Are the Golden State Warriors Invincible?
Although the Golden State Warriors don't appear to be wearing indestructible suits of armor over their blue and gold jerseys, they might as well be.
An NBA-best 31-5, winners of their last eight games, the Warriors look infallible. They're firing on all cylinders and remain on pace to become the second-winningest team in league history, behind only the 72-win Chicago Bulls from 1995-96.
While the Warriors may inevitably play themselves outside this territory, their onset dominance does beg the question: Are they invincible?
Bulletproof Evidence
This is not at all a stupid question to pose. The Warriors have been—and continue to be—that freaking good.
Eyes-exploding record aside, the Warriors are the league's only team that ranks in the top five of both offensive and defensive efficiency. They're doing this, mind you, in the brutally built Western Conference.
Yes, they've played one of the seven easiest schedules to date. But even when we account for below-average competition, they emerge as the league's best team by a wide margin.
Basketball-Reference.com uses a Simple Rating System (SRS) to measure team standing. It accounts for both point differentials and strength of schedules, providing a more accurate portrait of where a squad ranks among its rivals.
Golden State's SRS is 10.5, first in the league.
No other squad breaks 6.6.
When you look at where the team sits in some of the most valuable statistical categories, things start getting super silly:
| 2014-15 Warriors | 109.4 | 96.6 | 12.8 | 57.7 | 65.3 | 100.5 | 20.3 | 6.4 | 42.0 |
| Rank | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Moral of the story: The Warriors are not fair.
Finding Faults...or at Least Trying To
Leave it to Golden State's owner, the methodical Joe Lacob, to remind us all that, while the Warriors are winning, the team hasn't actually won anything yet.
"This is interim returns right now," he told USA Today's Sam Amick. "We're doing really well, but it really doesn't mean much until we're kind of in the playoffs and in a good position, hopefully in the top half. Then I'll be able to reflect just a hair."
Reflecting now would be dangerous. Reflection is the result of success; success breeds complacency; and the Warriors cannot afford to become complacent. No team is perfect after all. Each one is flawed, even this one.
Right?
Looking at the Warriors' performance by position, an obvious weak link fails to emerge, per 82games.com:
It's hardy surprising to see that the Warriors are notching better player efficiency ratings than their opponents at every position considering some of the individual seasons they're enjoying.
Stephen Curry has firmly fixed himself to the MVP conversation, bilking Chris Paul of the "best point guard" distinction in the process, playing like he himself is a cheat code for NBA 2K.
Only one player in NBA history has averaged at least 23 points, four rebounds, eight assists and two steals per game for an entire season. Curry is on pace to become the second.
His company will be Michael Jordan.
Klay Thompson has been worth every penny of the Warriors' four-year investment that kicks in next season. His rebounding is still suspect, but he's passing more and no longer wholly reliant on others creating offense for him.
Around 67 percent of his made baskets are coming off assists, down from 75.1 percent last season. Not that he isn't still a deadly spot-up assassin. Thompson is draining a scintillating 44.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot treys, and he's one of just eight players averaging at least 20 points, three rebounds, three assists and one steal while shooting 45 percent or better from the floor.
Harrison Barnes is having a bounce-back year. Almost 90 percent of his minutes have come at the 4, and he's registering a career-high PER (13.9).
Draymond Green, meanwhile, is on the verge of trading in his popcorn bucket for an armored truck filled with gold bullion. Free agency is coming fast, and he's responded with a contract year worth rewarding. He's the only player in the league averaging at least 11 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game, and his perimeter defense has been sensational.
Opponents are shooting nearly 6 percentage points below their season average when being guarded by Green. When they step out behind the three-point line, that accuracy differential approaches minus-10—which, for the record, is nuts. Squared.
Even the Warriors' should-be barren bench is getting in on the party.
Andre Iguodala is having the worst statistical season of his career, but Golden State is receiving valuable contributions from Marreese Speights—a dark-horse Sixth Man of the Year candidate—Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa and even Justin Holiday. The second unit ranks in the top 11 of both offensive and defensive efficiency, per HoopsStats.com.
That leaves the center position, which has to be the Warriors' weakest link, if only because they need to have a weak link.
Festus Ezeli can be an offensive klutz, David Lee has made just 12 appearances and the injury-prone Andrew Bogut has essentially missed 14 games when you factor in his sub-10-minute outings against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves.
The latter should be especially concerning. The Warriors are outscoring opponents by a deific 18.8 points per 100 possessions with Bogut on the floor. Relying on him should surely be coined a weakness.
Should.
Yet it's not.
Here's a look at how the Warriors fared before Bogut went down, during his absence—including his two-minute stint against Minnesota—and since he's returned:
| Before Bogut's absence | 19 | 107.6 | 4 | 95.1 | 1 | 12.6 | 1 |
| During Bogut's absence | 13 | 110.3 | 1 | 97.1 | 1 | 12.6 | 1 |
| Since Bogut's return | 4 | 114.7 | 1 | 100.1 | 14 | 14.6 | 2 |
Note the four-game sample since Bogut's return seriously skews the defensive ranking. Allowing 100.1 points per 100 possessions would actually be good for sixth place overall.
Otherwise, wow.
Navigating injuries to Bogut and Lee—and subpar play from Iguodala—hasn't slowed the Warriors even slightly. What are you supposed to say to that?
"It's awesome," rookie head coach Steve Kerr told reporters, per the San Jose Mercury News' Jimmy Durkin.
OK, yeah. That works.
Actually Invincible?
Look, the Warriors aren't perfect.
Their turnover ratio could be better, and they rank 22nd in rebounding percentage, which is actually concerning knowing they force the most misses in the league. At the same time, the Miami Heat won back-to-back championships while being a mediocre rebounding team in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
Like ESPN.com's Ethan Strauss notes, they're also inexperienced in the clutch:
This, though, equates to saying the Warriors pull away in a lot of games. Last yours truly checked, winning by convincing margins wasn't a bad thing.
If you really want to nitpick, there is another concern:
Shooting, smooting. The Warriors are third overall in three-point percentage.
Maybe, then, this team is just that good. Maybe it's just time to enjoy the fruits of a years-long evolution finally nearing completion.
As Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes writes:
"The Warriors started this process in a unique situation. The franchise's fans had seen so many shortsighted moves, failed big swings, hasty rebuild attempts and calamitous failures that a gradual approach was actually welcomed.
There were periods of anxiety along the way, but having lived in the Bay Area before, during and after this rebuild, it was easy to see fans appreciating the organization embracing a process instead of gunning for immediate results. ...
Just another reason to treasure what's going on in Golden State, where we're now seeing the end stages of a step-by-step rebuild that may never happen again.
"
Perfection isn't possible at this level. Let's make that clear. The Warriors will lose games and endure their own share of follies and foibles. Yet even the 1995-96 Bulls lost back-to-back games.
Losses happen; flaws exist. Title favorites are not exempt. These Warriors are not exempt.
But these Warriors, these obvious title favorites, are also the closest thing to invincible the league has. And provided they keep winning at their current rate, they'll go down as one of the most nearly perfect teams the NBA has ever seen.
*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited and are accurate as of games played Jan. 14, 2015.
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