For Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, it was another summer of dreams and possibilities after a relatively disappointing 2013-2014 season that ended in dramatic fashion in the first round of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Clippers.
During the offseason last year, there was some talk about the possibility of Dwight Howard having interest in joining the Warriors. It was unlikely (and never materialized), but the interest alone elevated the team’s status to a destination that was slowly but surely becoming a desirable one for high-end free agents around the league.
Then came this summer, when the cards were actually in their hands to decide whether they wanted to trade for a once-a-decade type talent in Kevin Love.
Like I said: dreams and possibilities.
Ultimately, though, bringing in Love meant having to deal Klay Thompson. Unwilling to part ways with their gifted shooting guard, the front office decided to keep the starting core from last season and pass on the opportunity to pair Curry with Love – a decision that has the potential to look pretty bad down the road, depending on how things work out with Thompson.
Part of the decision-making process to keep Thompson was new coach Steve Kerr, who replaced the controversial Mark Jackson. That means Kerr preferred the return of the starting lineup from last season as opposed to a new one, so it’s now up to him to show everyone that the Warriors made the right decision in the offseason and provide a much-needed change in philosophy on the offensive end of the floor – ironically their Achilles heel for much of last season. Whether Kerr is capable of pulling that off remains to be seen, which means he will be on the hot seat from the jump.
Meanwhile, Curry and Thompson stayed active during the summer by playing for Team USA in the FIBA World Cup. They, of course, won easily and the experience is expected to bring out the best of both players in the upcoming season. Thompson, in particular, is in his contract year and appears ready to explode and dominate the league in a way he never has before.
While the “Splash Brothers” were splashing away overseas, Golden State was busy trying to improve the heavily flawed bench from last season and managed to bring in veterans Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, Brandon Rush and Jason Kapono. They lost Jermaine O’Neal (retirement) along the way, but expect Festus Ezeli to be available on opening night. And of course, they still have Draymond Green, their Swiss Army knife.
With player improvement, the core roster intact, more experience, depth and a better coaching staff, the Warriors have the chance to be much better than who they were a season ago. That said, lets take a look at the five things to watch from this team in the upcoming season.
1. The impact of Steve Kerr. When the Warriors signed Kerr to a mammoth five-year deal worth about $25 million over the summer, it naturally raised some eyebrows. Bringing in a rookie coach with no prior experience seemed risky enough for a group with championship aspirations, but signing him to that contract? Presumably, the logic behind the move involved playing the market, given the interest he generated from other teams (Phil Jackson and the New York Knicks, in particular). But just as importantly, ownership truly believed he was the man to guide this team to the next level, which is understandable (at least from their point of view) given the championship pedigree he looks to bring, along with his experience under some of the greatest coaches of all-time in Jackson and Gregg Popovich.
Soon after the hire, Kerr went straight to work by hiring some of the finest and most respected assistant coaches in the league in Alvin Gentry (offense) and Ron Adams (defense). Unlike the prideful Jackson, Kerr showed a willingness to be surrounded by great minds to help him figure out what it takes to be a great coach.
Adams has worked with great minds like Tom Thibodeau and Popovich. He is regarded as one of the better defensive coaches in the league and will be responsible for maintaining the top-five defense Golden State boasted last season.
Prying Gentry away from the Los Angeles Clippers couldn’t have been easy, but Kerr’s relationship with him as a GM with the Phoenix Suns helped, along with the pay of $800,000 per for the next three years – among the highest for any assistant.
Gentry is widely recognized as one of the best offensive coordinators in the league (ranked the best assistant coach in this year’s GM Survey). He helped the Clippers go from averaging 101.1 points in the 2012-2013 season to 107.9 points last season, making them the best offensive team in the league. His best work came in the 2009-2010 season with the Suns, who averaged a whopping 110.2 points – making them, by far, the highest-rated offensive team in the league. This is extremely important because the Warriors were never able to crack the top 10 offensively under the stubborn ways of Jackson – an unacceptable failure given the number of potent weapons they have had.
Too often under Jackson, the ball stayed put on one side, and the team settled for completely ill-advised isolation plays (especially the ones called for Harrison Barnes) while four other skilled, high-IQ players stood around and watched. Chasing after mismatches was a great way to stall the offense and minimize the talent on the roster. There were also way too many pick-and-roll plays between Curry and Lee despite seeing over and over again that Lee was a terrible finisher at the rim in traffic and couldn’t hit a jump shot to save a life.
With the help of Gentry, Kerr will look to change it all and has already helped the offense look drastically different in the preseason. The ball has been pushed at every opportunity by a number of players for easy baskets. When that’s not an option, there has been constant ball and player movement. The key has been multiple passes made from side to side and moving the defense. By doing so, they have been getting terrific looks at the basket and plenty of open layups and dunks through sharp cuts via multiple on- and off-ball screens. Changing the offense has been a seamless transition thanks to the unselfishness of the star players.
The result? Warriors have averaged 114 points in six preseason games. The one game they failed to score more than 100 points was against Houston when they played without Curry and Thompson. Yes, it’s only preseason, but the contrast in style of play has been astounding. If it carries over to the regular season – which it should – Kerr will be going down the path to be a Coach of the Year candidate.
2. The continued development of Stephen Curry. Under the confidence of Jackson, Curry developed into the superstar he is today. There is no one else in the league that puts the kind of fear into teams that he does simply by crossing the halfcourt line. His ability to shoot the ball from just about anywhere, the ball-handling skills and his willingness to make the best play possible makes him one of the most watchable players in the league.
