LOS ANGELES — The clock on this Warriors season, and perhaps the dynasty, started before the Warriors’ loss to the Clippers on Thursday.
Specifically at around 5 p.m. Pacific Time — when news broke of Draymond Green’s indefinite suspension. The seismic decision shook the NBA world, prompting pundits and talking heads to declare the Steph Curry era dead and bid good riddance to Green.
Inside Warriors land, the suspension was just another domino to fall. Add it to an ever-growing list of ways the Warriors’ season hasn’t gone at all by their own book. The team isn’t pinning this 10-14 start on Green alone, but seem to have pinned it as an evaluation starting point.
What happens in the next month could determine whether this roster can get it together for a realistic playoff run, or if Dunleavy will be taking advantage of the expiring contracts as the Feb. 9 trade deadline. Is there enough good to retool, take a step back and run again? Or is it time to sell this $400 million roster for parts, dip under the tax and regroup?
The Warriors have Klay Thompson’s expiring contract with one emotional string attached to swap, in theory. They could trade Chris Paul’s expiring or, despite Dunleavy’s vote of confidence, trade Green after continued issues one year into his four-year extension.
One thing Dunleavy was certain of: Curry can still carry a team far. But the future of this team could be determined in the coming weeks.
“The bigger impact will be how we do in the next 15-20 games and that will determine where we go more than this specific incident,” general manager Mike Dunleavy said earlier Thursday. “The reality of the situation is if you evaluate Draymond, his ability this year has been great. His availability is not. We need him more available. I don’t need more evaluation of him as a player, we need a little bit more evaluation of this team, the chemistry, the lineups.”
The pressure is on for this team to form an identity amid turmoil. It’ll require Kerr to gather up all these scattered pieces and glue something together.
Golden State’s loss to the Clippers put them four games under .500 and forced Kerr to rip the Warriors’ blueprint into shreds. Rookie Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga started in place of Green and a wildly struggling Andrew Wiggins, who came off the bench in a regular season game for the first time in his 10-year career. It’ll be a starting unit he runs with for the time being.
“Changes were necessary and your team is struggling to find an identity and find momentum to win basketball games consistently, you have to experiment,” Curry said. “You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect results.”
The flipped bench gave the Warriors new challenges they’ll have to work through in the next few weeks. Without Green, they lack a defensive edge needed to quell easy scoring from Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. Wiggins has to learn how to channel an aggression that’s lacked off the bench and Curry must re-adjust to a new group around him. Podziemski has to embrace a significant role just 18 games into his NBA career and Kuminga must check his shot selection on offense and his hands on defense to cut down on costly mistakes.
“You been around the league long enough, you try to hold onto the fabric of how we do things with the group we’ve done it with,” Curry said. “Now you’re in a position where that’s threatened a bit. That’s OK. Acknowledge it. We have a lot of talented guys trying to find a way to increase their roles and I have a lot of confidence in what this group can do. That’s our challenge. The deeper you get into this run, the first 20 games have signaled it might look a little different.”
On some level, the Warriors and Kerr may have to embrace the freedom they haven’t had since the 2020-21 season — when the Warriors were reeling from Thompsons injuries and Kevin Durant’s departure, swapped for Wiggins and found themselves without the burden of expectation. As some in this locker room have said, it was that successful run to the play-in at the end of the year that fueled their hot start to the championship season.
After that title, the Warriors have approached the day buttoned up, trying to repeat history by the rules outlined in their own book. Green will be gone for a good chunk of it, which hinders any defensive progress. Curry said he and the organization supports Green as he works through a counseling period they hope can stop him from lashing out on the court.
“He can’t do what he’s been doing. He knows that,” Curry said. “We know that. Everyone knows that. What that means to change, I think, that’s the search to the answer.”
Now, they’ll have to unbutton and embrace the chaos.
“It’s Ok to take small bites at this thing because we’re obviously a long, long away from the tier we want to be in,” Curry said. “So let’s just win Saturday.”
In search of an identity isn’t exactly where a supposed contender wants to be. But the pieces are there. And the clock has started.
