Draymond Green and D'Angelo Russell will play during the Golden State Warriors' preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night, but Stephen Curry will sit, according to Mark Medina of The San Jose Mercury News.
The upcoming season will likely be business as usual for Green and Curry, who have won three championships together and made the finals each of the last five years.
However, with the departure of Kevin Durant and with Klay Thompson set to miss most of the 2019-20 campaign as he recovers from a torn ACL, the Warriors will need to look elsewhere for consistent scoring.
They are hoping Russell can help pick up some of that slack.
Golden State acquired Russell over the summer, a move that somewhat cushioned the blow of losing Durant.
Russell is coming off of a breakout 2018-19 campaign with the Brooklyn Nets in which he played 81 games and averaged 21.1 points, seven assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.2 steals over 30.2 minutes per game while shooting 43.4 percent from the floor, 36.9 percent from three-point range and 78 percent from the free-throw line.
However, Russell has never truly been in a winning situation in his NBA career, so playing for the Dubs will certainly be a new experience for him, and it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to playing alongside of Curry and, eventually, Thompson.
For the first time since heading into the 2014-15 campaign, the Warriors are not viewed as title contenders this season, with some going as far to say that they won't even make the playoffs.
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