What the Warriors need is to think small
Hey, Dieter is a wrapup of the questions that I receive via email, Twitter, radio callins, and my morning rooms on the Locker Room app.
Also, questions I receive in more analog ways. What a concept!
If you want to get in on this action, you can email me at dkurtenbach@bayareanewsgroup.com, tweet me @dieter, text me at 510.479.0932, or yell at me on the street.
Hey Dieter, do the Warriors need to add a center? — David via email
No! Absolutely not!
While it might make all the sense in the world to add a center to a team that currently has one — and an undersized one, at that — the Warriors should eschew all things height for the rest of the season to maximize our viewing pleasure. Also, we’re not much for logic around these parts.
The fact of the matter is that the Warriors are a spectacular smallball team — it’s the best version of themselves — and they need to ride that wave as far as it will take them this season. I think it could take them pretty far.
When Draymond Green is playing center for the Warriors, they are one of the best teams in basketball. He’s been at the 5 for just shy of 600 minutes this year, and the Warriors have a 119 offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) and a net rating of roughly 6. That’s in the ballpark of what the Nets’ big three — James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Durant — do when they play together. I like that comparison for Golden State.
Even the Warriors’ lineup with a guy who only plays center works. In the Warriors’ 385 minutes (to
date) where Kevon Looney is the team’s center next to Draymond Green, the Warriors have a net rating of plus-16. That’s championship-contending excellence.
Now, the Dubs didn’t magically transform into a team that can win the West. This team still has pratfalls. But as much as the Rockets might be the mortal enemies of the Warriors, they were onto something last year with their small-ball lineups. The Warriors need to steal a chapter from their book.
And if the Warriors run into foul trouble or have a twisted ankle down the stretch, the answer isn’t to bring in someone big, it’s to go even smaller.
I will not be satisfied until I see Andrew Wiggins playing center, which I have a suspicion would be good for roughly a five net rating.
Hey Dieter, are you buying into the changing odds on No. 3? — Gary on Twitter
I am. But only because they have finally gotten to a point where they make sense. I told everyone I knew to get in on Justin Fields +200 a few weeks ago. Now, per OddsChecker, he’s the betting favorite to go No. 3 at -125, with Mac Jones at +150.
Why anyone would be betting on what Dan Orlovsky thinks (again, it’s just conjecture by everyone, including myself — though I’d like to think I have a better read on the situation) is beyond me. In fact, last year, I tried holding the opposite belief of everything Orlovsky said, and I think I came out looking a lot smarter. Not an easy feat!
But I haven’t lived a few miles away from the ESPN studio my whole life, so joke’s on me. I think it’s going to be Fields. In my estimation, he’s closer to the top quarterback in this class, Trevor Lawrence, than any of the other quarterbacks are to him. Yes, that includes Zach Wilson.
It could be Trey Lance, though. He’s tough-asnails, and with the Niners still having Jimmy Garoppolo on the roster, they don’t need a Day 1 option. They can draft Lance and nurture him over the course of the 2021 season.
So if we’re talking odds, I would lay a little something down on Lance +550.
Lance has a marginally higher upside than Fields, but Fields has a much higher floor than Lance. That’s just my opinion on the matter, but I’d like to think I’m pretty good at this stuff. At least as good as anyone can be who doesn’t live in Connecticut.
But this is about money, so I’m telling you right now, given the whimsical nature of these books, there’s no way that Lance number is going to be that high following the North Dakota State quarterback’s pro day next week.