With Kevin Durant out for an extended period of time and LeBron James sharing the floor with so much talent this season, a strong season from Curry could turn him into a legitimate candidate to win the MVP award. Under an improved offense, Curry will look to take better shots and elevate his shooting percentages. The leader of one of the better teams in the league with exceptional statistics seems to be the formula to be an MVP, so the baby-faced assassin certainly has a shot at it if all goes well.
In order to reach such an elite status, however, he will have to work on some of his weaknesses.
The biggest issue Curry had last season was his tendency to turn the ball over carelessly. Sometimes, too carelessly. Part of the problem was that the offense relied so heavily on him, and the ball was almost always in his hands. This should change now since the new motion offense will keep the ball moving. Also, the arrival of backup guards like Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa means Curry can play off the ball more – something that needs to be utilized more frequently given his shooting prowess.
Another issue is his sometimes-mediocre defense. For the most part, though, the point guard understands what it takes to play great team defense and executes it well by knowing the positions he needs to take on screens and where he needs to funnel his man to and not falling asleep on his assignments (unlike this guy). The bigger issue for him is his tendency to play too aggressively when it comes to on-ball defense – he will guard you the same way whether he has one foul or five fouls. “No chill” would be today’s lingo to describe his issues defensively. Not surprisingly, this approach often gets him in foul trouble, which is never a good thing.
Last season, Curry was often asked to guard the less talented backcourt player of any given team to make sure he gets a break on the defensive end while carrying the offense. That could change under Kerr, but is that a good thing? During the FIBA World Cup, Curry was too often in foul trouble due to his overaggressive style. To be fair, he was playing under different rules and guarding the other team’s shooting guards, who were usually bigger than him. But then came the first preseason game against the Clippers, where he fouled out with more than halfway to go in the third quarter while trying to stay in front of Chris Paul. If Curry is asked to guard the opposition’s best point guards regularly, it could cause him to get into too many foul issues. We don’t have a precise idea of what Kerr will do, but how he uses Curry on defense is something to keep an eye on.
3. Andrew Bogut’s involvement on offense and David Lee’s renewed jump shot. Bogut’s role last season was simple: play defense, set screens and use backdoor cuts for easy lob dunks. He was really, really good at all of those things.
However, there was always a sense that Jackson failed to maximize Bogut’s abilities while greatly overusing Lee on the block. Bogut is more than capable of producing offense in the post but was never asked to do so. He was also taken out of games in critical situations to prevent intentional fouls against him due to his horrid free throw shooting.
Under Kerr, Bogut has looked like a completely different player in the preseason. He has been creating the offense in the high post with deft passes to cutters and shooters while still setting bruising screens. It turns out he still has a pretty unstoppable hook shot when given the room to work. He even hit some 15-foot jumpers when the defense understandably backed off of him.
Speaking of jump shots, Lee has been taking them quite frequently so far, which is almost amazing given how scared he seemed to be to do so last season. Without a shot, Lee’s offensive limitations were the second-most frustrating thing to watch last season (behind Barnes’ isolations). If Lee has renewed confidence in the shot and can knock it down regularly, it will make him a much more versatile threat and make the team’s offense that much scarier.
Back to the Aussie: With another skilled passer like Bogut now involved in the offense, there will be plenty of new wrinkles in the system we’ve never seen before, and that’s going to be a good thing.
4. The rise of Klay Thompson. It took the entire first half of last season for Thompson to realize that he was more than just a shooter.
There was no question about his shooting ability, but something triggered the guard to tap into the wide range of weapons he had at his disposal. He started to post and abuse smaller players down low, drive past bigger players, attack the basket with aggression and even create some offense by drawing double-teams on his drives. And he started doing all these things more on a consistent basis.
From October to February, Thompson shot just 43.3 percent from the field. From March to April when his style of play began to evolve, the accuracy shot up by 4 percent. Once Thompson understood his own versatility in the second half of the season, he changed into a completely different player while doing the dirty work on the other end of the floor, too.
Now heading into his fourth season – again, a contract year – he is regarded by many as the best two-way shooting guard in the league. He topped out at 18.4 points last season, but the expectations for the 24-year-old have risen through the roof, especially knowing that he was the reason the team passed on Love. Can he live up to all the unexpected hype?
For what it’s worth, Thompson has been absolutely unconscious in the preseason, averaging 19.5 points on 51.3 percent shooting, including a ridiculous 56.3 percent from the arc, to go with 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks.
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5. Weaknesses and uncertainty. The Warriors are about as well-constructed as any team in the league. They have size, shooters, scorers and defenders. What they don’t have is enough reliability in the frontcourt.
Half of the things that the team is great at doing go out the window with an injury to Bogut (we saw that in the playoffs when Lee made DeAndre Jordan look like Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain put together). Unfortunately, Bogut has shown that can happen rather frequently. Bogut’s backup is Ezeli, who missed all of last season with an injury. There is also Marreese Speights, who is a capable player at times but can be wildly inconsistent on both ends of the floor. Simply put, there is a huge emphasis on the importance of Bogut’s health, which no one really has any control over.
Then you have the situation with Barnes and Andre Iguodala. Kerr seems to like the idea of starting Barnes at small forward because he plays better with the enablers of the starting lineup and “cuts better” than Iguodala. (Really?) That’s a tough call because last season’s starting five was the best in the league productivity wise. Iguodala is a much smarter player on offense and has irreplaceable understanding of defense. It will be interesting to see if Kerr compromises the most optimal starting lineup just for the sake of catering to the needs of Barnes.
I see the Warriors improving under Kerr and contending for the top spot in the West with a 59-23 mark.
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James Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.