Those who think the Warriors could surprise this season are predicting they’ll rise as high as fourth or fifth in the conference. Las Vegas has labeled them a fringe playoff team, with an over/under betting line for total wins lower than seven other West teams. ESPN’s
formula planted them 14th, behind the Timberwolves, Spurs and Kings! Our John Hollinger
pegged them 11th.
So there’s a wide variance in expected outcome, maybe the widest in the NBA. Smart basketball minds can simultaneously believe they’ll stink, surprise or barely slip into the postseason dance and all arguments can be presented reasonably.
That’s really emerged as the question of this Warriors season: Will they make the playoffs? I’ll probably end up slotting them into the mix, if I make a preseason prediction. But there’s not an earth-shattering amount of confidence in that pick. So let’s break it down to see if we can get any closer to answering.
What’s different from last season?
Baked into the argument against a Warriors’ playoff surge is a reminder of how bad last season’s team looked even before Steph Curry broke his hand. The Clippers beat them by 19, the Thunder beat them by 28, they narrowly won in New Orleans and then the Suns were blasting them by 29 in Chase Center the moment Curry’s left hand shattered. They had the league’s worst defense through four games.
That team, without the injured Klay Thompson but still with Curry, appeared to be on an early careen toward the lottery. So the thought is that this team, again without Thompson but with Curry, could be more of the same.
But that’s overlooking the surrounding components. Particularly: the wings. I remember writing last preseason that the Warriors might’ve had the largest positional drop-off in league history. Their small forwards went from Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala to Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III, both on make-good minimum deals. Damion Lee, on a two-way, became their best small forward. Seriously. That’s all they had.
Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr. are not Durant and Iguodala. But they’re also not Burks and Robinson. Lee is still around. Kent Bazemore, another new backup, had more free-agency interest than Robinson, last season’s starter. So there’s a middle ground that matters at a time when wings reign supreme. To go from league best to league worst was jaw-dropping. But to go from league worst back to league average is an extreme boost.
Center, another area of weakness, has also been theoretically upgraded, though it’s attached to more unknown than the wing. Marquese Chriss, their best center from a season ago, is back. Kevon Looney says he’s healthier. That’d be enormous. Then there’s James Wiseman, the wild card, an unanswerable swing factor in their softest spot. Is he an immediate top-15 center or a project that won’t help much right away? Either outcome is believable. But I’d guess he’ll give more than the 41 bland Willie Cauley-Stein games they got last season.
Coaches I’ve chatted with are just as curious as anyone reading this piece. They haven’t seen Wiseman on the court yet. There’s cautious optimism he’ll be back in practice next week. I’d expect we’ll get a quick sense from players and coaches just how massive a force they believe he can or can’t be in the opening months.
But even without an answer to the Wiseman wild card, I’m getting a much more confident vibe emanating from Warriors camp this season compared to last. People within the organization were asking last preseason why people were still picking the Warriors to be a contender. There’s none of that this time around. They just have a better, deeper, more proven roster.
“It’ll take us a little time to come together,” one coach said. “But I like our team.”
The unspoken swing factor: Steph Curry’s health
In Durant’s second season with the Warriors, Curry missed 37 games. The Warriors went 22-15 in them. That’s not great by their standards. They were getting criticized at times for their
struggles without Curry. But 22-15 is stable. Those past teams could survive an extended Curry absence. Last season’s team certainly couldn’t: 14-46 without him.
This season’s team can’t either. It’s a 72-game season. For the Warriors to be in the hunt, he probably can’t miss more than 10 or 12 games and that might be pushing it. In a crowded West, if Curry plays 60 of 72 and they go 3-9 in those 12 games, that rough stretch could be the difference between the sixth seed and the 11th. If he misses 25 games …
whew.
Selective, occasional rest is fine. Even a minor bump or bruise here and there that forces him out a few games at a time is survivable. Curry’s in incredible shape. The body’s not breaking down. But he’s susceptible to the ankle tweak and everyone’s susceptible to the freak accident.
