The Warriors‘ road trip, which began last Saturday in Charlotte, has been a disaster so far. Golden State has dropped consecutive road games to the Hornets, Pistons, Heat, and Magic and is now just 3-6 on the season. Recognizing that something needs to be done to jump-start the defending champions, head coach Steve Kerr said after Thursday’s loss in Orlando that rotation changes are likely coming, according to ESPN’s Kendra Andrews.
“We’ve had nine games now, so we’ve had a decent look at combinations. It’s time to try something different,” Kerr said. “Everybody’s gonna get a chance to play. We’ve got guys who are dying to get on the floor, and we’ve got to find combinations that play. We will look at that as a staff.”
As Andrews points out, the Warriors’ starters haven’t been a problem so far this season — Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Kevon Looney have outscored opponents by 60 points during their time on the floor, the best point differential of any five-man group in the NBA. However, things have generally gone downhill when the starters begin to check out of the game.
Kerr and the Warriors will get an opportunity to try to figure things out without their stars available on Friday. As Anthony Slater of The Athletic (Twitter links) relays, the team is resting Curry (right elbow soreness), Thompson (Achilles injury management), Wiggins (left foot soreness), and Green (lower back injury management) on the second night of a back-to-back.
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- Bringing Russell Westbrook off the bench has “undeniably unlocked” the best version of the former MVP, according to Jovan Buha of The Athletic, who argues that the move could even change the course of the Lakers’ season. As Buha tweets, coach Darvin Ham said after Wednesday’s win that one of his goals is to get Westbrook into the conversation for Sixth Man of the Year, which signals that he doesn’t plan to move the point guard back into the starting five anytime soon.
- Clippers two-way center Moses Brown had his best game of the season in Wednesday’s win in Houston, racking up 13 points and seven rebounds in just 12 minutes. However, an increased role for Brown may not be a long-term solution to the second unit’s struggles, since head coach Tyronn Lue wants to get more production out of the team’s small, center-less lineups, writes Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times.
- Although John Wall is considered one of the Clippers‘ veteran leaders, his situation is different than it was in Houston, when he was a mentor to a very young roster, says Law Murray of The Athletic. “We have so many veteran guys here, so I don’t think they need no mentoring,” Wall said, adding that he’s still willing to help out young players like Brown, Brandon Boston Jr., and Moussa Diabate if they have questions for him.
warriors problem started with a short preseason because of the trip to Japan. They had to learn what they have from the bench which is not much. They brought in Green and he has been terrible so far off the bench. Poole’s defense has been just terrible. Wiseman is out of place on rotations. They just lack defense in the second unit.
Meyers need to either get Iggy playing or bring in another defensive player with the 15th roster spot. they need big players because they have enough small players on the bench.
Poole’s defense is probably terrible cause he’s always on the lookout for Draymond sucker punching him again.
Since Green is out tonight are you saying he will have a monster defensive game?
I think we all know that Jordan Poole will only be getting buckets tonight!
doglow hanging fruit….dog
Poole has been fine on D, it’s the team defense that is lacking. Watch some games before you speak.
No, he has not been fine on defense. I do watch the games and see the other team always targeting Poole. He is rated 384 out of 414 players in defensive ratings. A -16.8 rating this year. lowest rating of every player on GSW.
Trade
Trade Kuminga
If you don’t use him, trade him
Don’t waste the talents
Nope, its simply Kerr giving Ty Jerome proper rotation minutes in crunch time vs playoff teams. Literally no other contender does this, because it only loses you games (as seen). No matter who the other 4 are, adding a non-NBA player will cause you to lose games, period. Kerr cannot understand this, because he’s bad and should be fired.
Kerr has been giving 2-way player Ty Jerome Moses Moody’s minutes for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Ty Jerome wont be on this team next year, AND there’s already a roster crunch, so whats the point?
Maybe if Moody could hit his shots Kerr would play him more, a .386FG%! That’s only slightly better then Westbrook with a .377FG%
Poole, Kuminga, Moody, Wiseman and Patrick Baldwin will all be wearing Brooklyn Nets jerseys sooner rather than later. Wasn’t the whole point of “overpaying” Jordan Poole to use his contract in a package for a “SuperStar”????? Add a couple of 1st round picks …….
