Despite a tough loss to the Clippers last night, the Warriors saw some sparks of hope. This was engineered largely by Steve Kerr’s decision to start Jonathan Kuminga in place of the suspended Draymond Green, but more surprisingly to send Andrew Wiggins to the bench and give rookie Brandin Podziemski the nod. The problem was once again execution down the stretch, but this new lineup seemed to work well enough that Kerr wants to keep trying with them.

Looking at the stats, it’s not hard to see why Kerr liked this group so much. Of the lineups which have played 4 or more games together this season, the Curry-Thompson-Podziemski-Kuminga-Looney lineup is 4th in net rating (and , and doesn’t present the defensive inefficiencies of having both Steph Curry and Chris Paul on the floor at the same time. This doesn’t seem to be a coincidence (although that’s a different topic entirely), with the game film showing Podz is an apt-enough perimeter defender to hold his own at the 1 or the 2 with size and athleticism that neither of the other two really bring on that end.

The success of this lineup does force a question for Kerr once Draymond does return though: Should the lineup return to normal, or is the Wiggins benching a longer-term move? Wiggins hasn’t been having much of a season, with career lows or near-lows across his shooting numbers, with the least minutes played and lowest number of shots he’s ever had per contest. This isn’t for a lack of effort, as he’s grabbing the most offensive rebounds per game he ever has, but his confidence is clearly shaken up a bit by something. The move to the bench may allow for him to get more quality reps against backups to find his rhythm and aggressive tendencies again.

Where Wiggins lacks confidence, it seems like Kuminga has it in bunches. Now that Kerr’s given him more trust within the system, he’s made important contributions that are reminiscent of what was expected of Wiggins to do: Lock up at the point of attack on defense, and hammer the rim on offense. The three lineups with 4 games or more together that rank the best in defensive rating for the Dubs all include Kuminga, and while his role can change across all three of them, he’s noticeably a consistent factor to their successes.

On the other side of the ball, JoKu leads the Warriors in field goal attempts per game within the restricted area. The only person taking more than one of those shots per game and converting them at a higher percentage is Dario Saric, who takes 1.5 of those shots a game versus Kuminga’s 3.3 a game. He doesn’t convert non-restricted area paint shots nearly as efficiently, but is the 4th best mid-range shooter percentage-wise on the team at 44.8% - behind Moses Moody, Steph, and Klay Thompson in that order.

The biggest component of Kuminga’s game that’s lacking right now is his 3-point shooting - and keeping him in the starting lineup doesn’t solve the starting group’s current lack of spacing. This year though, Wiggins is shooting 26.4% from the arc, and Kuminga’s 30% is at least better than that. He can also force teams to defend the rim more, which can help to draw attention off of the shooters and punish overcommitments by the defense - as of now, Wiggins is having isn’t presenting the same slashing threat, and his defense looks entirely uninspired. Not to mention, Dray’s shooting a team-high (!!!) at 42.9% from three this year, which can help to quell some of the worry on that part.

An option to mitigate the lack of spacing in a starting lineup with Steph, Klay, JoKu, Dray, and Loon is to start Saric at the 5 instead. While this loses the quality rebounding that Looney’s brought this season, Saric is a credible spacer who can pass and stick on the defensive glass as needed. With Looney being an absolute ironman and playing every game over the last two seasons, the concern for his mileage is starting to become more and more prevalent with each contest. Saric has trouble guarding opposing 5s, but playing him as more of a power forward and allowing Green to be the roaming backline could help to mitigate this: Dario is by no means a bad defender, with metrics pointing towards him being good enough to forego talk about him being a liability even if he’s not a shot-blocker.

There’s a different way forward if Kerr wants to keep Wiggins on the bench and not start Kuminga, of course, and that’s keeping Brandin Podziemski as the 5th man. Podz leads the team in both plus/minus and net-rating (amongst guys who actually play), is second in 3-point percentage, and provides secondary ball-handler skills to make the right pass when the ball gets out of Steph’s hands. He’s a bit slow-footed to be a true point of attack menace at the moment, but he can hold his own enough that his defensive metrics and game film both look good. This would involve sliding Klay Thompson to the 3 and incurring the dread three-guard lineups Kerr inexplicably loves to play, but if that third guard is Podz and Thompson can comfortably guard the wing more often (which he’s shown he’s capable of), then it becomes less of an issue. Podz has shown he should at least be a significant part of the rotation, if not a starter.

At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to match-ups. The Warriors need to pick up the pace and bring energy on the defensive end, as well as up the rim pressure to make it so that teams can’t throw blitzes at half-court towards Steph Curry without punishment. Klay showed last night why he’s valuable to have on the court as he gets back to finding his normal rhythm, especially with Golden State lacking a true second option while he’s not playing well, and Draymond’s on-court performance is too valuable to relegate to limited minutes with the second unit regardless of where your stance is on his other antics. The two obvious candidates are the ones who are not producing up to par with their normal standards: The first name that comes to mind is Wiggins, but Looney’s had his own troubles despite his reliability and could be worth playing with the second unit more.

It’d be tough to expect Kerr to start this lineup all season unless they really find some sort of special cohesion and Wiggins just doesn’t recover, both of which can cause some problems moving towards the playoffs: A starting group shouldn’t be a platoon in the NBA, but with the Warriors, that’s what it has to be as they try to find new sources of production. Kuminga was a lottery pick and likely stands the most to gain by getting starter minutes so finding a way for him to be in the lineup more makes a lot of sense. Until Andrew Wiggins can get back to his two-way aptitude, allowing him to use his elite athleticism and scoring skills against other teams’ substitution groups seems to be the best move forward, while Jonathan Kuminga deservedly remains the starter even when Draymond Green returns.

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