Do Golden State Warriors Have a Serious Bench Problem?

A number of the Golden State Warriors' key players dropped excess weight over the summer, but the Dubs roster is looking thin in a much more worrisome way lately.

The bench has been underperforming in recent games, which has resulted in coach Mark Jackson stretching his starters' minutes much longer than he'd like. With Golden State's two most important players—Andrew Bogut and Stephen Curry—being notoriously prone to injury, that's not an ideal strategy.

The Warriors' top-end talent is the best it's been in years, which has led to an impressive overall record and serious talk about another deep playoff run. But after two straight games in which the bench has failed to deliver, it's fair to wonder whether the ineffectiveness of Golden State's backups is a problem that could derail a season that is otherwise barreling down the tracks at high speed.

How'd We Get Here?

Everybody knew that the Warriors had sacrificed a little depth this past summer by allowing last year's two most valuable reserves to walk away. Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry played huge roles in getting the Warriors to the Western Conference semifinals last spring, so it stung a bit when they became salary cap casualties.

But the Dubs snatched up Andre Iguodala in a blockbuster sign-and-trade deal last July, essentially replacing two good players with one great one. Quality trumps quantity, right?

In addition, Golden State signed Jermaine O'Neal, Toney Douglas and Marreese Speights, theoretically rounding out a bench that needed a backup point guard and a couple of bigs behind Bogut and David Lee. With Festus Ezeli sidelined by knee surgery in June, the Warriors did well to haul in a handful of useful vets to eat up minutes at key positions.

But O'Neal is dealing with knee and groin injuries, resulting from an ugly spill he took on Nov. 16 against the Utah Jazz; Douglas is out with a stress fracture in his tibia; and Speights has been a profound disappointment so far.

The result? Jackson is fed up with his reserves.

The Current State

The always-positive Warriors coach yanked his backups from a Nov. 18 game against the Jazz after watching them allow a 12-0 run in the fourth quarter. The game was well in hand, but Jackson had seen enough.

Per CSN Bay Area's Monte Poole, Jackson said:

"

I'm not into embarrassing any one of my guys, but if you continue to put forth embarrassing effort, you leave me no choice. Somebody's always watching. And you never know when you earn a job because of the performance you put forth with two minutes or three minutes or five minutes to go in the game. Disappointed in those guys. They own it, and we move forward.

"

He showed he wasn't kidding in the Warriors' very next game, a 88-81 overtime loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.

Jackson pushed his starters to the brink in that contest, shunning the bench and opting instead to tax all five members of the first unit with at least 43 minutes of playing time. Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala all logged at least 48 minutes in a grueling, grind-it-out defeat.

Conversely, Speights played just 13 ineffective minutes, posting a plus-minus rating of minus-seven in his short stint. Draymond Green was more effective but still saw just 14 minutes altogether.

Jackson's decision to send a message to the bench came at a cost.

With Stephen Curry out because of a mild concussion, Iguodala functioned as the Warriors' point guard. That's a role that he's filled admirably for long stretches this year, but in the course of logging an impressive 14 assists against the Grizzles, Iggy's tired legs limited him to just 3-of-14 shooting.

On the season, Golden State's bench ranks 24th in the NBA in both minutes and points per game, per hoopsstats.com. Numbers aside, a cursory look at any section of a Warriors game that features the reserves reveals that the backups have an extremely hard time generating offense.

When O'Neal was healthy, he functioned as a primary scoring option in the post. That's not a recipe for success in any NBA cookbook.

Based on the most recent sample of games and the bulk of the season-long stats, it's clear that the Warriors bench just isn't getting the job done.

Room for Optimism

There's no question that the Warriors bench has had a rough start to the season, but let's not read too deeply into a handful of ugly games. Instead, it'd be wise to note that there's actually a good chance that the bench will undergo major improvements in the near future.

For one thing, Green was a rotation-worthy player as a rookie last year because of his defense, toughness and hustle. Now, after a summer of hard work, he's also a perimeter threat with a 38 percent stroke from long range. Basically, he's an ideal energy player off the bench who has added a legitimate offensive skill.

It's also important to remember that Barnes, who started 81 games a year ago, will anchor the second unit going forward. He's been back from a foot injury for just eight games after missing almost three weeks in the preseason.

There are teams that would kill to have players as useful as Barnes and Green coming off the bench.

Plus, O'Neal and Douglas will be back. And although neither of them should be seeing more than a few minutes per game, they're both proven vets who fit into the Warriors' new defensive identity. With Ezeli, a 41-game starter last season, due to return sometime in February, Golden State will have plenty of options in the substitute department.

So, while it's hard to ignore the bench's poor play in recent games, there's still enough talent—particularly on defense—for the backups to start pulling their weight.

The Big Picture

Ultimately, deep benches are nice things to have in the regular season. They help keep starters fresh, avoid overuse injuries and can lead to a few extra wins over an 82-game haul. But when the playoffs roll around, rotations shrink and only seven or eight players really wind up having an impact on crucial games.

Keeping in mind that this is a Warriors team with its eyes fixed firmly on playing deep into the spring, the importance of a handful of reserves diminishes.

When the games really start to count, the Warriors will feature an elite starting five, Barnes, Green and some combination of O'Neal, Speights, Ezeli and Douglas. That's a pretty solid, versatile rotation that should only improve as young players grow and the offseason additions adjust to playing with their new teammates.

Genuine concern would probably be warranted if the bench's struggles continued to necessitate humongous minute totals for the starters like they did against Memphis. But Jackson was using that game to send a message and was dealing with an injury-stricken roster in the first place.

That game is an outlier, not the norm.

And if worse comes to worst, the Warriors still have a pair of useful trade exceptions from the deal that sent Richard Jefferson and Brandon Rush to the Jazz over the summer. If Golden State decides it needs to bring in reinforcements, it can do that, too.

When healthy, the starters have been amassing leads so big that even the depleted bench hasn't been able to totally surrender them in garbage time. As the first unit continues to get comfortable with Iguodala in the mix, those leads are only going to get bigger.

So, it turns out that the Warriors "bench problem" isn't really much of a problem at all.