3 Players Who Still Have to Step Up for the Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors (8-2) haven't reinvented roundball just yet.
It turns out even a rotation featuring four NBA All-Stars needs time to adjust to two new starters and a handful of unfamiliar faces, and it's obvious to anyone that this team is several stories beneath its ceiling. There have been flashes of what's to come—four 20-point wins already—but the cheat-code efficiency comes and goes.
Although the 2016-17 Dubs haven't started off as dominant as last season, they're still No. 3 in winning percentage (.800) and net efficiency rating (plus-8.3) across the NBA.
Developing chemistry can cut down the volatility. Better outings from these three underperforming rotation regulars would accelerate the process.
Klay Thompson
If this article weren't using the superteam grading scale, Klay Thompson might be miles from this list. Even by these steep standards, the sharpshooter almost avoids this distinction.
His sluggish shooting start—sub-39 percent in four of his first six outings—is quickly fading into the memory banks. Over his last four times out, he's averaging 23.3 points on 56.9 percent shooting (53.8 percent from three). That would be the league's highest field-goal percentage among 20-point scorers.
Thompson's finding his form should surprise no one: His 41.72 career three-point percentage sits 13th all time, and just last season, he sank the third-most triples ever with 276.
"Nobody's really worried about Klay and him shooting the ball," Stephen Curry said two games into Thompson's recent four-game surge, per ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss. "That's what he does. He wakes up and shoots the ball."
The Phoenix Suns can attest to that after eating Thompson's first 30-burger of 2016-17 on Sunday.
So, if everything is all right now, what's the problem?
Well, everything isn't all right.
Thompson's shooting woes—even after the recent uptick, his 31.9 perimeter percentage is more than eight points below his previous worst—highlighted his minimal margin for error. His game doesn't have enough branches to support less than efficient scoring.
He has one more assist (25) than turnover (24). His 4.6 rebounding percentage is second-worst among all rotation players 6'7" or taller. His player efficiency rating has never dipped this low (12.3). If the campaign closed today, he would match or set career lows in rebounds (3.0), steals (0.8), blocks (0.3), threes (2.4) and free-throw attempts (1.7) per 36 minutes.
And, like a lot of his teammates, Thompson is struggling to make his typical impact defensively.
Opponents are shooting 4.5 percentage points higher against him than they do on average—the first time he hasn't held them below their normal level since NBA.com began tracking the stat in 2013-14. His 113 defensive rating also represents the wrong kind of uncharted territory.
Box-score analysis has always been a tricky task with Andre Iguodala. His best work doesn't always show through the stat sheet, so his numbers sometimes lag well behind the eye test. After all, he captured the 2015 NBA Finals MVP award despite not pacing the Dubs in any statistical category that series.
But his start this season is different. Not only are his numbers anemic, but his film doesn't look much better.
"His shot is struggling," Bay Area News Group's Anthony Slater said on the Warriors All 82 podcast. "His layups are struggling. ... He still has flash plays here and there, but it just seems like he's really easing into the season, and he needs to be monitored by everyone. Is it [that] he potentially lost a step, or he's trying to kind of crank his body up for when it matters?"
Iguodala, who turns 33 in January, has played the 13th-most minutes among active players, approximately 600 fewer than 36-year-old Richard Jefferson. As ESPN.com's Amin Elhassan observed, Father Time may have gained the upper hand:
Despite possessing a genius-level hoops IQ, Iguodala isn't necessarily built to decline gracefully.
If he's lost his ability to finish at the rim—he's shooting 45.5 percent on non-dunks inside 10 feet—his scoring skills might be sapped. Considering he's connected on only seven of his 28 jumpers (25 percent), it's hard to plot where his comfort zone is anymore.
His offensive involvement has dipped over each of his four seasons with Golden State, but this could be the year it careens off a cliff.
Opposing defenses have taken their chances with Iguodala before and dared him to beat them with the jumper. He usually had enough success to keep them somewhat honest and maintain proper offensive spacing.
But now, teams can let him roam without fear of repercussions. That's a spacing worry all to itself, and Draymond Green's struggles (28 percent on jumpers) and Zaza Pachulia's unwillingness to shoot (nine attempts beyond three feet in 170 minutes) compound the problem.
For years, Iguodala could counteract any offensive issues with shutdown defense. But that's not happening anymore either. Opponents are shooting 3.5 percentage points above their average against him and 5.4 points higher beyond the arc.
He's still the best complement to the four All-Stars, but he'll be the biggest weak link of the Apocalypse Lineup by far unless he climbs back to his normal form at both ends.
Zaza Pachulia
The nominal replacement for Andrew Bogut, Pachulia looks more like a placeholder. His task is not to burn the house down during scant appearances when the Warriors' small-ball wrecking crews get their wind.
Through 10 games, Golden State head coach Steve Kerr has signaled there isn't a traditional big on the roster who gets his full trust. Pachulia and David West have averaged a combined 26.6 minutes per game. Add in the 5.9 from JaVale McGee, and it's still less than the 37.4 Bogut and Festus Ezeli had last season.
With a host of players capable of shifting up from their normal positions, the Warriors don't seem worried about finding a typical anchor either.
"The struggle of their big men, especially starter Zaza Pachulia, has fans scratching their heads wondering what the Warriors will do inside," the Bay Area News Group's Marcus Thompson II wrote. "But whatever they do, it's filler. The big men they have are just a bridge."
There's a lot of truth to that, though it's fair to wonder whether that would be the case with superior centers. If Pachulia wasn't the worst rim protector among high-volume bigs, maybe Kerr would welcome some brute force underneath.
But when the likes of Green and Kevin Durant are available, it's tough to stomach Pachulia's 66.7 field-goal percentage against at the rim. And it's hard to go away from the best five-man groups with the Warriors' centers collectively sitting 26th in scoring, 23rd in rebounding and 29th in shot-blocking at the position through Monday's games, per HoopsStats.com.
The Dubs shouldn't be surprised by this.
Pachulia has arrived as advertised, mirroring many of his career per-36-minute numbers and shattering those in rebounds (12.3, up from 10.0), assists (4.7, 2.1) and field-goal percentage (60.7, 46.2). But none of that is helping the cause.
Golden State has allowed four more points than it has scored with him manning the middle. That's an astonishing number considering he's played 149 of his 170 minutes with Curry and 140 alongside Durant.
For reference, last season's Warriors were plus-397 with Bogut on the floor. And their starting lineup—featuring Bogut and Harrison Barnes instead of Pachulia and Durant—bashed opponents by 13.2 points per 100 possessions. This year's openers have a net efficiency rating of 0.0 over 114 minutes.
It's hard to tell how Pachulia can turn this around. At 32 years old, his identity is cemented. He won't suddenly become a spacer or a rim protector, so he'll always require concessions at both ends. But Bogut found ways to work around his shortcomings and play a valuable role for a championship team. Pachulia must do the same before becoming a forgotten piece of a franchise that is willing to forge forward without traditional size if it must.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics accurate through Sunday and used courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @ZachBuckleyNBA.
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