golden state warriors thread

porter is theoretically the most legit player out of them but the thing with him is he just hasnt been healthy in like five years, idk if you told me all those guys were getting rotation minutes for a contender i would be skeptical

every contender has dudes like that tho.

warriors just have a lot of them, and theyre not a top heavy multiple mvp candidates team either

unless you ask quinn snyder i guess lol

Dray is for sure playing at an all-nba level this season tho

they have not that different of a team than could absolutely not put the ball through the hoop last year

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 11:48 AM (forty-one minutes ago)

on a basic level this is just untrue tho.

top 8 in minutes last year:

curry
wiggins
draymond
oubre jr
wiseman
toscano-anderson
bazemore
poole

oubre, wiseman, and bazemore were all terrible for them and have all played zero minutes for them this year. toscano-anderson is a borderline NBA player and is tenth in minutes for them this year. so they've turned over half their rotation basically. dumping those guys and replacing their minutes w/ guys like igoudala and porter -- going from below average/actively harmful to average/actively useful -- is a huge change, and tbh it was evident in the first game they played this year (vs the lakers) that putting decent pros who can play their system was going to be a major difference for them. and poole has taken on way more minutes and is better than he was last year, he can make plays as a secondary scorer which they just didn't have last year, this is also pretty obvious to me.

now, whether they can win the finals, i think that's totally up for debate. personally i still have the bucks and nets at the front of the line and i'm not sure any of the west teams can beat either of them in a 7 game series. but i would put the warriors as currently constructed as the favorites to come out of the west. i wouldn't say huge favorites and they could not afford an injury to steph but they're back to playing death line up style warriors basketball again and there's a track record even pre-durant of that being a finals level team

Exactly

are porter and iggy better players than oubre? i dont think so, which is the thing were talking about

it’s just one game and they’re gonna need good health but this warriors team kinda feels night and day from where they were last year.

poole gives them someone else in the starting line up who can do something the ball, and lee can score a bit off the bench. and then just putting guys like igoudala and bjelica in the rotation who are actually competent NBA players is such a step up from a lot of what they we’re running out last year. no wiseman, no oubre, no paschall, no nico mannion

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, October 20, 2021 12:34 AM (two months ago)

i posted this on opening night

Dray is for sure playing at an all-nba level this season tho

― Spottie, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 12:48 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he has been killing it def

the other thing is that the dubs have just had extremely good health at a time where most teams have had very bad health

this is looking like a down year in the west and their core is indeed old, they should absolutely be trying to upgrade this team.

are porter and iggy better players than oubre? i dont think so, which is the thing were talking about

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 12:51 PM (twenty-seven seconds ago)

completely stripped of context, no. but w/ the warriors absolutely. oubre shot 31% on 6 threes per game last year, he was flat out bad for them, couldn't hit a shot, was just not a good player. he's been much better this year in charlotte & has had better shooting years previously so maybe it was just a bad year but he just didn't seem to play their style, not really a high IQ player, has never totaled even 2 assists per game in his career. they're better off w/ iggy and porter style guys who can keep the offense moving & getting the ball to the right ppl. also porter is shooting 40% on threes this year, which is right in line w/ his career number. that shooting ability alone makes him >>>> than oubre for the warriors in the sense that they primarily need role players who can make open shots

Oubre seemed like a bad system fit. I remember him getting pulled a lot after bad swings.

every year teams like the warriors sign a bunch of minimum guys and they're all crapshoots--this year the warriors have gotten insanely lucky to have a bunch of those guys work and stay healthy so far. another reason to upgrade this year's team.

My big question is whether Wiseman will ever be good. I'm not sure he has the mean disposition that is usually needed in a big man.

i'm actually stunned that oubre's career high in assists per game is 1.6, which happened four years ago. lol. like, i never thought of him as a distributor but damn.

i just think it's hard to overstate how obvious it was lsat year that steph was a one man offense and how different that is from this year

the thing is all those bench guys as mentioned before are just not that good, the fit might be better but i mean adding some guy who struggled to get minutes in sacramento, a guy whos had a fork in him so long the fork fell out, and a guy who hasnt been healthy in five years generally doesnt take you from bottom third to top five offensive team, which is why i think its unsustainable, tho there was def an aspect of them running cold/having bad luck last year so they prob werent actually that bad, but still just on talent theyre pretty clearly playing over their heads so far

also worth noting this is the no 1 defense in the NBA by a full point in defensive rating. no 4 offense, no 1 defense, championship pedigree on the roster and w/in the organization, top 3 offensive player in the league, top 3 defensive player in the league, good role players, i wouldn't overthink this in terms of considering them a genuine title contender

the role players are not actually good, the defense is legit tho

well you're focusing on porter iggy and bejilica but biggest thing is really the emergence of poole and there's nothing much that you can say about that other than he's a first round pick who has developed into a really useful scorer for a team that desperately needed someone else who could do anything w/ the ball to scare the defense. i don't think there's smoke and mirrors there it's just a major player development win for the organization. the rest is mostly just replacing bad players/bad fits w/ good fits who don't hurt you

the trade that i would be trying to make if i was the warriors would be wiseman, moody, whatever other assets to indiana for sabonis and then re-routing sabonis to charlotte for hayward or toronto for siakam, or somewhere else to a team who needs/wants a good center under contract for another borderline all star level wing/big guard (jaylen brown?)

oh you want to make a trade now

the celtics are not trading brown for sabonis fwiw

also the warriors cant really trade for more than ~$20m of salary without including wiggins

borderline all star level wing/big guard (jaylen brown?)

