5 Things That the Golden State Warriors Can Learn from NBA's Top Teams

The 2011-12 NBA season has been a learning experience for the Golden State Warriors.

With the amount of "youth" injected into this franchise over the past year and a half, that should have been expected.

The Warriors are led by second-year owners (Joe Lacob and Peter Guber) and a first-year coach (Mark Jackson), and are even younger on the court. Monday night's starting lineup featured four rookies (a Warriors first since Elias Sports Bureau began tracking the stat in 1970-71).

The results of this learning process have been slow to show up on the court (although given that they've been tanking for a pick for quite some time, that's tough to gauge), but the Warriors clearly have plenty to learn from their NBA peers.

Just how well they are able to digest this information could be the difference between stopping their current playoff drought (officially five years now) or asking for more patience from the league's most patient fans.

5. Power in Numbers

While some fans have already began to panic with thoughts of super teams (conglomerates of two or more superstars) dominating the NBA, the Warriors should look to the more balanced attacks that have paced some of the league's best teams.

The San Antonio Spurs (44-16) and the Indiana Pacers (40-22) hold two of the league's top five records, yet neither has a top-19 scorer (the Pacers' Danny Granger leads this group with 18.8 points, 20th most).

Neither do other playoff hopefuls like the Denver Nuggets (34-27), Philadelphia 76ers (31-30), Phoenix Suns (32-29), Utah Jazz (32-30) or Houston Rockets (32-29).

Whether via the draft (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson), trades (David Lee, Andrew Bogut) or free agency (Brandon Rush), the Warriors have managed to accumulate a lot of pieces for next season's roster.

But without a clear-cut star on the roster, coach Mark Jackson should look for good contributions from a lot of these players rather than great contributions from one or two.

4. Patience Is a Virtue

While the Warriors learned a hard lesson in free agency over the summer, the team should have learned another as the season has played out: Sometimes the best players available are on your own roster.

It was a great year for ex-Warriors, led in no small way by Jeremy Lin's take-over of the New York Knicks and, subsequently, the globe.

But there were other former Warriors putting up good seasons. Former lottery picks Anthony Randolph (Minnesota Timberwolves) and Brandan Wright (Dallas Mavericks) have proven to be valuable pieces on playoff hopeful rosters.

The same can be said for former Warrior C.J. Watson (Chicago Bulls) who's on pace to match his career high with 10.3 points despite backing up the reigning MVP (Derrick Rose).

The great teams in this league have great star power, but a big part of that comes from within the organization. It's hard to say that the Warriors would have had the patience to develop an Andrew Bynum, Serge Ibaka or Roy Hibbert given the club's historically short leash for its own young players, evidenced by having just three of their first-round picks since 2000 still on the roster (Curry, Thompson and Andris Biedrins).

3. Dynamic (Interior) Duos

The Los Angeles Lakers get plenty of headlines for their frontcourt (and they should, considering the bling that that interior has helped bring out West) but there are plenty of great teams assembling dynamic big combos.

Bynum and Pau Gasol lead the pack, but there are plenty of teams vying for that No. 1 spot: Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins (Oklahoma City Thunder), Hibbert and David West (Indiana Pacers), Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah (Chicago Bulls), Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan (Los Angeles Clippers) and Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol (Memphis Grizzlies).

Here's where the optimism for next year's Warriors stems from. With David Lee and Andrew Bogut manning the middle, the Warriors finally have that elusive interior combo. Neither player is perfect, but both should complement each other well.

Lee's struggles on defense will be somewhat alleviated by the 7'0", 260-lb Bogut protecting the rim. And Lee's midrange jumper and quickness should leave plenty of room for Bogut to operate on the low block.

They won't be the most athletic tandem by any stretch, but with their collective passing ability and the Warriors' perimeter threats surrounding them, Lee and Bogut should be part of the NBA's elite post tandems.

2. Leadership Starts Within

With so many new faces, new responsibilities and new expectations on the 2012-13 Warriors, the team will need strong veteran voices to bring this club together.

And no matter the caliber of the organization's leadership in the front office, they'll need effective leadership in the locker room and on the court.

The NBA's elite have great talent, but even better leadership. Whether it's the calming, veteran presence of Tim Duncan in San Antonio, the fiery emotion from Kevin Garnett in Boston or the "no excuse" attitude of Kobe Bryant, good teams have strong voices.

The veterans (Lee, Bogut and Richard Jefferson) will be relied on early by Jackson to grab the focus of this still-growing team. But these can't be the only voices heard during Warrior games.

The team needs Curry to become the vocal leader that all great point guards are. They need the toughness and intensity that Brandon Rush and Dominic McGuire can bring (provided the free agents are back in Oakland next season).

They'll even need the second-year Thompson to accept the responsibilities on and off the court that come with being a full-time starter, especially if the team is able to keep its top-seven protected lottery pick and fill that last starter spot via the draft.

1. The Best of Both Worlds

The club needs to improve its defense in a bad way (101.6 points against, 29th in the NBA). With the addition of Bogut to the Warriors front line, the team's interior defense could be as good as it's been in years.

But with Lee, Thompson and Curry making up 60 percent of the team's starting five, offense will continue to be the club's strong suit.

It's important that the Warriors understand that playing good defense does not have to come at the expense of good offense. In fact, the best teams often boast gaudy numbers on both ends of the floor.

There's a common misconception about high-powered offense: That teams cannot win playing up-tempo basketball. The top seven scoring teams in the NBA (Denver, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Miami, Milwaukee, Utah and Phoenix) are all part of the playoff picture for this season.

If the Warriors can avoid bad offensive possessions that handcuff the defense (long rebounds off forced jumpers or turnovers), they could drastically improve their offense and defense. By working for good shots and attacking the basket, the Warriors can force defenses to stay at home and not leak out for easy fast breaks.

If the Warriors can play smarter on the defensive end (improving their league-worst minus-6.4 rebounding differential, for starters) and force some turnovers, the defense could even improve what's already one of the league's best offenses (98.4 points, ninth most in the NBA).