Dang, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a sports-related blog post. The last time I wrote about my beloved Warriors, I correctly predicted that they would beat the Celtics in six games in the 2022 NBA Finals.
It feels like we’re at a critical juncture for this franchise. The dynasty is over, and what a run we had: four chips and six Finals appearances in eight years; nine playoff appearances in the past eleven NBA seasons, and since the Steve Kerr era began in 2015, last season was the first time they failed to make it out of the Western Conference in the playoffs.
When we started this season 6-2 and the vibes were all good, I began to entertain the idea that we just might be a title contender…and that quickly unraveled like all the big leads we’ve blown this season. At this juncture, there’s absolutely no realistic hope that we can hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2024. Shit, making the Play-in Tournament feels like it would be an accomplishment for this team. Nabbing the 5th or 6th seed in the Western Conference is the absolute ceiling for this roster as presently constructed.
This season, I don’t think there’s a blockbuster trade that can catapult us into contention. With Steph still playing at a high level, I think the best we can realistically hope for is to dramatically remake the roster to compete for a title next season. It’s clear that we’re no longer in 2022 when we simply had to build the team correctly around the margins to give our team a chance to win it all.
What should the Warriors do with their glut of average- to above-average scrubs? Here’s what I think.
Keepers:
Guards: Steph, Podziemski, GPII, Moody
Forwards: Šarić
Centers: TJD, Looney
Guards
At guard, obviously the team should keep Steph until the day he retires. Steph is a 6’3 version of Tim Duncan, the Big Fundamental; though he nearly left San Antonio for Orlando in 2000, the Spurs never let Timmy go. Selfless, all-time generational players who can elevate an entire franchise only come around so often.
Podz is arguably the steal of the 2023 NBA Draft. A few weeks ago, Kevin O’Connor posited that Podziemski should probably go “as high as 3rd and not any lower than 7th” if there was a re-draft today. For a twenty-year-old, he has uncanny basketball IQ and feel for the game. On a rookie contract for a player selected 19th, he is an incredible asset for the team. He has already shown that he can play with our old heads or our youthful second unit.
Though Young Glove has missed more games than played games the past two seasons, dating back to his brief tenure in Portland, I think he’s too valuable to the Warriors if he can stay healthy. With his latest injury, his trade value is at rock bottom, so trading him now wouldn’t be worthwhile, IMHO. For vibes alone, GPII is a great person to have on our bench and in our locker room. When healthy, he’s still one of the best on-ball defenders in the NBA. We have no one on the team who can defend on the perimeter like him; in a conference with De’Aaron Fox and Ja Morant—to name just two quick, shifty point guards—it’s critical to have an elite perimeter defender on our roster. It’s a gamble to keep him and his +8 million dollar per year contract, but I think at this point it’s the best play for Warriors management.
A few weeks back, a reader on The Athletic commented that Moses Moody could become the sixth best player on a championship team, but probably not on our team. I wholeheartedly agree. At 21, he has uncanny poise and maturity; he’s the opposite of Jordan Poole, who is currently dead last in +/- with a -342. Though Moody’s playing time has been sparse the past few weeks, he was recently filmed practicing jump shots well past midnight after a loss at home. This is the type of young role player we need to put around Steph. In the opening weeks of this season, his 3-point shot was butter. If he can regain it—and I believe he can—he can be a reliable two-way player this team desperately needs to get back into contention.
Amongst guards, Klay is the wild card for me. If he’s willing to return to the team after this season on a reasonable contract—and my hunch is he will—I think he can still be of value to this team. Personally, I think his days of a being an automatic starter should be over because we can’t trot out a top-10 defense with two below-average defenders in our backcourt (and we have won four titles when we had an elite defense). If Klay is really willing to embody all the exceptionally candid remarks he recently made, then he could be a positive for this team and its next iteration.
Forwards
Of the forwards on our roster, the only one I think the Warriors should absolutely retain for the rest of this season is Dario Šarić—unless he requests to be traded to a legit contender. As expected, he’s been a good fit for the Warriors motion offense. He’s been a good veteran presence for our team. If we traded him without his consent, it’d be poor form for Warriors management since he took less money to play for our team on a one-year deal. That would be detrimental toward signing future veteran free agents.
As I’ve noted before on this blog, Draymond Green has been one of my all-time favorite Warriors. At this moment, I don’t feel like I can step out of the house donning my Money Green T-shirt. I’d be too embarrassed. I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to defend this man, so that’s how I feel about him now.
If the Lakers or another team aspiring for contention wants to trade for him, I’d be very open to that. How can anyone on this team—including management—trust him anymore? I wouldn’t.
My guess is Warriors management won’t move him before the trade deadline; I think they’ll begrudgingly hope that he’ll play at a high level the rest of this season, keep out of trouble, recuperate his value and then they’ll trade him in the offseason. If they can’t swing a good trade for him before the deadline, that’s the dicey path I would take.
