Biggest Lingering Questions for NBA-Best Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors' 19-2 start, complete with a still-active 14-game winning streak and elite marks on both ends of the floor, would seem to have answered every possible question about the team's fitness going forward.
Nineteen wins in 21 tries doesn't happen by accident, and even if you're inclined to question Golden State's relatively good injury luck and manageable schedule, it's virtually impossible to pinpoint any real evidence that we've been watching a fluke.
The Dubs are for real, but they are not perfect.
Vulnerabilities exist, crossroads approach on the horizon and the Warriors will soon be tested by the unfamiliar difficulties associated with being circled on every opponent's calendar.
Steve Kerr and his staff have removed any doubts about their coaching acumen, and the roster has come together to form a dominant two-way machine.
Here are the potential issues that could still throw a wrench into the works.
Can They Handle Being Hunted?
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So far, so good.
However, Golden State's statement win over the Houston Rockets on Dec. 10 may have elevated its profile to another level. And that'll bring new challenges.
General manager Bob Myers told Sam Amick of USA Today: "All this is is a good start. If you look at (the season) and compare it to an NBA game, we have a little bit of a lead through the first quarter. But that doesn't mean you're going to win the game."
Carrying that analogy further, the Warriors' slight edge is the result of landing a first-quarter haymaker. Some opponents will fold, unwilling to throw hands with such a fearsome opponent. Others, though, will focus, look for an opportunity and come out swinging—wildly, perhaps.
The Dubs are going to get everyone's best, most defiant counterpunch now. They'll be looked at as bullies, measuring sticks, big game to hunt. You get the idea: Teams won't need to search for motivation against Golden State for the rest of the year. Instead, they'll whip themselves into a frenzy over the chance to knock off the league's best.
This is new territory for the Warriors—being the hunted.
What to Do with David Lee?
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According to Jimmy Durkin of the San Jose Mercury News, two-time All-Star David Lee is inching closer to a return.
Lee has played just seven minutes all season because of a twice-strained hamstring, and his reinsertion into the rotation could be complicated. Draymond Green has thoroughly earned the starting power forward job with a mix of long-range shooting and versatile defense, and the concern is that Lee won't take kindly to a reserve role.
The fact that the Dubs have played so well without Lee simplifies things to a degree. He can't grouse about his role or playing time without looking selfish, and there's been no indication of Lee being a me-first guy in the past anyway.
Still, Lee was once a key part of the starting lineup, and finding a way to carve out minutes for him without upsetting chemistry could be a challenge.
Even if he comes off the bench, he'll necessarily eat into the minutes of Marreese Speights, who is in the midst of a totally unforeseen breakout season. There's a need for a second-unit facilitator on the block, and Lee can address it.
But his minutes will come at a cost—one way or another.
How Can They Keep Draymond Green?
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Sticking with the Green-Lee dynamic, the Dubs have a long-term concern to fret over: Green will hit restricted free agency this summer, and his play has been good enough to justify a significant offer from another team.
The Dubs can match any deal Green might agree to, but unless there's a major change to the team's payroll between now and whenever that decision presents itself, keeping Green will almost certainly require a trip into luxury-tax territory.
The Warriors have nearly $82 million committed to next season's salaries, according to Spotrac.com, and that doesn't even include Green. With the salary cap and luxury tax projected to settle at $66.5 million and $81 million, respectively, according to Larry Coon's CBA FAQ, that means the Warriors have a decision to make.
They can either keep the roster intact and pay the tax to keep Green, or they can make a move to clear some space before that choice presents itself.
In terms of salary amount and team need, Lee and Andre Iguodala are the best trade candidates if the Dubs want to shed salary. Both project as bench players, and the emergence of younger, cheaper components has diminished their value. Shaking things up during the season—especially one going as well as this one—seems crazy.
But as B/R's Zach Buckley astutely noted: "Anything that increases the likelihood of retaining Green is a path worth pursuing."
Golden State has never paid the tax, but it has never faced the prospect of losing a player as valuable as Green.
The Warriors are heading for uncharted territory in more ways than one.
Have They Shed Their Bogut Dependence for Good?
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The most impressive aspect of the Dubs' win against the Rockets was the fact that they did it without Andrew Bogut, who missed his first game of the season with right knee tendinitis.
There is no such thing as a minor injury concern when it comes to Bogut, both because he has a long track record of missing time and because he is insanely valuable to the Dubs' success on both ends.
He's the primary reason they lead the league in defensive efficiency, and his new role as offensive hub frees up the rest of the Warriors for good looks. Stephen Curry might be the front-runner for MVP, but you could find a lot of sensible Warriors observers (raises hand) who think Bogut is just as important as Curry.
Back to that pivotal win against Houston.
Dwight Howard didn't play, and the Warriors struggled mightily to contain Donatas Motiejunas in the paint until (of course) desperately putting Green at center in the fourth quarter—a small-ball tactic that worked brilliantly but probably can't be relied upon as a big-minute option going forward.
The Warriors fell to the Los Angeles Clippers in last year's playoffs because Bogut was hurt. And their net rating goes from plus-19.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the court to plus-6.2 with him on the pine this year, per NBA.com.
Both figures are positive, but the former is indicative of what Bogut does for Golden State: He takes it from very good to elite. And that's a critical difference for a club in search of a championship.
So far, the Warriors have yet to prove they can beat a full-strength, similarly elite opponent without the big Aussie in the middle.
Despite their remarkable recent success, Golden State's dependence on Bogut persists. And that's a scary thing given his injury history.
Can They Beat the Spurs?
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Simple question with a simple answer: No.
Well, not yet anyway. And not in any of their last 31 tries on the road—a streak that has been alive since 1997.
The Warriors last lost a month ago, 113-100, against the San Antonio Spurs.
"Look, I retired 12 years ago, and the same three top players and the same coach are still over there. It's insane," Kerr said after the game, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com).
San Antonio's unparalleled continuity and poise are what the Warriors aspire to have someday. For now, they're the reasons the Spurs have so completely owned Golden State in recent years; all four meetings in 2013-14 went the Spurs' way.
This isn't a problem that only afflicts the Warriors. The Spurs beat up on everyone, and they played what might have been the best basketball anybody's ever seen in last year's Finals. Winning the West means beating San Antonio.
That's as tall of an order as ever.
Can They Make a Multi-Round Leap?
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Most non-LeBron-James-led superteams take a few years of incremental postseason progress before breaking through to reach the NBA Finals.
Go back to Michael Jordan's early career with the Chicago Bulls for one of the more famous examples. MJ's Bulls lost three straight first-round series to start his career, finally reached the second round in his fourth season, then lost twice in the conference finals in his fifth and sixth.
Only after all those failures, all those baby steps toward the promised land, did Jordan and the Bulls finally break through to win a ring in season No. 7.
That's anecdotal evidence, and it doesn't necessarily mean the Warriors are incapable of making a major leap this postseason.
But it makes sense that a team would have to fail, advance and fail again in order to figure out what it takes to complete the NBA's ultimate task. The Dubs have reached the second round just once as presently constructed, and that was in 2012-13 when they fell to the San Antonio Spurs. They bowed out against the Clips in Round 1 last season.
Golden State should be concerned that, no matter how great its regular season might wind up being, the tests of the playoffs will require some trial and error.
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