Hello, Kevin Durant!
Golden State knows their kids are not the foundation for a future champion. Durant contract got done last year. Add Durant to Steph Curry, who is totally balling out, and see if you can’t make 2 more runs at rings.
Will not happen until next year since Poole just signed a extension. PBJ and Moody would not be headed in that trade. Trading Poole, Wiseman and Kuminga would match up the money almost even.
Good call.
Wiggins and Kuminga for KD works too.
I don think the Warriors take that trade
Why not???? He slides right back in like he never left.
Because he’s an aging injury prone malcontent with a max contract that prefers isoball to team ball.
You seen KD this year???? This guy has absolutely done his part.
“Aging”, “Injury Prone” – Durant is averaging 32.5 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.0 steals per game.
Durant is currently playing on a 1st Team All-NBA pace.
“Malcontent”??? He has nothing but praise for Golden State, and after he made his trade demand, Golden State, including Draymond, had nothing but good things to say about him.
He’s 34. (Aging)
He hasn’t played over 55 games since his Achilles injury. (Injury prone)
He was unhappy in GSW because he knew it would never be his team and he prefers isoball to team ball, so he took less money to join the Nets. He and his mate Kyrie got rid of the coach (Atkinson). He then asked to be traded from the Nets in the offseason in the 1st year of a max extension. (Malcontent)
Because KD is not the same guy. He’s now nothing but another drama queen.
@ Very
Lol, no matter how many times you post your wishful thinking, GSW doesn’t want Durant.
Where is that idiot who was saying the Warriors bench could make the playoffs on their own?
AsFanInLexington I think
Don’t summon him or else he’ll just whine about how Steve Kerr is the worst coach in league history
I love it. The nickname is sticking.
All off season he was YELLING about how the Warriors are just so much better than anyone else in the NBA.
It was funny then and funnier now.
Not saying the Warriors won’t win a chip, but to act like it’s predetermined is ridiculous.
Russ stats on the year:
11.7 PER
.457 True Shooting
-2.8 BPM
29mpg
13.3/7.2/5.5
.377/.208/.708
I’d like to see his on/off get to IDK at least even before I start throwing him in the 6MOY convo
They have to SAY that publicly because, at this point, you have to give Russ all the praise and positive reinforcement you can – like when a child picks his crayons up off the floor without being asked to, and you shower him with praise as if he did the greatest deed in the world.
But, actually, if Russ can give them 15, 5, and 5 off the bench the Lakers can make a run…
at on e of the last playoff spots.
Anything can happen from there.
It would be kind of ridiculous to talk about anyone for 6th man of the year on November 4.
Facts!
To be fair, the difference between his numbers as a starter and a reserve is pretty stark.
10.3 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 4.3 APG on .289/.083/.800 shooting with a minus-16 +/- in his three starts.
18.8 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 6.5 APG on .509/.412/.737 shooting with a plus-21 +/- in four games off the bench.
I don’t think those shooting rates will continue but I can see why they’re enthusiastic about the role change.
Westbrook played great last night. Might need to find another scapegoat.
Yeah I mean it’s understandable that the Lakers would be looking for any reason for optimism at this point.
And after seeing the splits it’s kind of wild that his FY stats are still that bad despite 4 of 7 games coming off the bench — my guess is he probably played more minutes as a starter and that’s weighing the average?
Either way I’ll enjoy a Russ 6MOY campaign if this keeps going this way
In the last game @ the Magic, the Warriors scored more points in the paint (+6) but shot only 15 free throws (the Magic shot 46) and they lost by 1 point.
The league REALLY doesn’t like GSW.
Just that one bad foul call on Wiseman cost them the game. Wiseman was called for a foul under the basket and took away a put back. The replay showed no foul but they already used their contest on the 2 point play of goal tending that was over called.
Or the 3 technicals :(
All due respect if the refs cost the Warriors a game against Orlando there are far bigger problems than the refs to worry about.
