Benching Wiseman is going to change the season
Something had to give. It turned out, it was the rookie.
The Warriors finally, mercifully made a change to the worst lineup in the NBA — their starting lineup — on Monday. Out was center James Wiseman, in was Kevon Looney.
And the change immediately paid dividends. It worked for Stephen Curry, who had 36 points.
It worked for Draymond Green, who was a plus-19 on the night, anchoring a strong defensive performance in a win over the Timberwolves. It worked for Andrew Wiggins, who exacted revenge on his old team with a 23-point, three-steal, three-block night.
It worked for Kelly Oubre Jr., who had 14 points and looked like a different player Monday night.
It even worked for Wiseman, who saw fewer rotational minutes but found success in the first game in his new bench role, going 4 of 5 from the field in just shy of 16 minutes played.
And that kind of success won’t be short-lived. Yes, this big-man change is going to have a big impact for the Warriors moving forward.
There will certainly be tougher tests than the Timberwolves in the days and weeks to come, but the Warriors’ Wiseman-free starting lineup should play well against anyone.
It brings with it a brand of basketball reminiscent of the Dubs’ recent glory days.
Remember, Golden State had never played with a center as talented as Wiseman before this season. It showed. And Curry and Green, who play so many of their minutes together, never found the right way to integrate a rookie big man who could
score at all three levels while also playing their best games.
And for Oubre and, to a lesser degree, Wiggins, the presence of a true center created spacing issues that they couldn’t overcome.
Neither player is solely a catch-and-shoot option — they need to slash to play their best games, but Wiseman and his understandably nascent awareness of where to be on the floor often left him blocking their path to the basket.
Looney doesn’t have half the talent of Wiseman, but he has the uncanny ability to know where he should be to maximize his teammates’ opportunities at all times.
Little things like standing under the backboard when he’s in the dunking spot or setting a pick that wasn’t put on the grease board make him an elite player.
Beyond that, Curry and Green know his rhythms, his preferences, and they play their best ball with him on the court. Wiggins and Oubre — the newbies — can’t help but have good games when the floor is spaced and Curry and Green are playing their generationally great twoman game.
Defensively, the Warriors’ starting five also reached another level with Looney in for Wiseman. Golden State can switch more and let Green patrol in the lane, as opposed to the quasi-wing position that he was forced to play with a rim-protecting presence like Wiseman on the floor. How many times have we seen Green trying to close out on the wing and failing to affect a shot after over-helping in the lane this season? That wasn’t an issue on Monday.
The Warriors might have sacrificed upside by not starting Wiseman — the 19-year-old’s best moments are blindingly spectacular — but by going with Looney and fit, the Warriors once again looked an awful lot like the Dubs of the recent (but not 2019-20) past.
So why isn’t this a oneoff? Because the success of the new starting lineup should not have come as a surprise.
The Warriors’ starting lineup was statistically the worst frequently-used five-man unit in the NBA. The lack of spacing or unified scheme on offense and Wiseman’s green-behind-the-ears play on defense (plus Green’s babysitting) created a clunky mess on both ends of the court.
In 12 games and 161 minutes going into Monday’s contest, that lineup had a net rating (points per 100 possessions for minus allowed) of negative-20.
But the Warriors’ second-most used lineup with Curry — the starting five with Looney in for Wiseman — was the best unit in the NBA that had played more than 25 total minutes together, posting a net rating of plus-55.6 in nine games.
So while there was a valid discussion over moving Oubre out of the offensive lineup, the numbers dictated that the right move was to demote the rookie.
Sure enough, in 14 minutes Monday, the Looney-instead-of-Wiseman starting lineup had a net rating of 43.3.
With this lineup, the Warriors can play with anyone in the NBA. We saw it Monday. We saw it against the Lakers last week. We saw it against the Clippers a few games before that. It’s not the Death Lineup or the Hampton’s Five, but if this five-man unit keeps playing this way, it’ll have a nickname in no time.
The only issue moving forward is what the demotion means for Wiseman. The Warriors had, up until Monday, been trying to balance the No. 2 overall pick’s development with the goal of winning every night. Kerr went as far as to say on Saturday that Curry, Green, and Wiseman needed to play together for the team’s longterm success.
“If we’re going to be a championship contender the next few years, those guys have to learn to play together,” Kerr said.
One blowout loss to the Jazz later and Kerr was singing a different tune.
“I would say that development doesn’t equal playing time or vice versa,” Kerr said after Monday’s win. “Development is really something that’s tougher to define. It’s really about understanding the game, learning the game. Sometimes you can learn from observing from the bench. His development is happening all the time. … We’re trying to win games, too. I have to figure out what that means.”
It seems as if Kerr has figured out what it means, he just doesn’t want to admit the truth that had been hanging over the team for weeks — the truth that he implicitly admitted Monday: Wiseman’s development was coming at a detriment to the nightly effort to win.
The priorities have shifted. It’s hard to see them shifting back without a big jump from Wiseman.
It’s not Wiseman’s fault, by the way. The Warriors were hardly the conventional team to have the No. 2 overall pick in the draft. And while they might not be bonafide title contenders, they’re not even close to rebuilding, either. Adding a kid who played three college games after beating up on high school kids in Nashville is a downright unfair situation to him and, in a way, to the Warriors’ veterans. Frankly, it’s incredible — and a testament to his prodigious talent — that Wiseman had any success at the NBA level early in his rookie year.
Wiseman said after Monday’s game that he’s fine with the move, claiming that it’s “better for his development.” Whether that was the rookie trying to pick up the nickname “The Big Diplomat” or whether he really thinks his new role suits him and will help him be the best player he can be will be determined in the long run.
But Kerr owed it to Curry and Green — and to a lesser degree to Wiggins and Oubre — to put Wiseman’s development on the back-burner. He owed it to his best players to put a lineup on the court that allowed them to play their best basketball.
He did that Monday. And if you believe that Curry and Green still have something left in the tank, then you believe that it’s going to change the Warriors’ season for the better.