Will Andrew Bogut's Knee Derail Golden State Warriors' Hot Start?
The Golden State Warriors have a full-fledged MVP candidate in Stephen Curry, a handful of guys in the Most Improved Player award running and more than enough two-way talent to be labeled as NBA elites.
But they do not have a championship formula without a healthy Andrew Bogut manning the middle on both ends of the floor.
The brawny big man has missed each of the team's last four games, including Tuesday's winning-streak-snapping 105-98 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. The problem was initially labeled as right knee tendinitis, an injury that would be considered minor for most but raised a few red flags with his history of health issues.
Bogut has not cleared the 70-game mark since the 2007-08 season. Among the various ailments he suffered over that stretch were a dislocated elbow and broken wrist that prematurely ended his 2010-11 campaign, a broken elbow that limited him to 12 games the following year and a fractured rib that kept him out of the 2014 playoffs.
With those past problems in mind, there really is no such thing as a minor injury when it comes to the 7-footer.
"Because of his immense value and that hellish health history of his that goes back to those painful Milwaukee years, it's serious cause for concern any time he steps foot off the floor," wrote USA Today's Sam Amick.
To make matters worse, Bogut's most recent bout with the injury imp left him in worse shape than initially thought.
ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss passed along some troubling information on Bogut's condition:
"Andrew Bogut clarified Tuesday that he is dealing with inflammation in his knee rather than the initial diagnosis of knee tendinitis.
... Bogut explained how the diagnosis changed, saying, 'I came on the trip so I didn't have a lot of time to get it checked. From what I was told it wasn't something I should be worried about, but evidently it probably is.'
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Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle shed more light on this unfortunate development:
Bleacher Report's Will Carroll added some context to the new diagnosis:
It's impossible to predict the long-term effects of Bogut's knee problem.
The Warriors still own the league's best record at 21-3, its top-ranked defense and its sixth-best offense. This team is built to perform in May and June, so a little turbulence in December won't send the sky crashing down.
Still, that litany of injuries cannot sit well with the Warrior faithful. As Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix noted, Bogut is an invaluable piece of Golden State's championship puzzle:
There isn't another Andrew Bogut on this roster. David Lee (who has been limited to only seven minutes by a strained hamstring) is a proficient passer who provides an interior offensive presence, Marreese Speights is comfortable operating on the high post and Festus Ezeli adds some rim protection.
The problem is Bogut does all of the above, while Golden State's other options offer only a give-and-take scenario. Plug Lee or Speights into the frontcourt, and the Warriors defense becomes vulnerable in the middle. Go with Ezeli, and opposing defenses have one less offensive threat to worry about.
With Bogut anchoring the frontcourt, Golden State has been a wrecking ball on offense and an impenetrable fortress at the other end. The Warriors are averaging 111.0 points per 100 possessions while allowing only 91.3 points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor. That plus-19.7 net efficiency rating easily checks in above Golden State's league-leading plus-11.6 mark.
Without Bogut, this team has a good-not-great plus-5.6 rating. That figure would tie as only the NBA's eighth-best.
His best work comes on the defensive side of the ball, where he grades out as one of the game's greatest stoppers.
He trails only Tim Duncan with a 5.83 defensive real plus-minus, per ESPN.com. Bogut is holding opponents to 38.6 percent shooting at the rim, per NBA.com's player tracking data, which is the lowest among all players facing at least six such shots per game. He is tied for fourth with 2.2 blocks per game, and his paint presence alone discourages some from even attempting to get something up in his vicinity.
Over their first 19 games, the Warriors held their opponents to a league-best 53.7 percent shooting within five feet of the basket. These past five games—Bogut lasted fewer than three minutes before hurting his knee against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Dec. 8—that number has jumped to 57.1, 12th overall.
As strong as those statistics are, Bogut's value cannot be measured by box scores alone.
"Where I affect the game is the little things," he told Sherwood Strauss recently. "Especially defensively, blocking shots, being a good helpside guy, calling out the paint, setting good screens, just doing little things that a lot of times don't show up on the stat sheet."
Bogut is Golden State's defensive rock.
Coach Steve Kerr's system keeps the big guy near the basket, and Bogut does a masterful job of harassing driving guards, contesting shots without fouling and rarely giving up prime rebounding real estate. Ezeli might stand close to Bogut as a shot-blocker (2.6 blocks per 36 minutes to Bogut's 3.1), but there is a deep divide between the two on the glass (9.5 boards per 36 to 13.2).
Kerr has also tapped into Bogut's wide array of offensive skills. Bogut's 4.2 assists per 36 minutes and 16.6 assist percentage would both shatter his previous career highs (3.2 and 13.9, respectively). The Warriors are shooting 50.3 percent from the field and 45.2 percent from deep off his passes. Both marks would rank as the NBA's best.
With 45.2 points a night coming from Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson alone, the Warriors don't need a lot of scoring from Bogut. But the center packs enough of a punch (7.1 points per game) to keep defenses honest, either floating in a hook shot or exploding to the rim on the back end of an alley-oop.
The Warriors aren't the same without him. The defense loses its biggest deterrent. The offense misses one of its main catalysts.
Golden State might boast one of the deepest rosters in the league, but there is no substitute for a healthy Bogut.
It remains to be seen whether the Warriors will have that two-way weapon available when they need him most. For his part, Bogut doesn't view himself as injury-prone, as he told Grantland's Andrew Sharp recently:
"I think most of my injuries, to be quite honest, 90 percent of them have just been unlucky. I can’t go and do weights and practice not falling off a rim and breaking my elbow. I can’t go and do a conditioning exercise to stop breaking my ribs. It’s not like I tore my quad or hamstring from being overweight or out of shape. It’s high-impact injuries because of the way I play.
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Really, that's good and bad news for the Warriors.
In a way, it means that Bogut's medical past is not necessarily a sign of more problems to come. These have been a string of unfortunate, unpredictable injuries.
But like he said, his physical style of play lends itself to potential issues. Bang into enough bodies, and there's a chance one of those collisions could cause some serious damage.
The Warriors can only hope this injury doesn't fall into that category.
The overcrowded Western Conference doesn't allow for any comfort room. Golden State might have sprinted out of the gate, but it still stands just a game ahead of the second-placed Grizzlies—and only 4.5 up on the seventh-seeded San Antonio Spurs.
Of course, that doesn't mean the Warriors should rush Bogut back before his body is ready. They need him healthy for the postseason, so they must do whatever they can to try to make that a reality.
Maybe that will send them searching for external assistance. Jermaine O'Neal provided a big lift as Bogut's backup last season, posting 7.9 points and 5.5 rebounds in only 20.1 minutes a night. The 36-year-old recently told ESPN.com's Marc Stein he has not ruled out coming back to the NBA after the new year.
The Warriors might also consider checking what the trade market has to offer. They still need to consider cutting payroll at some point, so maybe they could shed a salary like Lee's and pick up insurance behind Bogut at the same time.
It's still hard to tell what exactly Bogut's injury means, but it certainly raises a few question marks.
It also hangs an ominous cloud above the franchise. Golden State has no reason to panic now, but that could change pretty quickly if its indispensable center cannot put this injury behind him.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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