Golden State Warriors: 10 Ways to Right the Ship
The 2010-11 Golden State Warriors' season has been one marked by emotions.
First came excitement, as it does for most teams from draft day through training camp. But the Warriors' excitement was different, stemming from new everything: new owners, new coach, new big man and even a new logo. The excitement only increased as the club raced to a 6-2 record out of the gate.
But, as is often the case, with excitement came fear. Fear from a scary fall by the team's star, Monta Ellis, during what should have been garbage minutes in a win in Toronto. Fear, next, from a freak accident that ended with this year's prized coup, David Lee, bringing a piece of his old team back to his new home. That piece, Wilson Chandler's tooth, could just as easily have been a rock on this season's tracks, derailing Lee and all Warriors with him. He missed the next eight games and the club fell from 6-2 to 7-9.
The prevailing emotion around the organization now is frustration. Frustration from a 2-12 stretch that left the club plummeting from fifth in the Western Conference to 12th. The frustration could grow after Stephen Curry re-aggravated his ankle during the latest loss to the San Antonio Spurs (the 25th loss in a row to Tim Duncan's Spurs) and now may be headed to the shelf for an indefinite period of time.
But the emotion of this article is simple: optimism. So keep those glasses half-full and see the 10 (Optimistic) ways that the Warriors can get out of this funk and back in to contention.
10. Get A(nother) Break In The Schedule
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That 6-2 start had the Bay Area thinking playoffs in the first year under new ownership.
But like everything in life, that good play and those good feelings had to come to an end. And not surprisingly, the good play and wins suffered as the opposition's winning percentage increased.
During the team's first eight games, only three had a winning record and only the Los Angeles Lakers seemed to be gelling when they played them.
In the 14 games since, the Warriors have played teams with a winning record nine times and have dropped all nine games. Even at full strength—which they haven't been all year—this was obviously going to be a tough stretch.
But after the team plays Miami and Utah in its next two games, it will finally get back to some winnable contests for the rest of the calendar year.
9. Beat The Teams That They Should
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Of the eight victories that the Warriors have tallied on the year, only two have come against winning teams—the Utah Jazz and New York Knicks—and both of those teams had yet to hit their stride when the Warriors beat them.
Of the club's 14 losses, four have come against teams with a losing record. Not terrible by percentage, but the Warriors are not good enough to give up these games and rely on beating some contenders to boost their record.
Those losses—to the Detroit Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks, Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies—just make these difficult stretches of games even harder to bear because they've already given up ground that they shouldn't have.
This club will obviously need some wins versus the league's best to sniff the playoffs, but the Warriors' propensity to play to their level of competition could leave them single-digit games out of the playoffs with no one to blame but themselves.
8. Put The Ball In The Basket
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Coaches, fans and certainly media members are all guilty of over-complicating the simple thing that we call sports. In basketball, it comes down to making shots and stopping your opponent from making them.
The Warriors' offense, their top asset in years past, has struggled, for their standards at least. Their 101.4 points per game ranks 10th highest in the league. Their 45.4 field goal percentage ranks just 18th best in the NBA. And their 73 free-throw percentage is 25th in the league.
The Warriors are not a great defensive club, and simply can not struggle on the offensive end. They're going to need to score closer to 110 points a night given their defensive shortcomings.
7. Renew Commitment on The Glass
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The Warriors front office made a push to shore up the club's biggest two problem areas from recent seasons in the offseason—defense and rebounding.
Rebounding the basketball is something that every good team does well. And it's generally something that every bad team struggles with. The Warriors brass brought in David Lee and his career 9.6 rebounds per game to help a team that finished dead last in rebound differential last season.
The Warriors have been (marginally) better on the glass with Lee and a healthy Andris Biedrins, but their numbers will need to improve if they want to get back to winning ball games. Their 69.9 defensive rebounding percentage ranks third-worst in the NBA, a crushing number given that bad defensive teams won't win if they give away extra possessions to their opponents.
6. Defend The Paint
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Really, the Warriors need to improve their defense all over the court. But with undersized defenders on the perimeter, especially ones that struggle to stay in front of their man and gamble for steals, the team needs a strong defender to anchor the paint.
Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry rank among the NBA's 10 best thieves, but too many of their steals come from overplaying passing lanes. When they do not come up with the steal, their man winds up with a clear path to the basket.
The Warriors' leading shot blocker, not counting Lou Amundson who's blocked two shots in two games, averages just 0.95 blocks per game. That's not a terrible number, 42nd in the league, but it's a telling stat given that their top shot blocker is also their 6'9" small forward Dorell Wright.
