The Golden State Warriors are coming into the 2023 season with a renewed style. With Stephen Curry turning 36 next year, Steve Kerr has made a concerted effort to limit the minutes of the point guard. That’s part of the reason why they traded for Chris Paul: to ideally have someone that can run the offense without Curry.
It turns out, though, that the Warriors might need Curry more than they want. After losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers, no player is yet to score more than 20 points other than Steph himself. That’s a bit of a worrying sign, especially in today’s scoring-oriented league.
The Warriors do not exactly have another solid scorer alongside Curry. Klay Thompson is not the same player that he was before, and while he’s good for a couple of breakout games, he can’t bring that same consistency anymore. Chris Paul, at his age, is best suited as a pure point guard and not as a lead scorer. Draymond Green… yeah, asking him to score 20 points per game is trouble.
The best option the Warriors have for filling that 20-point hole without Jordan Poole is Andrew Wiggins. Wiggins, while he’s been excellent as the Warriors’ toolsy forward, doesn’t have the consistency to drop twenty per game.
Make no mistake, the Warriors can definitely survive the season even without another scorer that can give them 20 points per game. However, it will take a lot of effort on defense and a collective push from the rest of Curry’s crew to pick up the slack.
What’s more interesting, though, is what the Warriors will decide to do with Curry given this trend. The team clearly wants to put the star point guard on a “snap count”, if you will. At this point in the season, Curry is able to do his magic and take the brunt of the load, even if he’s playing less minutes.
What happens, though, when Curry goes from out of this world to just great? He’s currently averaging 30 points per game: an astronomical number. As much as the Warriors star exudes greatness, statistics say that the star is bound to regress to his usual average of around 24 points per game. Who will pick up the slack for Golden State? That’s the question that they need to answer this season.
