The Golden State Warriors are finally down after years at the top, to the point where it almost seemed unfair. They didn’t three-peat, they lost Kevin Durant (to injury and later to the Brooklyn Nets), saw Klay Thompson go down with a torn ACL and after a horrible start to the season, Steph Curry broke his hand. The question for the Warriors is where they go from here.
(New) Balance
When the Warriors had put together a team consisting of the Splash Brothers, KD, Draymond Green and Boogie Cousins, no one doubted they would win the chip, barring any big injuries. But when the finals came around, all the bad luck started to come down at once. KD ruptured his Achilles in game 5 and Klay tore his ACL in game 6 as it looked like the Warriors were making a big comeback push to win the title in 7 games.
Injuries happened and Kawhi happened. In his New Balances, the quiet superstar restored balance in the NBA. After those finals, the Warriors weren’t the Warriors anymore. They lost KD, they lost Klay for a year, they had to trade away Iguodala to get D’Angelo Russell in return for KD and Shaun Livingston retired.
On paper, the Warriors still looked like a good team. 3 stars in Steph, Russell and Green with Klay potentially coming back after the All-Star break. But yet again, the key word is balance. See, people used the Warriors going 73-9 before KD joining as a reference point. “The Warriors will still be good, this is the 73-9 and they added Russell”. That wasn’t the case. That team was perfectly balanced. Pieces like Bogut, Barnes, Barbosa, Livingston, Iguodala and Mo Speights were vital to that team.
This squad has no players like that. Marquese Chriss, Ky Bowman, Omari Spellman, Jacob Evans, Jordan Poole, Eric Paschall and Glenn Robinson III simply aren’t on the same level. The 73-9 team had experience, talent, leadership and was a team that was put together in a perfect way. This team was quickly put together, and there’s one huge reason for that.
Money
The Warriors just have no money left to give. Over the next 5 years, the Warriors owe their 4 stars (Curry, Russell, Thompson and Green) $450m! Their combined salaries for this year alone take up $120m, a number that will only rise, which means that the Warriors are over the cap with just 4 players, leaving them no options in free agency (except the MLE or minimum contracts).
This means that if the Warriors want to keep their current core together, they’ll have to find some rough diamonds in the draft. Luckily for the Warriors, that was their bread and butter from the get-go. Steph, Klay, Dray and Harrison Barnes were all drafted and developed by the Warriors, which turned them into a 73-9 team and a team that won a chip before Durant even joined.
Finding those diamonds can be tough however, and it would be wise(r) for the Warriors to give up a piece. The Splash Brothers are immortalized in the Bay Area, so there’s no way one of them gets traded. Russell, however, remains a questionable fit for them on both ends of the floor. As a young All-Star who just signed a max-contract, he’s a pretty interesting piece for a lot of teams in the league, definitely for contenders with a pretty young core.
The second trade piece is Draymond Green. He’s the ultimate winner, great vocal leader, defensive stud and can run an offense like a point guard. Then again, if the Warriors want to keep winning titles in the future, trading a vital piece like Draymond is probably not the smartest option. However, it’s safe to say that Dray didn’t make any friends after his spat with Durant last year, something that Durant admitted was a factor in his decision to join the Nets. If the front office is still heated about that, they might opt to trade Green to get pieces and to not have superstars butting heads.
It’s interesting to see which direction the Warriors will go in, as their terrible start has raised some serious concerns that weren’t there before with all the stars. Will they blow it up? Tank this season? Keep the core together and add some better fitting pieces? Let’s just say that the Warriors dynasty as we know it is officially over.
Courtside 