The Golden State Warriors have an embarrassment of riches in their back-court now that Chris Paul is a member of the team. With Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson also available at head coach Steve Kerr’s disposal, he now faces the tough decision over whether to go with a three-guard ‘small ball’ lineup, or face moving one of them to the bench in favor of a big man. NBA writer Mark Medina argues that due to the Warriors’ starting five proving to be so successful in the past, adding CP3 could ‘risk their starting line-up identity’.
NBA news – Golden State Warriors
The trade at the beginning of the off-season that sent shock waves around the NBA involved Chris Paul being traded to his long-time foe, the Golden State Warriors, as first reported by The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
Since his trade, the question on everybody’s lips has been how Dubs head coach, Steve Kerr, plans to utilize his three superstar guards, now that his backcourt is congested with hall-of-fame talent. In his media availability, Kerr himself admitted, via NBC Sports, that he has “six starters” and that no decision has yet been made on what his opening line-up will be.
Chris Paul has never started a game from the bench in his entire 18-year NBA career, but he was quick to remind people that he did so for Team USA when part of the Beijing 2008 Olympics squad, implying that he would be willing to take on a bench role and doing whatever he can to “help the team win”, per NBA insider Shayna Rubin. If he were to assume a starting role, though, then Tim Kawakami of The Athletic reports that it could be in place of either Klay Thompson or Kevon Looney.
Draymond Green, though, has since been ruled out for a few weeks due to an ankle sprain and will likely miss the start of the regular season, which may make Kerr’s decision easier for now, but what his long-term plans are for Chris Paul’s role in particular, remain unclear.
Will Chris Paul start for the Dubs?
Medina believes that the Warriors will experiment with their starting line-ups, because a three-guard, ‘small ball’ line-up can tend to be a risky approach tactically. As a result, he thinks that Steve Kerr will mix it up and see how they fare in games when CP3 starts, and those when Kevon Looney takes up the starting position.
Speaking to GIVEMESPORT, the journalist said…
“But I think the broader question here is: How much are the Warriors willing to risk their starting line-up identity just because they have Chris Paul? And I know that there are some delicacies with this. Chris Paul has started every game of his NBA career, he’s a future Hall of Famer, he’s one of the best point guards of this current generation, they want to give them that respect. But at the same time, the Golden State Warriors have won championships with this starting line-up. But I think from a tactical standpoint, there is a risk with starting with such small line-ups. So I think with that, there is going to be some experimentation the first 20 games as there often is, so I would see that Chris start some game, Kevon Looney starts other games.”
How good were Steve Kerr’s starting five last season?
For the past few seasons, when available, the starting five with which the Warriors predominantly used featured Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney which has proven so successful that it brought them an NBA championship in 2022.
According to Cleaning the Glass, the aforementioned five-man unit last season as one of the best in the NBA with an insanely good +22.1 net rating, meaning they outscored opponents by 22.1 points per possession, the most among any five-man lineup that played at least 500 possessions together in the league. What’s notable is that this net differential was almost double that of the Denver Nuggets who would go on to win their first NBA title last season.
Despite this, the Warriors significantly struggled on the road, winning only 11 of their 41 games away from the Chase Center, by far the worst of any teams that made the playoffs, and was the second-worst in the league, ahead of only the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons who each had a road record of 8-33. This was a trend that they continued to struggle with in their post-season run, however, they did win a pivotal game 7 away from home in the first round of the playoffs against the Sacramento Kings. They failed to record a road win in their semi-finals match up with the Lakers, though, which ultimately ended their season.
Now that Chris Paul is on the roster, their starting line-up may be subject to change which could be advantageous to them after a tumultuous season by their own standards last year. If the Warriors can establish chemistry with their future hall-of-famer quickly, and are as good on the court as they appear to look on paper, then the Western Conference could be in big trouble. Nevertheless, with so many teams potentially in contention, there is no doubt that we are set for an extremely competitive regular season, with the Golden State Warriors one of the teams likely to be at the forefront of it all.