Who will be team’s leading scorer?
On Sept. 17, three days before the official release of the video game “NBA 2K17,” Myles Turner shot a warning to his more than 38,000 Twitter followers.
“Gunna say this once and once only,” the Pacers’ 20-year-old power forward wrote, “if you use the Warriors on 2k we cannot associate literally unfair.”
More than a month later, Turner’s point stands: Golden State, which enters its season opener Tuesday as the first team in league history with four reigning All-NBA players, is capable of video-game performances any given night. After all, the Warriors added Kevin Durant, a four-time NBA scoring champion, to a group that led the league last season with 114.9 points per game.
Which makes for an interesting debate: Who will be Golden State’s top scorer? Durant? Stephen Curry? Klay Thompson?
“That’s the thing that’s kind of scary,” said one
Western Conference executive. “It’s kind of a lose-lose situation, because if you double-team Steph or KD, someone else is going to be open.”
The Warriors are a popular betting topic in Las Vegas, and among the lines people can gamble on is, indeed, which player will lead the team in scoring.
Durant is the heavy favorite at -150 at online betting site Bovada.lv, while Curry is +110. It might seem a promising bet to anyone who followed Curry’s 2015-16 season. This is a player who shattered his record for three-pointers made, shot 50.4 percent from the field and became the NBA’s first unanimous MVP.
Still, the oddsmakers recognize that Durant is the more versatile scorer. Although Curry is an elite ball handler and perhaps the best jump shooter of all time, his offensive arsenal is somewhat limited. Durant, with his 7-5 wingspan and deceptive speed, is the rare player who is just as skilled at hitting three-pointers as he is banging in the low post.
The seven-time NBA All-Star was one of the best post-up players in the league last season, scoring 1.23 points per postup on 60.9 percent shooting. Over the past month, while acclimating to a new supporting cast, he showed flashes of his offensive arsenal.
Durant led the Warriors in the preseason with 20.9 points in 25.1 minutes per game. With Curry and Thompson spacing the floor, he shot 54.3 percent from the field and 55.9 percent from beyond the arc. He also drew fouls with regularity and converted 27 of his 28 free throws.
“I’m trying to have a robot mind-set every single day, just stick to what I do,” Durant said. “I’m not worried about what type of game we’re playing or who we’re playing. I’ve just got to do my job.”
After averaging a career-high 14 points per game last season, All-Star Draymond Green appears content focusing on other aspects of his game. He finished the preseason sixth on the team in scoring but second in assists, rebounds and steals.
Thompson, a spot-up shooter who thrives off the ball, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Durant’s arrival. Free to work off screens and find looks in the flow of the offense, the two-time AllStar shot 50.6 from the field in the preseason and 42.3 percent from three-point range.
More reliant on dribbling than Thompson, Curry took longer to adjust to Durant. He attempted no more than eight shots in each of Golden State’s first three preseason games. But Curry gradually learned how to play in harmony with Durant, and in Golden State’s final two exhibitions the pair combined for 122 points (67 from Curry, 55 from Durant).
“We have a lot of great talent, and we just have to put it all together,” Curry said. “We’ve always been deep the last three years, maybe longer, but we’re just doing it with different personnel this year.”
Only 3.1 points separated the preseason 36-minute scoring averages of Durant (29.8), Curry (29.4) and Thompson (26.7). In an NBA landscape that puts a premium on teams’ leading scorers, the Warriors are proving that balanced squads are the toughest to defend.
The last Golden State team to have three players average 20-plus points was the 2007-08 edition headlined by Baron Davis, Monta Ellis and Stephen Jackson. A flawed group in many ways, it outscored opponents enough to win 48 games.
“People are probably going to say we’re going to win X-amount (of games), and I don’t care,” Kerr said. “What I’m looking forward to is the challenge of our guys putting this together and growing as the season goes on.”
“We’ve always been deep ... but we’re just doing it with different personnel this year.” Stephen Curry