Are the Golden State Warriors Deep Enough at the Center Position?

The Golden State Warriors maneuvered shrewdly during the offseason and built elite depth at multiple positions. The guard spot became a strength, small forward is now brimming with talent and they have multiple options at the power forward position.

The center spot, however, is a whole different story.

Leading the group is Andrew Bogut, a defensive force of nature who spends as much time nursing nagging injuries as he does on the court. Behind him is Festus Ezeli, a young, promising player who had his development stunted when he missed all of last season recovering from knee surgery.

Clearly there is a trend here.

The Warriors have high aspirations this season and have most of the pieces to the puzzle already in place. All it will take, though, is one blow to either Bogut or Ezeli to have it all come crumbling down around them. The problem they are now facing is that only scraps remain in the free-agency barrel, with guys like the mercurial Andrew Bynum and the perpetually injured Greg Oden leading the pack.

The Warriors will be hard-pressed to find any outside help.

Keeping Bogut healthy will be of the utmost importance this season. With him in the lineup, the Warriors outscored their opponents by 15 points per game. That number could rise even more when Steve Kerr debuts his new offense, one that should feature him and not diminish him the way Mark Jackson did.

Bogut touched the ball on only 12.5 percent of the Warriors possessions last season, an unacceptable number for a big as skilled with the ball as him. Fortunately, Kerr understands how effective he can be and plans on getting the most out of his abilities, courtesy of Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News:

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We have great passing bigs with Andrew and David (Lee), and I want to put them in passing situations. I want the ball to move. That's the biggest thing. We've got to get more ball movement, more passes per possession.

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Jackson fell in love with isolation offense and outside shooting. Kerr understands that he needs his big men to be effective for the offense to run at its full capacity. While it’s true that Bogut has been injury-riddled throughout his career, he did play a respectable 67 games last season before being lost for the playoffs.

That was his highest total since the 2009-10 season. With a healthy Ezeli backing him up, Kerr can limit his minutes and keep his body fresh for the entire season.

Still, the Warriors cannot bank on this scenario. History has proven that at some point during the season, Bogut will falter. When that happens, creative lineups will be the key to the season. If they can’t go big, they’ll have to counter with small, explosive bursts of offense.

The simple answer is that no, the Warriors clearly do not have enough depth at the center position, especially when considering that it is possible that their tandem plays only 82 games, combined.

What the Warriors lack in depth, however, they make up for in versatility. David Lee might be a defensive sieve but he has the offensive skills to torture any center in the league not named Dwight Howard or DeAndre Jordan. He can fill in the gaps in spurts and help to simply outscore the opposition during portions of the game.

While history suggests that Kerr might be privy to the traditional two-big set, he recently said in an interview with Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News that he wants to expand the offense, implementing parts of the triangle offense and of course, run far more:

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I think you’ll see a lot of ball movement; I think you’ll see the bigs utilized as passers on the elbows and on the block. I think you’ll see some Triangle concepts. We’re not going to look like the Chicago Bulls in the ’90s… I think in today’s NBA you have to run; you have to play fast and score early. The rules dictate that. And so I’m not going to take away our running, in fact I want to encourage more running.

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The Warriors are well equipped to do just that, with or without a center in the lineup. They can go small with versatile stars like Andre Iguodala, Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes. Curry can run the pick and roll with Lee. The triangle can be tweaked to fit their needs.

Will the lack of center depth hurt them in the long run? Perhaps. But to say that they can’t compensate for their biggest weakness would be foolish. With Steve Kerr at the helm, the Warriors have the players to overcome any obstacles, including the ones on their own team.