Maybe the Golden State Warriors' just weren't good enough to repeat as champions last season, but talent definitely wasn't their biggest problem. As young players pushed for bigger roles owed to their draft slot and Draymond Green's preseason punch to Jordan Poole further fractured the locker room, the Warriors never came close to managing the overall connectedness and continuity that's a prerequisite for all teams that end up hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
After trading Poole for Chris Paul and bringing in more veterans in free agency, there's an argument to be made Golden State's personnel is actually less impressive on paper than it was this time last year. But the real NBA isn't 2K or the trade machine, where raw talent always trumps team fit and chemistry. The Warriors are betting their on- and off-court alchemy will be much healthier in 2023-24 than it was last season, a development that would allow their whole to become much greater than the sum of individual parts.
Steering that optimism alongside Steve Kerr and Stephen Curry this season are Paul and Draymond Green, two of the most competitive, intense leaders in basketball—whose potentially fraught interpersonal dynamic Shaun Livingston believes looms extremely large to Golden State's success.
“The key is Draymond and CP being able to coexist,” Livingston, who left his front office job with the team this summer to spend more time with his family, told Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “Both are dominant personalities. Both are leaders in their way. Both are very prideful players with big egos. They’ve exceeded their potential and expectations. Can they coexist in one locker room?”
Paul, Green and the Warriors at large have already addressed their contentious pre-trade relationship ad nauseam this summer. Every indication is that this team's stars have already begun putting past differences aside, working hard to coalesce toward the common goal of being the league's last squad standing next June.
Physical and mental rigors of the regular season are bound to test Golden State's best-laid plans for harmony among their future Hall-of-Famers, though. Will Paul and Green be able to see the championship forest through the trees of inevitable friction across the 82-game grind?
Two of Livingston's three rings with the Warriors were won under similar duress, as Kevin Durant acclimated to life with the Dubs. We'll soon find out if Paul's integration goes just as smoothly.
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