Warriors Insider Monte Poole and Dalton Johnson discuss if the Warriors 14th roster spot should be a wing in latest Dubs Talk Podcast
Spotlights come in numerous sizes, with varying degrees of wattage. And those aimed at the Warriors this season, as they attempt to rejoin the NBA elite, span the full array.
A much-anticipated media day arrives Monday, after which coaches and players on Tuesday will spill into the Chase Center practice facility to search for answers to a long list of questions.
We distilled the list to five questions, five megawatt spotlights focused on specific issues that will dictate the direction of the upcoming 2023-24 NBA season.
Here they are, ranked in order of significance:
1. Can Stephen Curry continue his Tom Brady act and extend his prime for yet another season?
Everything the Warriors have done since 2012 revolves around Curry. His wellness is their power plant, and the team is most brilliant when he is at his best.
Bouncing back from a 2021-22 season that was below his lofty standard, Curry was superb once again last season, finishing eight missed field-goal attempts from his first 50-40-90 season since his MVP season in 2015-16.
With the Warriors on the brink of being a first-round playoff casualty, their salvation was a from-deep-in-the-soul 50-point screamer – on the road – from their 35-year-old leader.
Curry spent last season, including the playoffs, defying the aging process. He turns 36 next March. Coach Steve Kerr, aware of the need to manage minutes of the veterans around which the team is built, will look to keep Curry’s minutes in the low 30s.
The Warriors are betting big in pursuit of their fifth championship in 10 years. This is, in many ways, a one-season play for a jackpot. Another marvelous season from Curry is required to cash in.
2. Can Chris Paul embrace – and not merely accept – his diminished role and still be productive at 38?
Paul’s “role” with the Warriors was the talk of summer. For obvious reasons. He has started every game of an NBA career that began in 2005. Moreover, he has the ego of a man who has been the primary leader on all five of his previous teams and knows he’s bound for the Naismith Hall of Fame.
But this is an entirely new experience. Paul is making his first entry into a locker room bedazzled with championship jewelry. He has had almost four months to adjust to the fact that this is a bus on which he’ll spend more time riding than driving.
The Warriors plan to manage Paul’s workload, averaging 25 or so minutes per game, with selected nights off. The goal is to keep him as fresh as possible for the postseason.
The belief is that Paul will be a professional and respect the plan. Anything less and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. will could feel a twinge of trader’s regret.
3) Can Kerr effectively manage perhaps the strongest new personality to enter the locker room since he arrived in 2014?
This spotlight can be paired with No. 2. Paul is not 2016 Kevin Durant, who offered opinion but focused on fitting in with the group and working on his game. Paul, in contrast, is accustomed to having his voice heard and often heeded by teammates and coaches.
Kerr is a very good basketball coach who is better at managing people. Getting a sometimes-prickly personality like Paul is a challenge, but one he’ll accept. He has spent nine years navigating the peaks and valleys that come with having voluble and volatile Draymond Green – and succeeded through the trying times.
Kerr, entering the last year of his contract, says he’d be comfortable as a lame-duck coach. He is optimistic that the veterans will understand what is at stake – there is, again, a profoundly heavy emphasis on this season – and conduct themselves accordingly.
The acquisition of a veteran with Paul’s gravitas makes this an experiment. If it succeeds, the coach will deserve a significant amount of credit.
4) Can Draymond atone for the ruinous sin of last season?
Green’s often referenced fist to the face of Jordan Poole during training camp last season contaminated the team’s communal tea before the season began. Green lost it, he knew it and he apologized.
More to the point, Green blamed himself for the creating trust issues that occluded substantive progress over the course of the season. A cloud of his making never drifted away.
The response from management was to trade Poole – nine months after identifying him as a core member of the future – and present Green with the contract extension of his desire. That was a gesture of faith that Green would get back to being the leader he was before he sabotaged his clout.
Now it’s up to Green to prove he, at 33, can regain full acceptance of the entire locker room and still be the centerpiece of the defense. If his self-blame was sincere, he must feel he owes the franchise.
5) Can Klay Thompson return to the two-way All-Star he was before injuries came calling?
In his first full season since 2018-19, Thompson led the NBA in 3-point makes. He at times played remarkable defense, including a memorable game against Celtics star Jayson Tatum. Given Thompson’s journey, his season was solid.
“Solid” is not good enough for Thompson. It’s why he received no honors votes. Most galling of all, he was dreadful in the Western Conference semifinals against the Lakers.
Thompson wasn’t upset with missing the All-Star game. What bothered him was knowing he was not worthy.
Making his sixth All-Star team, and first since his fifth in a row in 2019, is a stated goal for this season. His defense might never reach the level he sustained during his late 20s, when he guarded as many as four positions, but there is reason to believe he’ll be particularly motivated.
If Thompson’s offensive efficiency and defensive proficiency tick up even slightly, the Warriors are an appreciably better team.