Finding Rotation Adjustments To Get The Warriors Back On Track

Despite another late heartbreaker against the Atlanta Hawks yesterday, the return of Draymond Green has the Warriors looking in better shape than when he was sidelined. Their losses aside from the first game of Green’s return against Memphis have been largely a product of being unable to close games in the final last few plays, and even then, there were plenty of circumstances out of their control which even kept opponents in it late (largely poor officiating).

Regardless of whether they’ve been close though, they’re still 21-25 on the season. It seems the mentality of the team is that they have the pieces to turn things around in the immediate, making a trade look less and less likely especially with Jonathan Kuminga’s recent stretch of brilliance as a starter. So if it isn’t a personnel change, the question that has to be asked is what kind of change is needed to make that happen? There are clear signs that something isn’t working, but on the first night of their back-to-back this weekend, Steve Kerr just may have found something.

Klay Thompson’s inconsistency has been scrutinized for a large part of this season because, up until Kuminga started to get minutes and more trust from Kerr (largely because of how Dray’s been coaching the third-year standout up, per reports), he was the 2nd most viable scoring option on the team. That role has recently shifted to JoKu, whose streak of 20 or more points only came to an end in Atlanta because of two late foul calls that were highly-questionable, resulting in him fouling out. Kuminga’s been excellent and practically unstoppable in the paint, which forces a lot more defensive attention on him that can free up a lot more quality shots for Thompson.

Even with less volume, Klay’s inefficiency has impacted the outcome of games a bit too much. So to close out the Grizzlies on Friday, Kerr slotted rookie Brandin Podziemski into the closing lineup. Podz was a team-high +18 in terms of plus/minus, while dishing out 14 assists and logging zero turnovers. The Santa Clara alum has been a bright spot all season long with his do-it-all playstyle and willingness to hustle, and it’s resulted in Kerr rewarding him with the trust to be a part of his closing unit.

“As long as that group is doing well, I won’t hesitate to close with it” Kerr told The Athletic’s Anthony Slater, referring to the unit of Steph Curry, Podziemski, Andrew Wiggins, Kuminga, and Green.

Podziemski’s immediate impact is something that few people saw coming. The biggest critique of the Warriors draft was initially that they added another guard, especially one who didn’t seem like much of a gamechanger: Yes, he was good in college, but he wasn’t a player that was scouted as any more than a solid depth piece, at least for his first few seasons. He got the chance to show his playmaking (a highly-lauded skill of his that Kerr hasn’t capitalized on very much) and what made him so successful at Santa Clara as the shot-caller in the offense, while also doing a little bit of everything on the floor at a position that usually lacks broader skill versatility in the modern NBA. It was a showcase that Podz is able to be one of the guys Kerr can rely on late when the situation calls for it.

So what does all this mean for Klay Thompson? It’s hard to envision him losing the starting job, especially given that the same lineup with him instead of Podz has been effective since Green’s return in addition to his tenure with the franchise. It does incur, however, an idea that Coach Kerr floated late last calendar year about Thompson’s ability to play against wings more. Defensively, he’s holding opponents to 46% from the field, ranking in the top quadrant of players that contest 10 or more shots per game. A look at the tape suggests wings are noticeably easier for him to guard since his injury history has left him without the mobility to cover the 1s and 2s he used to. Now that Kuminga is seeing a major bump in minutes, he’s been assigned to the point of attack, meaning Thompson’s defensive responsibilities lie with the guys that normally match up with Kuminga - primarily bigger wings who play the 3 or the 4, depending on if Andrew Wiggins is in the game.

Outside of the starting lineup, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Thompson getting a lot more minutes as a true wing, especially once Chris Paul returns from injury: The backcourt logjam since Podziemski’s emergence hasn’t been as noticeable because Paul hasn’t been playing, and with Gary Payton II also returning by the end of the season, playing Klay as a wing more often starts to make a lot more sense if this is the post-trade-deadline roster for the Warriors. The benefits on Paul’s return are the most obvious, but playing GP2 in the backcourt with Steph while also having Kuminga and Green out there may be the exact kind of framework he needs to play his best basketball. It’d go a long way to cover Wiggins’s recent struggles as well: Although he’s benefitted arguably the 2nd most behind JoKu since Dray’s return, his shot is still a little streaky and he can settle when going to the basket. Having Klay instead of Wiggins when there needs to be better spacing and offense is an option Steve Kerr can look to if he really moves Thompson to play the 3 more.

While a trade would clearly improve the roster should it address some of the major concerns (size and point-of-attack defense against guards) that the team currently can’t, chemistry takes time to build. It’s been a hectic season filled with drama around Golden State, making it harder to just focus on playing basketball for a lot of the guys in the locker room. There’s no guarantee that teams who are interested in giving up their players would even want the assets which the Warriors could offer them either, and with Kerr’s rhetoric around not having the expectation of a roster shake-up, it may disenfranchise both him and some of the longer-tenured players at a critical moment in the season.

Still, a loss during a game where Steph Curry scores 60 points is as much of a “need to look in the mirror” moment as anything else has been this season. The disappointments just keep piling up, and whether it’s a trade or a different approach to certain roles up and down the roster, something has to change. Just moving Klay Thompson to be a wing more often won’t salvage the season: There’s no one move that fixes everything, even if something like this is a start, and every single game after the All-Star Break will matter for the Warriors to get to the playoffs.

(Photo credit: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)