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, January 4, 2022 1:10 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

jaylen brown 50-11-4 (ot)

― lag∞n, Sunday, January 2, 2022 8:53 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

they should definitely go all in with a trade but it would also be very classic warriors hubris to sit pat

jaylen is also a ball stopper and might not fit that well anyway

yeah i mean they have iggy anyway

i said when we were talking about sabonis trades recently that if i was the warriors i'd def be trying to find an all star level wing or guard to ward against iggy and porter injuries, wiggins slumping, and/or poole having first time in the playoffs struggles. if they can trade players who don't play for them for a player at the hayward/siakam level i def think that they should do that.

i don't think they're title favorites as i just said, i think the bucks and nets are heavy favorites against any team from the west. but i don't think the warriors *need* to make a trade to get out of the west and if they get into the finals they obv have a chance of winning it.

i'm looking at basketball reference here and it says jaylen brown has made one all star game in 5 seasons. will check back again later.

yeah yeah

all things being equal i think the suns prob smoke the dubs in the playoffs as things stand now, and theres still time for other west teams to get their acts together

in full knowledge of being trolled i will say that at age 25 jaylen brown is currently putting together his third straight allstar worthy season

i think the suns could beat them. if warriors have home court tho i would favor them.

suns are just so much more solid, it would be a ridiculous defensive battle but ultimately i think the suns could completely shut down the dubs where the dubs could only mostly shut down the suns, however if klay is back to his old self i prob like the dubs

i don't think the celtics will trade jaylen but if you were going to shake up the team sabonis would be a pretty good option, he's young, productive, signed for 2 more seasons, would prob be willing to extend there, re-orients the structure of the team. celtics would want some more stuff but i don't think it's crazy. trade rob williams for a PG or wing

all things being equal i think the suns prob smoke the dubs in the playoffs as things stand now, and theres still time for other west teams to get their acts together

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 11:21 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

if the celtics did want to shake things up and trade jaylen which they should absolutely not (unless there are unsolvable personality conflicts behind the scenes which there could be) they could do much better than sabonis, i mean sabonis is a nice player but he also has huge holes in his game and is a weird fit almost anywhere, where jaylen is exactly the player that every team wants

what the celtics should do is keep jaylen and jayson two players that any team would want and build a better and more fitting roster around them which admittedly isnt that easy but is also not impossible

maybe those guys just arent that good toegther tho

i dont thats exactly it but it can appear to be it, tho theyre not a perfect fit, i think the issue is that theyre both poor playmakers, and then the rest of the roster is also over all poor in that area, and this year their backcourt is also bad at shooting, i think the solution is to upgrade the rosters passing and shooting

suns are just so much more solid, it would be a ridiculous defensive battle but ultimately i think the suns could completely shut down the dubs where the dubs could only mostly shut down the suns, however if klay is back to his old self i prob like the dubs

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 1:28 PM (two minutes ago)

the suns defense across the board def bothers the dubs to some degree, they can switch and have length, guys who can mess w/ steph. i see the argument. i also think the suns aren't an elite offensive team, against very good defenses there becomes tons of pressure on 37 year old chris paul to do a lot of work. we saw the cracks against the bucks. booker had to hit a bunch of really really hard shots to even keep them afloat. i think we do have to keep in mind that last year the suns went through a broken down lakers team, a nuggets team w/o murray and then a clippers team w/o kawhi. i think this playoffs will be a different kind of test for them.

the trade the celtics im sure are thinking about is getting ben simmons without giving up either jay, a three team deal something like a bunch of picks and al horf going to a third team, good player from third team and smart to philly

personally i still have the bucks and nets at the front of the line and i'm not sure any of the west teams can beat either of them in a 7 game series.

this seems insane to me given how the best 3 teams in the league this year are from the west

yeah that's all fine and wonderful but the playoffs are a different game

cant count the champs out they havent been playing their best but that is an extremely stout team, particularly if theyve learned their lesson from last year and are ready to go full center giannis at the drop of a hat, and the nets are obvs high variance but if they get their big three rolling and kyrie somehow is allowed to play at home they could absolutely crush, or likewise implode, dont think id put them second too many bad vibes but they are for sure a big threat

id prob bet on the bucks rn if i had to then the suns but this year is pretty open imo

it's nice that the net ratings have the best three teams in the west but this bucks regular season basically hasn't counted, from a statistical POV, so i'm not even sure what to say to that

the nets are the more vulnerable of the two, especially healthwise. i still give them the nod over all the west teams... the suns or warriors would be a good series, 6 or 7 games i'm sure, either team def *could* win. a top end version of the nets if that's what we get is better than those teams tho. i don't consider the jazz a legitimate title contender personally

no one should