The team's shot blocking ability will get a boost with Amundson's return and a further boost will come when rookie Ekpe Udoh returns—reportedly in the next week—but neither of those players are in the starting lineup. Biedrins and Lee will somehow have to try and develop their ability to contest shots or the Warriors will continue to give up easy baskets.
5. Score Inside
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Not to pick on Biedrins and Lee, but the Warriors really need those two to step up on both ends of the floor. Lee has been scoring consistently, 15.1 per night, but often settles for mid-range jumpers or needs Ellis or Curry to create an easy shot for him
Biedrins, on the other hand, has struggled to put up points, just 6.8, despite leading the team in field goal percentage at 55.3. Biedrins looked a little rusty to start the season after missing most of last year with a nagging groin injury, but struggles to score because he simply doesn't get the shots to get in a rhythm. He has the sixth most field goal attempts on the Warriors, 50 less than Lee, who's missed a third of the season.
Biedrins is their best pure scorer in the post and needs to become a more focal point of the offense so opposing defenses are forced to collapse on the paint. If he started to tally the 15 that Lee gets, but he did it in the post, it would only open up lanes for Ellis and shots for Dorell Wright, Reggie Williams and Curry.
4.Get Steady Contributions From The Second Unit
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The Warriors have two players, Ellis and Wright, in the top five in minutes played in the NBA. They would probably have more players up there had Curry and Lee not battled injuries throughout the season.
This overload of minutes for the starting five was something that coach Keith Smart's predecessor, Don Nelson, was chastised for in the media and was something Smart vowed to change.
But to put it bluntly, his bench has not allowed him to do that. Save for one outburst in Wednesday's loss to the Spurs by Reggie Williams, 31 points, in relief duty for Curry, the bench has lacked any offensive firepower. The second leading scorer off of the bench, Brandan Wright, has averaged 5.3 points when he's managed to stay out of his coach's doghouse or suffer from an alleged back strain. The third leading scorer, Lou Amundson, has netted 10 points in his only two games of the season.
But the second unit's struggles are more evident in their inability to find a distributor to run the offense. Two players are tied for the lead with most assists per game off of the bench, shooters Reggie Williams and Vladimir Radmanovich.
The team hopes that reported newcomer Acie Law will help lead the unit, and Amundson and Udoh will make up for the rebounding loss by the reported release of Jeff Adrien.
3. Consistent Scoring
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Again, it's hard to imagine that the Warriors struggles would include offense, but the team has been up and down in their offensive outputs.
Part of the blame lies in the fact that this is a team comprised of a lot of jump shooters. Curry, Williams, Dorell Wright and Lee often prefer to step away from the basket and launch as opposed to bringing the ball toward the basket.
Another part of the blame is that the team lacks a great distributor. Their top three point guards—Curry, Ellis, Williams—are all scorers by nature, better at creating for themselves than for others. They have four players—Wright, Ellis, Curry, Lee—who average more than three assists per game, but no one averages six assists.
If the team commits to getting Biedrins involved in the offense and finds a collective aggressive streak, their offense could start to mirror that of Warriors teams past.
2. Get Healthy
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Another consistent theme in Warriors teams rears its ugly head again. The Warriors, statistically the most oft-injured team in the league last season, again have been plagued by the injury bug.
Already this season, the Warriors have been without Lee and Curry and just recently got high-energy supersub Amundson back from a finger injury. And don't forget that first round draft pick, Udoh, has yet to make his season debut.
The Warriors' depth may be a problem at full strength, so needless to say it has been exposed when they have been shorthanded.
Curry's importance to the club goes without saying, but when at full strength, Warriors fans will enjoy the motors of Amundson and Udoh and the defensive tenacity that will accompany both.
1. Get to The Charity Stripe
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Free throws should be easy points. Uncontested shots for players who get paid to shoot the basketball. But for the Warriors, free throws hardly ever come easily and this year is no exception.
As mentioned before, the team is just 25th in free throw percentage and their 17.7 free throw attempts are fewest in the league, almost two full attempts behind the Philadelphia 76ers.
Opponents have converted on 80.1 percent of their free throws, a tough stat to swallow considering the Warriors have committed 130 more fouls than their opponents and given 230 more trips to the stripe than they've taken.
Another tough stat: the Warriors have as many or more field goals than their opponents in 14 of their 22 games. On the season, they've made 37 more shots than their opponents.
But the battle at the free throw line is something that the team desperately needs to change. The problem is, it may come more from team chemistry than anything else. The Warriors lack of slashers and post scorers directly relates to their lack of free throw attempts.
Smart must find a way to get more scoring from Biedrins and must convince Curry, Williams, Wright and Rodney Carney to attack the basket to get some of these whistles going their way.
Free throws should be easy points, but without the attempts they're awfully difficult to make.
