Benching Klay Thompson won't fix what ails the Golden State Warriors. Steve Kerr hasn't repeatedly brushed off the notion of replacing him as a starter with Jordan Poole out of loyalty to a four-time champion who's still working his way back from two-and-a-half seasons lost to injury.
The Warriors' optimal blend of shooting, defense and playmaking means leaving Thompson in the starting lineup, tweaking the rotation to make life easier on Poole as a second unit alpha dog and playing circumstances of matchups, time and score from there.
Golden State's starters boast a +21.1 net rating, per Cleaning the Glass, fourth in the league among high-minute units accomplished by elite-level play on both sides of the ball. Swapping Poole with Thompson alongside Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney has produced predictable results.
That quintet is scoring at a clip slightly better than the starting five, but surrenders over 13 points more per 100 possessions on the other end.
Warriors starters still dominant, sporting +21.1 net rating w/elite play on both ends, per @cleantheglass.
Replacing Klay w/Poole? +9.9 net, change accounted for by DRtg rising to 119.4.
Small sample for Poole data, but still tough to ignore when it aligns with expectations. pic.twitter.com/CdoqNa431K
— Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) November 17, 2022
Making the change the loudest members of Dub Nation are clamoring for wouldn't just risk effectiveness of the only lineup keeping Golden State afloat, though. Poole's skill set simply makes him much better suited to captaining second-unit offenses, especially at this advanced stage of Thompson's career.
Thompson's never been a playmaker for others, benefiting his teammates most with off-ball movement that stokes fear and confusion in the heart of defenses as opposed to value-add passes. Poole isn't a pure point guard, but has the court vision and passing flair to create easy looks elsewhere regardless.
He's almost as threatening as Thompson sprinting around screens, and can bend defenses by creasing the paint off the bounce when the Warriors' beautiful game fails produce the openings it always does with Curry on the floor.
Thompson is averaging 3.7 drives per game—the same amount as Donte DiVincenzo, not exactly Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a penetrator, in nearly double the playing time—and has taken a mind-numbingly low nine(!) shots from the restricted area this season, per NBA.com/stats.
Even if he was forcing defensive rotations by getting to the rim at a meaningful rate, Thompson certainly isn't capable of making passes like this.
Thompson and Poole, basically, won't be switching places. Golden State will only reach its championship ceiling this season if both shrug off early-season struggles to thrive in their current spots as a fully entrenched starter and game-changing sixth man.
But just because they're locked into those roles doesn't mean they shouldn't be adjusted. For Thompson, that means copping to realities of his damaging combination of usage and efficiency, growing comfortable with his diminished post-injury status at 32 years old.
“He took a lot of quick shots. Klay continues to come down and try to shoot his way out of an early-season slump every night,” Steve Kerr said after the Warriors' 130-119 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday. “He's pressing, and he was pressing tonight. That guy's got a lot of weight on his shoulders, with the injuries and where he feels like he is right now, where he wants to be. We have to help Klay, help him get out of his own way.”
Kerr has talked a lot in the season's early going about his team's problems “connecting” the game. Feedback loops from one end to the other and vice versa have always been a driving force behind Golden State's dynasty, easy scores allowing the Warriors to set their halfcourt defense and a string of stops letting them push the ball up the floor to attack early in the shot clock.
He lamented that elusive dynamic again on Wednesday, calling out Golden State for a lack of “collective grit” that is built from a two-way commitment to playing the right way.
“Every single player has a story, has something that's going on in their life,” Kerr said. “If the group finds a way to put all that stuff in the backseat and commit to just winning the game, magic can happen.”
That definitely didn't come to pass on this telling third quarter sequence from Thompson, after the Warriors had quelled a Phoenix run to establish some much-needed momentum.
Check out the body language of Curry and Green once Thompson clanks a second consecutive contested triple, yielding a pair of possessions that included not a single pass beyond halfcourt during the most important stretch of the game.
Yikes.
The Warriors, to a man, have expressed unyielding confidence that Thompson will eventually find his shooting stroke. Both Kerr and Curry reiterated that optimism again on the postgame podium, even while offering more constructive criticism of Thompson than at any other point so far this season.
Still, it's obvious Golden State's power brokers have realized Thompson must pull back on the hyper-aggressive shot selection that helped cement him as a top-five shooter of all time before he went down with injury.
“Just let the game come to you. Have a little bit of patience and trust in how we play as a team, and creating good shots,” Curry said of advice he'd give to Thompson. “His presence out there changes the game just with his two feet on the floor, 'cause he requires a lot of attention no matter what the numbers look like. It's gonna come. Just trust it.”
@armstrongwinter digs into three key takeaways from another dispiriting Warriors loss.https://t.co/tb2xRTHbk5
— Warriors Nation (@WarriorNationCP) November 17, 2022
Thompson's 46.7 true shooting percentage is the lowest among all players who use at least 20% of their team's possessions, per research at Stathead Basketball. More depressing? Thompson's usage is all the way up at 25.7%, higher than his mark in both 2017-18 and 2018-19, when he was still producing like a star.
Changing his offensive approach won't be easy for Thompson, and could prove impossible. He's played this way his entire career, en route to the Hall-of-Fame because of it.
But it's undeniable that tightening his shot selection and scaling back his usage would help the Warriors climb from their 6-9 hole in the standings, and not just because they have the individual talent and offensive infrastructure in place to re-allocate touches in a more efficient manner.
Obviously, shooting his way back to stardom isn't working for Thompson. Finding his jumper in the flow of the game, on the other hand, could be exactly what prompts the floodgates to finally open.
“Klay's still got it. But right now he's playing in a frustrated manner. It's leading to a lot of quick shots,” Kerr said. “He knows that, and we gotta help him through that. We know how much Klay has done for this franchise and our city, the Bay Area. We're gonna help him through it and he's gonna get there.”
Follow Us
Subscribe