Roster issues are surfacing.
After a hot start where the Golden State Warriors seemed to be achieving above their means — that is, having one singular elite advantage creator on the roster supplemented by a role players who don’t particularly excel at one skill set — the world seems to be crashing down to where most people expected them to be at heading into this season.
That has been a function of several things. For one, one of those role players in De’Anthony Melton was proving to be their best offseason signing, a two-way two-guard with ball-handling capabilities in a pinch, three-point shooting, and an ability to defend the opposing team’s best perimeter scorer. But with an ACL sprain that forced him to elect for surgery, Melton has been completely taken out of the equation this season. Another development (or rather, the lack of): the slower-than-expected emergence of the youth movement. It’s one thing for second-year players in Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis to be in a funk in only their second year as professionals; it’s another when Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody — fourth-year NBA players — have struggled to capture stability expected of them. The calculated gamble the organization made upon drafting them (i.e., becoming capable two-way support for their aging stars and transitioning into franchise cornerstones) has hit a snag.
These problems are part of an overarching roster issue that is playing an indirect part in Steph Curry and Draymond Green’s aging curve. The lack of scoring support has forced Curry — at 36 years old and turning 37 this March — to carry the burden most nights, at an age where wear and tear is starting to rear its ugly head. To a lesser albeit important extent, Green has also been forced to put out fires that he rarely starts. While he’s younger than Curry at 34 years old, the physical nature of his play and years of bumping bodies with larger frontcourt players have aged him rapidly.
On-off stats have never captured the importance of Curry and Green being on the floor at all times than this season, where — heading into the game against the Phoenix Suns — the Warriors have outscored opponents by 12.6 points per 100 possessions in 351 minutes of the Curry-Green duo playing. On the other hand, in 293 minutes of Curry and Green both sitting down, the Warriors have been outscored by 0.4 points per 100 possessions — virtually a net neutral in such minutes. That translates to the team being 13 points per 100 possessions worse without their two franchise cornerstones.
The fact that the Warriors can’t find stability beyond Curry and Green is a roster issue. Depth was touted this season as a massive plus; playing 12-to-13 players is unprecedented from an NBA team in the regular season, but Steve Kerr and his coaching staff were confident of it masking issues such as the lack of a secondary shot creator/scorer beyond Curry and the revolving door of centers that has forced Green to upsize and continue to bang bodies with larger opponents. Such an issue often translates into execution issues on both ends.
For example: without Curry and Green on the floor, the Warriors offense has only managed to score 103.5 points per 100 possessions, equivalent to the worst offense in the league (as opposed to 124.9 points per 100 possessions with them on the floor). Defensively, a pattern has been emerging: an extremely slow start in first halves, followed by a course correction in the second half. The former is most certainly a problem, while the latter has been accompanied by the aforementioned offensive issue that has resulted in rallies falling short.
In his postgame comments after the Suns game, Green touted their inability to defend straight-line drives. No possession captures that problem better than this one that resulted in a Suns corner three:
While overhelping is most certainly a problem — peep at Gary Payton II above sinking in too deep in the paint and falling victim to a long and hard closeout — it’s the inability of Lindy Waters III to keep Devin Booker from blowing by at the point of attack that starts the chain reaction of scrambles and rotations.
Kerr mentioned after the game that some measures were taken to resolve the issue of first-half defense (in which the Warriors allowed the Suns to score a whopping 137.5 points per 100 possessions). One adjustment was to slot Kevon Looney in at the five and change pick-and-roll coverages accordingly. That change came in the form of Looney playing a higher form of drop coverage, with the on-ball defender “weaking” the ball-handler away from the screen (“weaking” in this sense would mean shading the ball-handler toward his weak hand). Such changes in personnel and coverages got the Warriors off to a good defensive start that carried on for the rest of the second half (94.0 points allowed per 100 possessions).
Along with scoring 112 points per 100 possessions, it allowed the Warriors to outscore the Suns by a total of nine points — which wasn’t enough to cover for the 17-point hole they dug in the first half (caused in huge part by the 100 points per 100 possessions they were only able to muster against the Suns).
Curry’s slow start and Green’s inability to cover every base left uncovered on defense by himself are unmasking the roster-wide issues. There’s only so much that a hot start and variance can account for before everything comes undone. It still may be too soon to conclude that the Warriors are in freefall — after all, they still sport a record well above .500. But they’re dangerously close to teetering toward that territory if Curry and Green can’t cash the checks the rest of the roster has been writing.