As for Wiggs and Kuminga, it feels a bit like 2012 when Monta Ellis and Steph were competing for minutes at the point guard position. It feels like the time has come for the Warriors to make a decision on their long-term starter at the small forward position. It’s a tough decision because Wiggins trade value is kaput right now. What franchise would give up real assets to take a chance on him? The Warriors managed his extended absence last season in an exemplary fashion; on our team, he’s been perfectly cast as a high-level role player versus a franchise star. He found the ideal franchise so if he can’t succeed here, why would he play better elsewhere? To boot, Wiggins is turning 29 next month. He should still be in his prime, but he’s having the worst season of his career. Since December, his 3-point shooting percentage has creeped back up, and he shot a scorching 90.3% from the charity stripe in December, but we’re still far away from his beastly two-month run during the 2022 NBA Playoffs.
Other than Steph, JKu is our most valuable asset. Raptors GM Masai Ujiri is rightly targeting him in a potential trade for Pascal Siakam, but the Warriors are rightly not willing to include him in such a trade.
As far as I’m concerned, the single most critical question the entire Warriors franchise must be asking itself is what kind of team does it want to be in the next 2-3 seasons? Do they want to try to contend for a championship, or would they rather aim to be a competitive team during that period? The answer to this question has a multitude of implications including:
Do we re-sign Steve Kerr?
Do we keep Draymond?
If we keep Steve Kerr as our coach, I think that has implications for Jonathan Kuminga because the two of them seem incongruent; we now have a three-year sample, and I just don’t trust that Steve Kerr will ever maximize Kuminga’s potential. In 2024, with a sub-.500 record since we won the 2022 NBA title in June 2022, I think Kerr has shown that he’s more Phil Jackson than Gregg Popovich, who adapted his team’s style of play to capture a fifth title in 2014.
Centers
Dunleavy nailed his first two draft picks as the Warriors new GM. With his size, energy, athleticism, and high basketball IQ, I think TJD has already supplanted Loon Dawg as the most dynamic center on our roster. As our beat writers have noted, Looney just inexplicably seems to be missing juice on D and in crashing the boards this season. He’s still pivotal to our team chemistry, which is partly why the Warriors value him far more than any other team, but TJD should be getting more minutes than him from now on. This team sorely needs his shot-blocking presence in the paint and the rim-rolling threat he provides on offense. With his team-friendly rookie contract, TJD is a valuable asset on a team that presently has five top-heavy contracts.
So what should the Warriors do?
After this latest blowout loss at home, it’s clear there’s no way this team is contending for a title this season. And there’s no single solution to ail our problems because we have a multitude of issues on this team, including a dearth of leadership without Mike Brown, Andre Iguodala, and even Draymond on the court.
In a way, I think we’re inhabiting terrain similar to the 2012-2013 season when Steph was a third-year player, Klay was a second-year player, and we had some talent on the roster but we were a long way from contention. We’re several moves away.
If I were Warriors management, I wouldn’t make a rash, big trade before the trade deadline, like going after Pascal Siakam. Make a smaller move that gets the needle moving in the right direction and play the rest of this season out. Stopping playing Wiggins if he doesn’t earn the minutes! (He’s a negative playing alongside anyone on this fucking team.)
 |
| Snapshot provided on 1/8/2024 by @bigkino217 |
Play the young guys to see what we’ve really got. See if a lineup with Steph, Kuminga, Draymond, TJD at the 5 and either Klay or Moody at shooting guard can stabilize our rotations. We’ll have more flexibility next season to make more moves: Klay and CP3’s contracts will be off the books, if we want to move on from them; if he recovers some value, we could trade Draymond in the offseason and probably get back more value. We could try to move on from Kerr and head in a different direction altogether.
What’s the type of small move we can make that can get us going back in the right direction? Trade for someone who is taller than 6’5, for starters! Going back to last season, we need length and athleticism on this team. I like TJD, but after he got abused by Valančiūnas tonight and struggled to grab boards against fellow rookie Derek Lively (TJD had 6 rebounds in 29 minutes to Lively’s 14 rebounds in 35 minutes) about two weeks ago and then recently got manhandled by Denver’s frontcourt, I think it’s clear he’s not an optimal starting center in the NBA. We need a young center who can run up and down the court and swat and alter shots in the paint like Jarrett Allen or Nic Claxton. Getting a player like Allen or Claxton can help us build a competent defense without Draymond if management decides we’re done with him.
We need two-way players! In our early dynastic years, that was one of our advantages: we usually had more two-way players than our opposition, and we oftentimes also had better two-way players. That’s not the case now and why Kerr is struggling to find a lineup that is a net positive. The Warriors need 3-and-D wings who can stay on the court and knock down open 3s like Dorian Finney-Smith. We need a selfless, swiss-army knife-type player who can defend multiple positions and help connect this team on offense like Otto Porter did for our last championship run. A player like Nicolas Batum would be perfect for a Kerr team, but we’ve swung and missed on him several seasons now, but that’s the type of player this team sorely misses. (And Kuminga seems reluctant to be this Shawn Marion-type of player.)
This team has a lot of questions to answer. I think the best thing Dunleavy can do is sit tight, don't put all your chips in this season, and play this out. With more answers by the end of this season, we'll be in a better place to assess what needs to be done to get us back in contention.
No comments:
Post a Comment