There's no mystery surrounding the Golden State Warriors' starting five nor sixth man as the season rapidly approaches. Steve Kerr's “foundational six” are set in stone, comprising arguably the best blend of talent, cohesion and tangible chemistry among all teams' top players league-wide.

But Golden State won't win back-to-back titles for the second time during its ongoing dynasty unless players beyond Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole cement themselves as impact rotation players. The reserves who primarily occupied that space last season, Gary Payton II and Otto Porter, are gone, ceding the way for the Warriors' prized young prospects and free agency reclamation projects to emerge as vital members of this team's core.

As Golden State continues holding unofficial preseason workouts before preparations for 2022-23 begin in real earnest on Saturday, here's the Warriors biggest battle to watch in training camp.

Warriors' biggest training camp battle ahead of 2022-23 NBA season

Donte DiVincenzo vs. Moses Moody

Don't get it twisted. Both DiVincenzo and Moody will get regular playing time during the regular season, shoo-ins for Kerr's rotation given their two-way role flexibility and natural comfort playing next to Golden State's stars. Curry, turning 35 in March, could average the fewest minutes per game of his career, and it's not like the Warriors will push Thompson beyond his limits while he finishes re-acclimating from the torn ACL and ruptured Achilles that cost him two-and-a-half seasons of his prime.

But Payton quickly separated himself from Golden State's reserve guards last season after winning a roster spot in training camp, then helped turn the NBA Finals with his devastating on-ball and help defense upon returning from injury in Game 2 against the Boston Celtics. DiVincenzo, and especially Moody, aren't Payton. Young Glove had a legitimate All-Defense case in 2021-22, ranking second in deflections per-48 minutes among all rotation players, according to NBA.com/stats, and fifth overall in FiveThirtyEight's Defensive RAPTOR.

Wiggins will start games on the opposition's star ball handler and Thompson proved in the back half of the Finals that he can still be a quality individual option on the likes of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Most teams with aspirations like Golden State's will have multiple high-level playmakers, though, and Wiggins will always get the toughest assignment in crunch-time. Ideally, the Warriors would spare Thompson a tough defensive assignment and keep Green as an off-ball rover in those high-leverage situations, too.

Enter DiVincenzo or Moody? Jonathan Kuminga may be a better one-on-one defender than either of them, but shooting limitations and his penchant for leaky help defense will likely keep him on the bench in big moments. No one else on the roster provides the potential role-playing utility of DiVincenzo and Moody when Kerr goes small late.

DiVincenzo, to be clear, probably enters training camp with a leg up on Moody to become Golden State's de facto seventh man. Superior lateral quickness makes him a better defender of small guards, as does DiVincenzo's ability to stay attached to his man while navigating screens off the ball.

Moody's precocious basketball intellect was heralded this summer by Green and Andre Iguodala, an attribute reflected in his quick grasp of the Warriors' help concepts defensively. But if defense decides who Kerr will trust most, experience and roster fit suggests Moody will fall behind DiVincenzo in the rotation hierarchy.

One problem: DiVincenzo shot an ugly 40% in the paint and just 32% on above-the-back threes last season, per NBA.com/stats. Moody, by contrast, was at 59.3% from the paint and 30-of-72 on above-break triples as a rookie, good for impressive 41.7% shooting.

The sample sizes for both players were relatively small, and it bears mentioning that DiVincenzo was still recovering from a foot injury after being traded from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Sacramento Kings at the deadline—not exactly the friendly offensive confines Moody enjoyed in Golden State.

Still, DiVincenzo just isn't a disruptive enough defender nor explosive enough finisher to compensate for his lack of shooting stretch the way Payton did with the Warriors. Smart defenses will make him prove it before treating him like a viable long-range threat, mucking up spacing that Green, Looney and Kuminga will already be compromising every time they're on the floor. It would be surprising if that same dynamic applied to Moody, especially after he showed improved three-level scoring chops at Summer League.

There's no denying the Warriors would be best off if Moody—or less likely, Kuminga—forced his way ahead of DiVincenzo in the rotation, better insulating the respective defensive deficiencies of Curry and Poole with a horde of like-sized wings. That's still the preferred blueprint in Golden State. But Moody is just 20 years old, and could always lack a degree of quick-twitch athleticism needed to thrive in a switch-heavy defensive system.

DiVincenzo, remember, was a key starter for the eventual-champion Bucks before being sidelined by injury in the second round of the 2021 playoffs. Maybe Golden State's unique ecosystem and a bill of health closer to 100 percent helps him regain the form that once made DiVincenzo a fixture of the Bucks' present and future.

Either way, keep a close eye on this under-the-radar battle once camp tips off on Saturday. It may not seem like it during the 82-game grind, but who sits higher between DiVincenzo and Moody in the Warriors' pecking order come playoff time could loom large to their chances of winning a fifth championship in nine years.