DETROIT — The Golden State Warriors have gone from a team on a hot streak to a middling one, struggling to find the right formula to get back in the mix of Western Conference contenders.
Around the league, many are wondering if the team’s front office and ownership have the stomach to make the necessary personnel moves to surround four-time champions Stephen Curry and Draymond Green with a realistic shot at a fifth title.
Somewhat surprisingly, Green is in lockstep with the way the Warriors have handled things. Despite overtures to the likes of Paul George over the summer, they’ve stayed the course as opposed to going all-in on any strategy.
“The beautiful part about being in the space that we’re in is, Steve Kerr, Steph Curry and myself all disagree with mortgaging off the future of this organization, saying that we’re going for it right now,” Green told Yahoo Sports on Thursday night following the Warriors’ 107-104 win over Detroit.
“Bad teams do that. Bad organizations do that. We’re not neither one.”
On Thursday, Curry had one of his worst games of the season, going 5-for-21 from the field and missing 12 of his 14 3-pointers. But reserves Gui Santos and Lindy Waters III combined for eight triples, 22 points and seven rebounds, prompting a postgame celebration that belied it being one game of 82.
The Warriors once touted the famous “two timelines,” keeping their vets as the headliners while hoping their youth could augment matters, thus keeping them in the mix. The Warriors won the 2022 title with strong contributions from Jordan Poole — a surprise, it should be said, to the young core they planned on investing in.
But Poole’s gone, traded for a season of Chris Paul. James Wiseman, the second overall pick in 2020, didn’t pan out in the Bay Area or anywhere else so far. Moses Moody has shown signs, but has struggled to carve out a consistent spot in the rotation. The only one who’s really shown true promise has been Jonathan Kuminga, who’s in his second season as a second option, but even he’s struggled to be the perfect fit in Kerr’s offensive system.
For his part, Green is a believer in Kuminga and even came off the bench for a few games to help the 22-year-old get acclimated. If the Warriors are to make any deal of significance, it would likely have to involve Kuminga, as they haven’t come to terms on a contract extension with him.
“So for us, if something is going to happen, it needs to be the right thing,” Green said. “We’re not going to jump and make the wrong decision because we panicked. That’s how you set your organization back five to seven years.”
With the new, very restrictive collective bargaining agreement that has been put in place over the last two years, it completely disincentivizes teams from making big-money, long-money moves, essentially forbidding them from using exceptions and aggregating players for one player if they’re in the second apron.
It sounds as if Green is well-aware of the penalties for franchises, or at least has come to terms with the way the Warriors will proceed moving forward. It’s why interest in disgruntled Heat star Jimmy Butler seems tepid at this point. The only move the Warriors have made so far has been trading with the Brooklyn Nets for Dennis Schröder a week before Christmas.
Schröder’s contract expires after this season, as further proof of how delicate the Warriors have handled this.
“We’re still going to compete at the highest level,” Green told Yahoo Sports. “We’re still going to do all we can to win, but I don’t know a single person that’s played in the NBA for a long time that won every year. So you don’t auction off your future because you’re not winning in a said year or two.”
Their 12-3 start was immediately followed by a 3-12 stretch that brought them right back to .500. Green, for his part, is still effective. He’s shooting 36 percent from 3-point range, and averaging nearly six assists and over six rebounds.
But he admitted it isn’t easy to rev up his usual intensity, and said he’s getting his edge back after a rut. Even after the win in Detroit, he wouldn’t make a boastful claim that all is well — it was just a minor step in the right direction.
“I told them, it’s all my fault,” he told reporters Thursday. “I got to get my edge back, and then we will have our edge back, you know? So when you have those times where you need to address the team, if you can’t address where you’re failing, nobody’s listening to you.”
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Even Curry has experienced some slippage at age 36, and if the Warriors are to make a decent run, they’ll probably need to acquire someone to make the game easier for Curry. Otherwise, they’ll continue on the route they’ve been on since winning their fourth title — having won just one playoff series since then, and losing in the play-in tournament to Sacramento last April.
“You have to continue to build. And for us, that will always be the focus,” Green said. “It’ll never be, ‘Something’s going wrong. Make the dumbest move you can make.’ We’re not that organization.”
He envisions a day where he’s retired and still an active part of a thriving franchise as connective tissue, not one that’s ashamed of moves they’ve made out of desperation.
“When I’m done, when Steph is done, I want us to come back, when Steve’s done, I want us to come back, sit on the court and talk so much s*** to everybody,” Green said. “Because our organization, our team, is that good.”
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