Are the Golden State Warriors Pushing Too Hard?
There's a tinge of concern tainting the Golden State Warriors' pursuit of NBA history.
As the Dubs draw closer to 73 regular-season wins, they're also butting up against the mounting evidence linking fatigue and injury, much of which ESPN.com's Tom Haberstroh chronicled this past February. Nobody's certain what the toll will be, but with those studying the impact of player usage concluding health risks rise exponentially with increased minutes, it's reasonable to say the Warriors' approach will cost something.
And if the empirical studies don't persuade you, at least acknowledge the San Antonio Spurs' dramatically different approach to their nearly-as-great regular season. They're resting players left and right, just like they always have. And it has been very good practice over the last two decades to assume whatever the Spurs do is right.
Maybe we should have the same trust in the Warriors who, for what it's worth, aren't grossly overextending their players.
Nobody on the roster averages more than 35 minutes per game, and head coach Steve Kerr resisted the notion he's taxing his team in this historical chase, per Sam Amick of USA Today: "We’re not really pushing for this. All we’ve said is, 'Yeah, it’d be nice to get. We’d like to get it.' But if I were pushing for it, I probably wouldn’t be resting (backup point guard) Shaun Livingston and (center Andrew) Bogut, and I’d be playing our starters more. We’re just playing it out."
The numbers say that's only partially true.
The Warriors' Minutes and Mileage
In 2014-15, the Dubs collectively ran 16.92 miles per game at an average clip of 4.21 miles per hour, according to tracking data provided to NBA.com. This year, those figures are 16.93 and 4.18, respectively. Nothing too worrisome there, and it's probably just bad luck that Golden State went from losing 71 man games to injury last year, per InStreetClothes.com (fifth-fewest in the league) to 177 so far this season, per ManGamesLost.com (ninth-most).
Kevon Looney's hip surgery, which the team knew was likely upon drafting the UCLA product in June, makes up a big chunk of those 177 games lost. Freak ankle sprains to Andre Iguodala and Harrison Barnes ate up another 29 games on their own. Festus Ezeli's knee surgery cost him 31, but his limited role before the injury doesn't exactly line up with an overuse justification.
What's more, Iguodala and Andrew Bogut, the Warriors' two oldest rotation staples, are playing fewer minutes per contest this year than at any point in their careers.
Taken together, all that information suggests the Dubs aren't pushing themselves any harder than they did last year. In fact, they're even easing off the gas a bit with their most vulnerable players.
The Big Guns
Anyone who's watched the Warriors knows there are two assets who matter more than the rest. And if you're looking for reasons to worry about overuse compromising playoff success, it's important to focus on Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.
Their workloads are up.
Are increases of 1.4 and 3.2 minutes per game worth fretting over? Curry's three-point percentage and scoring average are both higher since the All-Star break. Green's statistical output is almost totally unchanged, and his so-called hustle stats, blocks and steals, are up since the break.
There's no indication that either of the Warriors' most important players is breaking down.
Stubbornness and the Unknown
There's a lot we can't quantify here.
How much harder does Curry have to work now that opponents have doubled down on holding and bumping him wherever he goes? What's the accumulated cost of Green taking lumps from big men as he logs more minutes at center?
And most importantly: Might last year's deep run through the Finals amplify the fatigue and injury concerns this time around? Golden State played almost 100 games last year. That has to mean something.
Still, even with those concerns, it's clear the players won't let Kerr rein them in.
"We have a core group of guys that, if I asked them to skip a game, they wouldn't be real thrilled with me right now," Kerr told Scott Cacciola of the New York Times.
Also per Cacciola, Green brushes off any talk of letting up: "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm 26. Someone may rest, I don't know. But I'm not."
Bogut acknowledged the Warriors' next-generation health-tech safeguards, then painted a realistic picture of how much they matter to the guys running down history, per Ron Kroichick of the San Jose Mercury News:
"It's good. But at the same time, with the number of games we have, everyone is sore every other game. If you listen to that machine, you're going to have guys playing 40 games a year. Some of these tests are just too much. If all it says is you’re sore, and they say Steph Curry’s not playing because he’s sore, that’s not going to fly. Steph’s going to say, "F— your tests, I’m playing."
"
The players don't want to rest, and Kerr doesn't seem to be pushing all that hard to force a break. Why would he?
In addition to the mostly imagined red flags, any decision on his part to pack it in might come at the expense of the experience of a lifetime. The chance to reach 73 victories doesn't come around that often. For all Kerr and the Warriors know, the record they set this year might stand forever.
Golden State is committed to chasing history, and that pursuit necessarily comes with some risk. But it's overblown to say the Warriors are seriously jeopardizing their chance to repeat as champs.
Everyone relax. It turns out the team on pace to win more games than any other in history knows what it's doing.
Follow @gt_hughes on Twitter.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com unless otherwise indicated. Accurate through games played April 4.
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