Real basketball is finally here, and not a moment too soon for the Golden State Warriors. An otherwise banner offseason for the reigning champions was marred by Draymond Green's vicious punch to Jordan Poole, calling confidence of the Warriors' title defense into major question less than two weeks before it officially tipped off.
Golden State, apparently, has put that controversy in the rearview mirror.
Green is back in the fold after taking a week away from the team, while Poole and Andrew Wiggins each inked four-year extensions on Saturday. What those big-money deals, coming right on the heels of him sparking the biggest internal crisis of the Steve Kerr era, mean for Green's future in the Bay remains to be seen. Whether or not this season is their own last dance, though, rest assured the Warriors will be fighting like hell to end it by hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy once again.
Here are three bold predictions for Golden State as the 2022-23 season dawns.
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3. Jordan Poole wins Sixth Man of the Year
Poole isn't the most highly paid bench player in basketball quite yet. His $123 million extension doesn't kick in until next season, but that will hardly prevent the fourth-year guard from continuing to cement himself as the most dynamic reserve in basketball. Kerr didn't label the Warriors' best players the “foundational six” by accident. Poole might as well be a starter for Golden State.
The raw numbers that inevitably drive Sixth Man of the Year voting are bound to be there for Poole. He hit a relatively pedestrian 37.9% of his catch-and-shoot triples and 34.2% of his pull-up threes last season, per NBA.com/stats. Poole is simply a better shooter than that accuracy suggests, and could get easier looks from deep while sharing more court time with both Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson this season.
A second unit attack spearheaded by a heavy dose of ball screens between Poole and James Wiseman should be very dangerous. Poole's 56.2 effective field goal percentage as a pick-and-roll ball handler topped the league among playtype regulars a year ago, per NBA.com/stats, and Wiseman's rapid growth as both a screener and dive man in terms of pace and angles was on full display throughout the Dubs' exhibition slate.
FanDuel puts Poole's odds to win Sixth Man of the Year at +450, by far the highest in the league. Don't be surprised when Poole lives up to that billing by season's end, entrenching himself as not just the NBA's best non-starter, but one of its most efficient, variable and creative playmakers for himself and his teammates.
2. Klay Thompson gets back to vintage efficiency
The days of Thompson being basketball's preeminent flamethrower while doubling as an All-Defense caliber individual defender are over. Golden State doesn't task him with checking the opposition's top offensive threats on a regular basis anymore, and he was overmatched checking Ja Morant in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Thompson fared better in the back half of the NBA Finals guarding Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but he no longer has the quickness to be a true multi-positional stopper. The Warriors will be plenty happy with Thompson largely holding his own when forced to matchup with star wings, jostling with bigger players on the block and playing sound team defense.
It's the other end of the floor where he still has more room to grow after missing two-and-a-half seasons due to injury.
Thompson labored to below-average 54.7% true shooting in his long-awaited return last season, the result of even rougher shot selection than normal, completely uncharacteristic 36.4% accuracy on catch-and-shoot threes, per NBA.com/stats, and the second-lowest free throw rate of his career—all of which can be explained away by his steep re-acclimation to the speed and physicality of NBA basketball in wake of so much time away.
Thompson may not turn that tide in 2022-23 as quickly as Dub Nation wants. He only started scrimmaging with Golden State last week, with team doctors taking an ultra-cautious approach to his physical ramp up toward the 82-game grind. Thompson may still have some kinks to workout just yet. But the data on players recovering from ACL tears and Achilles ruptures makes clear their second season back from injury is regularly better than their first, and Thompson is coming off his first healthy summer in four years.
Expect Thompson to clean up his shot chart and attack open space with more confidence this season, paving the way for a significant uptick in offensive efficiency most accounted for by his jumper falling like it has for the vast majority of his career. Anything less than a true shooting percentage in the high 50s and spot-up three-point accuracy above 40% would be somewhat disappointing.
1. Health provided, the Warriors go back-to-back
No team in the league boasts a more talented, cohesive top-six than Golden State.
Wiggins and Kevon Looney played the best basketball of their careers during the Warriors' title run, establishing new expectations for baseline performance. Poole is clearly still on an upward trajectory. All signs point to Thompson's second season back from injury and rehab hell being a cut above his first. It's tough to remember after he roasted a historically elite defense en route to winning his first Finals MVP, but Curry shot below his normal standard throughout last season and entered the playoffs coming off injury.
There's a world that exists in which Green is the only member of that “foundational six” who takes a step back in 2022-23, and even that might be unlikely. He was a runaway favorite for Defensive Player of the Year before missing two months with a back injury beginning in early January, reaching that form again as the Dubs took home another title. Green insists those disc issues are behind him after a summer of diligent rehab, and Kerr singled Green out as playing “fantastic” early in training camp before he socked Poole.
Maybe the scariest part about Golden State for the rest of the league? Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and Wiseman all looked ready for rotation minutes during preseason play, while Donte DiVincenzo and JaMychal Green appear primed to wash away the stench of disappointing 2021-22 campaigns by playing key roles for the Warriors off the bench. There's a real chance the defending champions' supporting cast has leveled up this season.
They didn't see it coming
📺 @NBCSAuthentic pic.twitter.com/uJ7UzBalK0
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) October 15, 2022
But there's a legitimate case for Golden State to go back-to-back even irrespective of all that realistic optimism. The Warriors' net rating with Curry and Green on the floor last season was +14.7, per Cleaning the Glass, in the 98th percentile league-wide. Curry and Green's net rating in the playoffs without Kuminga and the departed Nemanja Bjelica playing with them was nearly as dominant.
Is there a tandem in basketball who could warrant more trust under the postseason microscope than Curry and Green?
Maybe lingering fallout from Green's punch and the prospect of his departure after this season renders that rhetorical question moot. Guaranteeing otherwise is naive. But Golden State fell back on its time-honored culture of chemistry and success in deciding the terms of Green's return and non-punishment, a reminder the Warriors really may stand apart when it comes to cutting out the noise and focusing on the collective big picture.
Health provided, the Dubs will win an incredible fifth title in nine seasons come June. At least the franchise-altering question of where Golden State and Green go from there will be determined in the afterglow of yet another championship, right?
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