Draymond Green continued his transformation into a non-shooting point guard, notching more assists than points last season. He finished 4th in the league in total assists but his shooting was as anemic as ever. Green took only 6 field goals a game and just 2 from three, his lowest marks since the 2013-2014 season, and he had his second consecutive season with an effective field goal percentage less than 50%. However, he remains a fantastic defender; it appears last year’s slippage was more effort than age. Draymond was rightly named to the First Team All Defense team and is a good bet to find himself on one of the two teams this season. The story is basically the same Andre Iguodala who will get to play Draymond’s role off the bench.
Klay Thompson hasn’t played a game in two seasons and will likely wait a month or two to make his return from injury. Klay more than complimented Curry – they accentuated each other as equal threats from the perimeter. The Warriors badly missed that secondary threat last season. There’s no doubting Klay’s shooting but also no guarantee he’ll be able to keep pace on defense, especially with most of his minutes expected to come at the 2-spot. Even before the injury, his effectiveness as a defender was starting to wane. The Warriors are not a Big 3 if Klay is exploitable on that side of the court.
Andrew Wiggins is positioned to be a critical part of the team’s success and lead the Warriors in minutes played again after finally getting vaccinated. He’s the new Harrison Barnes: a reliable three-point shooter with enough variety in his game to get his own shots if needed. He’s also a much improved defender with more energy dedicated to that side of the floor.
Lee, Poole, and Toscano-Anderson will fill the early season Klay and Wiggins void capably. The additions of rookie wings Kuminga and Moody plus veteran wings Iguodala and Porter give the Warriors plenty of depth across the perimeter. Lee and Poole should be expected to jack up their aggression on offense. Iggy and Porter are low usage players on a team dying to relieve Curry of some of the scoring load although both should complement him well.
Looney is the likely starting center and although he’s an extremely limited player, he’s one that has developed chemistry with the principals. Wiseman exhibited none of that chemistry and seemed to get progressively more lost within the team up to his season-ending injury exit. It’s hard to identify anything that Wiseman did well with consistency. It’s a fair excuse to make that Wiseman had the most difficult season to navigate in his class – high-lottery pick expected to contribute immediately to a playoff-worthy team. If anything, however, the urgency for him to get good fast is only heightened this year. The Warriors may soon decide he’s worth more as a trade piece than as a building block.
The projection
Prior to Klay’s injury announcement just before the 2020 NBA Draft, the Warriors were projected to have a win total in the (equivalent) high 40s and was many prognosticators’ sleeper Finals pick. The Warriors are placed on the same perch this season. At this moment, they have the fourth best odds to win the NBA championship.
A lot of optimism resides on the return of Klay Thompson. However, Klay will be at least 2.5 years removed from game action when he does return. When he does, it’s not realistic to assume the Warriors are adding an All-Star to their team. They’ll be adding one of the greatest shooters of all time that’s 31-years-old with two major leg injuries.
There’s also promise in the form of James Wiseman and the two lottery picks. Wiseman is sure to benefit from his rookie experience and a real offseason, although he enters the season injured. He’ll also have a spotlight on him both as player on the court and as a trade piece; last year he wilted under similar conditions. Rookies Kuminga and Moody, like Wiseman, are cast more like upside developmental projects than immediate contributors.
However, there’s little question that Curry is one of the best players in the game that may still have some ceiling to explore if becomes even more aggressive. There was only a minor drop in efficiency as he took on his heaviest workload with the least amount of offensive support he’s had since becoming an All-Star. With Curry at an MVP level, the Warriors have a very high floor. But even with Curry at an MVP level, the Warriors weren’t good enough to make the playoffs last season.