Warriors beat writer Danny Emerman shares his thoughts on the NBA
For all the talk of needing to adapt with the times and change their ways, the Warriors are leaning into their classic playbook amid their 10-2 start: Defense and depth.
Remember those four championship teams? They ranked second, 11th, second and first in defense.
Remember the pre-KD days? They were “strength in numbers”.
“When we’ve had great teams, we’ve had incredible depth,” Draymond Green said after Friday night’s win over Memphis.
Golden State already has wins over the Rockets, Celtics, Thunder and Mavericks. They’ve taken care of business against lottery teams or depleted ones and more than held their own with the contender class.
They rank fourth in both offensive and defensive rating — the only team in the top-five in both efficiency metrics.
Steph Curry is playing at an MVP level and delivering in the clutch on demand. Green looks like he’s in his prime, wreaking havoc on a nightly basis (and shooting 45% from 3).
“I don’t think we had the depth and versatility defensively last year that we have now. So, to me, the model is 2022,” said coach Steve Kerr. “We won the championship in 22 with a similar mix that we have now: good on both sides of the ball, establish a defense…We won a title two years ago with a group built around Steph and defense, and that’s the formula this year, too.”
In Curry’s words, they’re doing what relevant teams do. But really, they’re doing what championship-caliber teams do.
There have been changes, to be sure. Jonathan Kuminga has improved and has excelled off the bench in a more all-around role — mostly at the power forward. The Warriors’ additions of De’Anthony Melton, Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson have been somewhere between revelations and rock-solid. Jerry Stackhouse has helped the defense and Terry Stotts has cleaned some things up offensively.
And the Warriors are bound to hit a wall at some point. It’s a long season. Injuries are inevitable. So are rough shooting stretches.
But the Warriors’ defense, as long as Green is available, is legit. The sample size is big enough at this point to declare that. And while their 13-deep rotation will get trimmed at some point, it’ll also help withstand unplanned absences.
I was fairly skeptical about this team heading into the year (the receipts are printed weekly in this column). A bunch of C+ or B- players around Curry and Green didn’t seem like a championship formula to me. The roster felt unfinished yet bloated at the same time.
What I didn’t factor in as much was how well all the pieces would fit and how much everyone would buy-in. Kerr is coaching his behind off and it’s showing.
The Warriors are definitely fun again, but they’re more than that. They’re a team no one is excited to play.
All-Star facelift
The NBA is reportedly is in serious discussions about a revamped All-Star format for the 2025 festivities in the Bay Area. The new format, per ESPN, would include three eight-man All-Star teams playing in a four-team tournament against the winner of the Rising Stars game.
There must be more in these “serious discussions” than has been revealed. Because if the big fix is simply turning the All-Star Game into a mini tournament, that’s not going to work.
Why would more meaningless games be better than just one? Are there more stakes?
At least they’re trying something. Anything.
At least it seems likely that Curry and Sabrina Ionescu will reprise their roles in the interleague 3-point shooting contest. If the league can put Steph and Sabrina vs. Klay Thompson and Caitlin Clark together, that’d be a massive draw.
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Look at Ty Jerome, man…
Kenny Atkinson saw how effective Ty Jerome could be in short bursts when he coached him with the Warriors, then he empowered him after taking the head coaching job in Cleveland.
Now Jerome is an off-the-board Sixth Man of the Year longshot.
While shooting 53.3% from 3, Jerome is averaging 9.8 points and 3.4 rebounds in 16.5 minutes per game for the 14-0 (!!) Cavs.
…so inspirational.
Grand Theft Baller
The craziest stat in the NBA so far this season comes from Atlanta.
Dyson Daniels, who came to the Hawks in the Dejounte Murray trade, has recorded 29 steals in his last five games. No other player in the league has more than 27 on the season.
Daniels’ game log is outrageous. The steals column reads six, six, six, seven and four. He’s an absolute menace, leading the league with 42 swipes on the year.
The Hawks have been desperate for a defensive-minded back court partner to pair with Trae Young for years. They may have found one.
The injury surge
According to analysis this week from Yahoo Sports, star players are on pace to miss over 1,000 games this season and injuries across the league are up 35% over last year.
Per league data, star players missed an average of 10.6 games per year. In the 2020s, it’s more than doubled.
No one has the exact explanation for the surge in injuries, this season or over time. The game is less physical than it used to be, equipment and technology are far better, players rest more often and training staffs feature the world’s brightest minds. Yet injuries have persisted.
For whatever it’s worth, my theory goes something like this:
In an era in which more people are playing basketball worldwide, players need to push themselves more and more, at younger and younger ages, to give themselves a chance to make it to the league. Those miles — multiple AAU games per day, lifting weights, etc — catch up on the back end. Then if you can make it to the NBA, the play style is faster and requires players to cover more space on the court than ever, straining muscle groups even more with additional training just to keep up. It’s similar to the phenomenon in baseball, where any hard-throwing pitcher is now bound for inevitable Tommy John surgery at one point or another: When humans max out their bodies over long periods of time, and then have to break through that ceiling, things break.