The wet spot in Houston. The time JaVale McGee crashed into his knee. Aron Baynes sliding under him for a charge attempt on an aggressive drive. Any of those types of instances,
in an instant, would completely derail the season. That must be avoided to make the playoffs a reality.
How about the minutes without Curry on the court?
Seventy games played from Curry doesn’t mean 48 minutes per night. Steve Kerr has already gone on record saying he wants to limit Curry to around 34 minutes, which means the Warriors need to figure out a way to survive the 14 minutes he’s on the bench every game.
Curry, the last decade, has been the greatest on/off force in the league. All the plus/minus, net rating outputs tell that story. Part of it is because of how diligently Kerr ties him to Draymond Green, a rotational partnership Kerr says he will maintain this season. So it’ll be around 14 minutes per night with both Curry and Green off the floor.
What’s a reasonable outcome in that time for survival? The Lakers were nearly a net even when LeBron James was off the floor last season and a slight positive when Anthony Davis was off the floor. But that’s a two-star staggered system for the top seed. The Warriors don’t have a second singular star and can’t aim for the top seed.
Houston seems like the more realistic doppelgänger. The Rockets, last season, outscored teams by 5.8 points per 100 possessions with James Harden on the floor and were outscored by 2.5 points per 100 possessions with him off the floor. That basically made them a near top-five team in his minutes and the 10th-worst team when he was on the bench, resulting in a 44-28 record, tied for the fourth seed.
But that puts a ton of pressure on the Curry minutes to be spectacular on a near-nightly basis, knowing that every time he leaves the floor leads shrink or deficits grow. Dallas is the non-second-star formula Kerr is trying to replicate. The Mavericks outscored teams by 5.3 points with Luka Doncic on the floor, but still by 4.1 points with him off it. The reason for their 43-32 record was bad crunch-time luck and an extended Doncic absence.
But can the Warriors survive in the non-Curry minutes like the Mavericks did in the non-Doncic minutes? Maintaining leads or even slightly cutting into deficits while Curry sits could be the difference in 15 games this season. The difference in those 15 results will likely decide the question of the season — will they make the playoffs?
Kerr must first decide what non-Curry units make the most sense.
“That’s going to be a big theme this year,” Kerr said after practice Tuesday. “With Klay’s injury, it changes that look. That’s part of what training camp will be about. Trying to figure out what that rotation looks like.”
Brad Wanamaker is Curry’s backup. Pencil him in as the point guard in those minutes. But he isn’t a dynamic offensive player, just a steady combo guard who can hit an open 3, defend several spots and doesn’t make mistakes. Alongside him, the Warriors need some playmaking.
That means either Oubre or Wiggins and often both. Wiggins is a career 20-points-per-game scorer. Next to Curry, he’s a slasher. Without him, he’ll need to reprise some of his Minnesota shot-creating ways, doing it (the Warriors hope) more efficiently. Oubre is, in some ways, a left-handed version of Wiggins, though with a bit more zest, a shorter track record and less pure offensive skill.
Then there’s Eric Paschall, the NBA All-Rookie first-teamer who may be the most undersold factor in the Warriors’ chances for success. They need him to be a legitimate sixth man and that’ll never be more important than in the non-Curry minutes.
Paschall, a bulkier forward, doesn’t fit that well with Draymond Green on the floor, unless one or both shoot it better from 3 this season, spreading the floor wider than expected. Paschall tweaked his shot this summer. He said it feels good. He’s jumping less and has more arc.
But that’s less of a concern in the non-Curry minutes because those will also be non-Draymond minutes. Paschall, in that second unit, will need to be himself — a downhill attacking scorer who averaged 14 points as a rookie and showed a dash of improved playmaking late in the season. This glimpse of Tuesday’s scrimmage is a welcome sign for the Warriors. This is the guy they need.
What do the final 3-point numbers look like?
Did Green just have a down season under understandably tame circumstances and the electricity is about to return? Or have we already seen the beginning of a rapid decline for one of the NBA’s fiercest defenders of the past decade, whose undersized body (for an NBA big) is breaking down? Give me that answer and I’ll more confidently map out the Warriors’ season.
