Ceiling high, but Warriors remain underdogs
The entire world has changed since the Warriors’ last opened up training camp.
But somehow Golden State remains in a stunningly similar position to then.
As the Warriors gear up to prove that last season’s NBA-worst record was a fluke — as they begin their pursuit of a sixth NBA Finals run in the past seven years — the argument can still be made, just as it was before last season, that no team in the league can match this squad’s variability of predicted outcome.
The ceiling is still incredibly high for the Warriors.
Yes, the champion Lakers, after their impressive, augmenting offseason moves, stand in a class by themselves in the league. But after them? Golden State can make the argument that they can beat any team in the NBA. If the Lakers falter, Golden State, with their championship mettle and unquestionable — and, in the scenario, actualized — upside potential, could swoop in and “restart” their dynasty.
Then there’s what happened last year. The Warriors never had Klay Thompson and then lost Stephen Curry, winning only 15 games by the time the season came to a halt.
Thompson is already ruled out for the season.
So to avoid an all-toopossible repeat, the question must be asked: Can Curry play a full year?
There’s a reason ESPN projected that the Warriors will finish 14th in the
Western Conference this season — it all rides on the shoulders of Curry, and ESPN doesn’t expect him to be on the court every night.
It’s a bold prediction? But it’s a fair one, too. While circumstances were no doubt different during the dynastic years, Curry has missed 46% of the Warriors’ regular season games the last three seasons, with the biggest chunk, of course, coming last season, when he played only five games.
And without Curry, well ... you saw what happened to the Warriors last year. It might not be that level of bad again, but a team led by Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins, Kelly Oubre, and James Wiseman isn’t making the playoffs — or even the play-in games — in a loaded Western Conference.
This is why it’s fair for the Warriors to take on the “underdog” label this season.
Adding to the complexity is this upcoming season’s schedule. While not formally released yet, the NBA has made it clear that they will try to jam 72 games into a five-month period. Back-to-back games will become normal once again. Four games in five days? They’re back, too. Surely, we’ll find out about some other dastardly combinations of games and days in the weeks to come.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr is already planning on how to manage Curry’s workload. He’s finding out that it’s a real damned-if-you- do, damned-if-youdon’t situation.
The conundrum: The Warriors need Curry on the court as much as possible to make the playoffs, but they can’t have him burnt out late in the season, when they’ll really need him at his best.
Gone are the days when Kerr could put Curry on the bench for the fourth quarter of a blowout victory — though blowout losses might provide the same opportunities. Those three- quarter workdays limited the star’s minutes over the course of the season, allowing him to be relatively fresh for the playoffs.
This is how the other half has been living for a while, and it’s not exactly fun.
“The objective going in (to the season) would be to keep his minutes around where they’ve been. It’s probably going to be more difficult,” Kerr said. “We’ve always been blessed with great talent, the ability to give our starters a lot of rest. We don’t have that luxury anymore.
“I would love to keep his minutes down at the 34 range. We know that’s the best thing for him and for us long term. ... I don’t think 40 is reasonable. I think 40 for anybody is difficult, es
pecially these days. The pace that the game is played. I think, realistically, to get the best out of Steph, and most players really, game to game, as the whole year goes, you’d like to keep guys in that 34 to 36 range.”
Can Kerr keep that balance? Is 36 enough with a team that relied on Eric Paschall to be their primary scorer so many times last year?
Or — and this is the other part to the Warriors’ big question: can Curry play an MVP-level in those prescribed 36 minutes?
If not, the Warriors are going to be asking a lot from a lot of players and everything will have to work out in concert for Golden State to seriously contend.
Questions like: Can Green play like he’s 25 again? Can Oubre take another step forward offensively and be a team player on both sides of the court? Can Wiseman be an impact player out of the gate? Can Wiggins actualize all that ballyhooed potential in what is now Year 8 of his career? Can Jordan Poole and Paschall make leaps?
If only some of those questions are answered affirmatively, the Warriors will be in a year-long battle to merely make the tournament. If a worse fate befalls the Warriors, the 2021 season might carry similar vibes to the 201920 campaign. Hope you learned something watching college basketball over the Thanksgiving holiday.
It should be noted that few, if any, of these questions would be asked if Thompson was healthy and playing. If they were asked, it’d be in the context of true Warriors going from good to great.
That’s why it wasn’t surprising to hear Kerr and general manager Bob Myers bemoan the loss of Thompson — who tore his Achilles in a pickup game the day of the NBA draft — in their teleconferences on Tuesday.
When big questions are no longer being asked, the loss of Thompson will hurt less. But as the Warriors head into the great unknown that is the 2021 season — a season with a range of possibilities that’s far too wide to make anyone comfortable — the sting is still fresh.