3x ft margins (46-15) are hard to overcome.
In this game, it was 100% the refs’ onesided BS.
Facts!
They were up by like 20 and then Steve Kerr entered the chat…
It almost feels like he WANTS to lose games. Weird considering GSW has the most talented roster in the league from 1-12.
But yeah, the NBA hates Curry and the Warriors, all of Westbrook and Harden and Jokic’s MVP’s belong to Steph. Those losers didn’t even make one Finals. Steph is 100 miles ahead of everyone on a team with 4 rings. The NBA should have been hyping Curry like they hyped Lebron, straight up. Gross discourse to instead be jealous of 30 being as good and important as Bron.
We’ve been saying to bring Westbrook off the Bench since before the season started. Fortunately the Lakers read our comments here on HoopsRumors. Anything else they need to know they should just ask us.
The Warriors to start this year are a perfect example of why veterans hang around so long and are signed. They know what to do and when to do it. Takes rookies quite a while to ramp up to the NBA game and contribute to consistent winning.
The Warriors tried to trade all their pics for veterans but were shut down.., especially by the fans !! Well this is what you get with seven very very young guys playing or competing for valuable minutes off the bench.
Even though Moody looks good and Poole scores with the best of them, putting it all together as 5 guys succeeding as a unit will take some work and patience. The Warriors will be fine in the end but might be 34-28 at the All-Star break.
Warriors start hemorrhaging leads the second Ty Jerome enters the game, because he is worse than Poole defensively and is a G-Leauger.
Please point to me the other contenders who throw 2-way scrubs who are not NBA players into their regular rotations, because no other team does this because its f’n stupid and ONLY loses you games. It becomes 4 on 5 and the 5 NBA players will ALWAYS cook 4 NBA players and a G Leaguer. Why can’t Kerr understand this?
When Kerr said that 15 win year was his fave of his career, he meant it – he’s not serious about winning and never has been. Let him go and let Iggy be player-coach, NOW. Absolutely ZERO reason for GSW not to be 9-0 right now, zero. All Kerr’s incompetence, period.
There was this team that had a former G-Leaguer who started his career on a 2-way contract and a 28 year old that bounced around the league and spent parts of five seasons in the G-League before signing a contract with a partial guarantee at the start of the season. They put them in the regular rotation and won a championship with both playing key roles down the stretch. I think their names were like Jordan Payton II and maybe Gary Poole or something? All I know is that they played for that team in the Bay Area.
Yup, Kerr is all about losing. Go find another band wagon to jump on. Milwaukee is undefeated go post in their topics.
I think Ty Jerome is responsible for global warming and homelessness too
A’sfaninLexington, maybe 29 year old Juan Toscano Anderson was better than we thought? Maybe 30-year-old Damion Lee was better than we thought? Maybe 27 year old Chris Choiza was better than we thought !! How about Otto Porter 29 years old..
The Warriors are replacing these guys with 20-year-olds. There’s going to be growing pains and it’s part of the whole deal. No cause for alarm or calling for people’s heads.
You would think a REAL Warriors fan would have thick skin from the last 30 years of atrocious showings. You can always tell the bandwagon guys that come in The Last 5 Years and haven’t dealt with the pain of the last 30 or so.
They panic when the team loses four in a row because they weren’t here when the team would lose 12 in a row and win 20 games TOTAL every year.
Same vibe as the red sox. You can always tell who has lived through the pain.
Absolutely !! I remember listening to the 86 World Series on the radio on my way home from work. Stopped on the side of the road cuz I didn’t want to miss anything. What a heartbreak as were all the other years.
The 80s and 90s were rough all the way to 2003 when they lost to the Yankees again !! lol. The last 20 years have been pretty sweet though.., lots of winning mixed in with a few last place finishes. Go Sox !!
Warriors will be fine. Good thing for young players to get mins. They have some of best young talent. Bench getting mins now. Only helps them for the playoffs. Warriors know better than any other team. What that’s about. As they proved it last yr. Still the west is tougher this yr. To me Wiseman is the key for them.