Both
Curry and
Kerr are preaching public confidence in Green.
“I have confidence that Draymond is going to help us dramatically if his shot is going in or not,” Kerr said, calling him the league’s best defender. “Sometimes his shot goes in, sometimes it doesn’t and we keep winning. That’s the bottom line. Draymond’s a winner.”
There’s historical truth within that, but the surrounding talent has lessened, the margin for error slimmed and Green’s 3-point percentage has eroded at a time when 3-point shooting from every spot on the floor has grown in importance.
So Green’s ability to climb back above 30 percent from 3 after two straight seasons below it — and ideally find his way to the 33-36 percent range — has never been more needed.
But it’s not just him. Shooting and floor spacing, beyond Curry, is a giant flaw in the Warriors’ projected rotation and strategy. Oubre, though improving, has never shot better than 35.6 percent from 3. Wiggins lives at 33 percent. Those will probably be their highest-volume shooters after Curry.
But beyond better accuracy, I’m curious about a change in strategy. The Rockets are never that accurate from deep — 24th in 3-point percentage last season, 12th the season before — they just shoot a ton, confident the three-is-more-than-two math will add up with volume.
The Warriors won’t become Houston. Kerr wouldn’t allow it. But will they modernize their amount of attempts? The Warriors shot the fifth-fewest 3s last season, and even during the final two Durant seasons, when they had the greatest collection of 3-point talent in history, they were 17th and eighth in attempts per game.
“I don’t know where we will stand among the other 29 teams (this season), just because every year it seems like teams are taking more and more,” Kerr said. “We definitely would like to keep the floor spaced, to get guys behind that 3-point-line in transition and in the half-court.
So it’s an area of emphasis?
“It’s an area of emphasis for us,” Kerr said. “Not necessarily how many 3s we take, but just getting a little better spacing on the floor. That naturally should lead to more 3s, but I don’t really know how that’s gonna look. I don’t have a number in mind.”
Thirty-five per game would get them near the fringe of the top 10. With Curry, the greatest shooter that’s ever lived, and an up-tempo attack, top 10 should be an aim, attached to middle-of-the-road team accuracy, maybe 36.5 percent (boosted by Curry).
What’s a measure of success?
To figure out if they’ll make the playoffs, we must figure out the bar they must clear. Last season, the eighth-seeded Blazers went 34-39 in 73 games. This season, there are 72 games. So will something around 34 or 35 wins really get it done?
That’s hard to believe. Portland became the first team in the Western Conference to qualify for the playoffs with a losing record in more than a decade. I’d expect that to be an aberration. Dallas, the seventh seed last season, went 43-32 in 75 games. Forty is probably the bar. Reach that and you have a good chance to be in the top eight.
But 10th actually gets you in the 2021 conversation. There’s a new play-in tournament between seven, eight, nine and 10 for the last two playoff seeds. So that simultaneously opens the postseason lane wider for the Warriors (they can be as low as 10th) but also narrows the goal. Their wide-scope target should be to escape that play-in bracket.
The sixth seed. That’s what I’m deeming the line for success in this regular season for the re-formed Warriors. Avoid the play-in tournament and, if the standings line up as expected, they’ll also avoid a first-round matchup with the Lakers or Clippers, who are the likely top seeds.
Below the two Los Angeles teams is a conference loaded with talented challengers riddled with question marks. Is Jamal Murray and, by proxy, Denver
really the player and team we saw in the NBA bubble? Is the Utah situation getting stale right before Rudy Gobert’s pending free agency? When does this Houston situation melt down entirely? Are the Suns really ready for a leap? How much does Kristaps Porzingis’ knee situation hinder Dallas? Are the Trail Blazers still generally the Trail Blazers despite upgrades on the wing?
The Warriors are in that muddled mix. If the key questions tilt positively for them and the health maintains, they’d be a threat to have a better regular-season record and beat any of those non-Los Angeles teams in the playoffs, just like they’re in danger of having a worse record or losing to any of them.
So the sixth seed (or higher) is the goal.
joke of a team 
