Warriors' vitals not up to championship level at midway mark, but significant trade still feels unlikely
The Golden State Warriors are past the halfway point of their season and they're under .500 at 21-22, good enough, or bad enough, for the West's No. 8 seed and just one game clear, as crazy as it sounds, of a spot in the lottery. The defending champs have lost four of their last five to a decidedly bad group of opponents including the Pistons, Magic, the injury-depleted Suns and now the Bulls, who took out Golden State 132-118 on Sunday without DeMar DeRozan.
Golden State's vitals don't look great: 17th in offense, 19th in defense, negative net rating and the worst road record in the league. The Warriors attempt the fewest free throws while allowing the most. They have the league's second-worst turnover rate and make fewer restricted-area shots per game than any other team.
It makes for a tough shot diet, mostly jumpers, which the Warriors are still equipped to survive and even thrive on, but a bottom-10 offensive rebound rate further shrinks the already thin margin for error. Despite all this, nobody is willing to dismiss the Warriors as a contender, perhaps even a top one, for two reasons: Pedigree and Stephen Curry.
But is that enough? Back in November, when the Warriors had lost seven of their first 11 games to start the season, GM Bob Myers had this to say to The Athletic's Tim Kawakami with regard to whether Golden State would look to make any roster moves to up its chances of competing for another title.
"We haven't made any decisions. But I would say that we think we're a contender and we'll evaluate if we're still a contender, what we look like, many Games from now and decide the best course to move forward.
"But it is 11 games. I'll get back on the phone with you after 40 games or half the season and if we're talking about the same stuff, maybe it'll be different answers. But at this point, it is early. Not so early that we don't care what we're looking like. But it is too early to kind of make any drastic decisions."
So here we are, 43 Games into season, over halfway through the schedule. The Feb. 9 trade deadline is approaching. Will the Warriors do anything? Or do they still believe they have enough? The starting lineup remains dominant, with the five-man unit of Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney outscoring opponents by 21.5 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass.
There's some hope for bench units, starting with Jordan Poole. The Warriors get 38.2 points a night from bench players, ninth most in the league (28 of those come from Poole and Donte DiVincenzo), but the bottom line is without Curry the Warriors play at what would be the second-worst offensive clip in the league, and without Green they operate at what would be the second-worst defensive clip, per CTG.
Jonathan Kuminga becomes a swing player. He registers as one of Golden State's two best trade assets (along with Poole), but the likelihood of them moving him is low. So he has play above his experience come playoff time, particularly defensively, where Golden State no longer hangs its hat.
Andre Iguodala is back, but how much can the Warriors squeeze out of him? How much does Anthony Lamb really have to offer in a postseason series? As trade candidates go, Moses Moody has some value. James Wiseman, perhaps, not so much, although there are people who still believe Wiseman is simply a bad fit in Golden State, not just for the system they run but for the expectations he faces to perform right away. I could see a team with a longer timeline still valuing his upside.
Outside that, there's not much the Warriors can do unless they want to put Poole on the table. I doubt that happens. Chances are, Golden State is going to put its eggs in the Curry basket and bank on Thompson and Green summoning one more run of excellence at the right time. If that happens, the Warriors can still play with anyone. But the margin for error is gone. Myers is going to have to decide if he wants to depend on everything peaking perfectly, or if he wants to give the Warriors some leeway at deadline time.
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