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The nagging back issue that allowed the Golden State Warriors to sign De'Anthony Melton for the mid-level exception flared up again ahead of Tuesday's preseason victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. Brandin Podziemski joined him on the sidelines at Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena, waiting to be fitted for a protective mask after breaking his nose during the Dubs' exhibition win just 48 hours earlier.
The long, athletic, defensive-minded starting lineup Steve Kerr deployed in Sin City might have been the result of their absences more than anything else. But necessity is the mother of invention, and Golden State seems to have unearthed another viable, potentially dangerous quintet Tuesday night amid its weeks-long search for an ironclad starting five.
Pushing Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga down the positional spectrum—specifically due to Podziemski and Melton's maladies or not—probably won't be the franchise-changing development of this time 10 years ago, when Draymond Green stepped into the starting five for an injured David Lee. There's not enough runway left in Curry and Green's careers for them to build another dynasty in the Bay.
Golden State's future Hall-of-Famers are definitely still good enough to make some noise in a loaded West with the right pieces around them, though, and there's a clear case to be made the Warriors found that alchemy in Vegas.
It's time for Draymond Green to play power forward
Golden State didn't avoid playing Wiggins and Kuminga last season nearly as much as the current consensus suggests. That tandem indeed yielded untenable outcomes early in the year, when Wiggins was playing some of the most listless and damaging basketball of his career. But once Green returned to the starting lineup in late January after serving an indefinite suspension for putting Rudy Gobert in chokehold, the Dubs began turning their season around on the back of units featuring Wiggins and Kuminga.
Why? Green's presence at small-ball center. The Warriors finished with a gaudy +12.9 net rating with Wiggins, Kuminga and Green together last season, per pbpstats.com, playing dominant basketball on both sides of the floor.
Both Green and Kerr have been adamant leading up to the regular season they want to spare him the wear-and-tear that inevitably comes with playing a lot of center. Though still among the league's elite defensively, Green is 34 now, lacking the surprising lift and sudden quickness that used to make him a game-changing rim-protector and airtight switch defender.
It's actually a testament to his all-time processing speed and sweeping influence as a back-line quarterback that Golden State remained so solid on defense last season with Green at center despite him allowing a 60.5% shooting at the rim, per NBA.com/stats. That number was a mind-bending 51.1% in 2022-23, almost two points lower than Victor Wembanyama's as a rookie after the San Antonio Spurs finally wised up and permanently moved him to center.
It'd be pretty surprising by now if the Dubs began 2024-25 playing small. A slimmed-down Kevon Looney looks much more mobile than he was last season and spent the summer jacking up 400-500 threes per day, but Trayce Jackson-Davis still provides this team more two-way dynamism. Going extra big with Wiggins and Kuminga on the perimeter only exacerbates the Warriors' need for halfcourt spacing, and Jackson-Davis' proven ability as a lob-catcher and explosive finisher is far more threatening than Looney's hopeful shooting chops.
There's no data available on the lineup of Curry, Wiggins, Kuminga, Green and Jackson-Davis because they didn't share the floor at all last season. Kuminga got most if not all of his scant minutes at small forward in the early going, long before Jackson-Davis established himself as a rotation player, let alone starter. Evidence of that lineup's chances for success over the 82-game grind will be limited to practices, Golden State's last two preseason games and on-paper intrigue.
Jonathan Kuminga's evolution, Andrew Wiggins' bounce-back loom large
Kerr expressed optimism when asked what he saw from the Warriors' fifth different starting five in as many exhibition games, focusing specifically on Kuminga and Wiggins.
“It looked good. The key is JK and Wiggs running the floor. It puts a lot of pressure on teams,” he said on the postgame podium, per Sam Gordon of the San Francisco Chronicle. “They set a good tone tonight the way they just got downhill with or without the ball; they were gone. I really like the way both those guys played and the impact they can make with their athleticism and force.”
The Warriors have been harping on the need for transition opportunities and overall pace since before training camp tipped off in Hawaii. They fulfilled it early and often on Tuesday, the starters consistently leveraging the athleticism of Kuminga and Wiggins, point-forward capacity of Green and imminent threat Curry poses to defenses without the ball every time he steps past halfcourt.
Kuminga's evolution is the swing factor here. It's no secret that Kerr needs to be absolutely convinced the 22-year-old can play small forward effectively before regularly slotting him next to a pair of bigs.
His jumper is most pertinent, and the preseason suggests Kuminga has truly leveled up as a shooter, letting fly off the catch without hesitation and even confidently stepping into hang-dribble threes in isolation and pick-and-roll. How he impacts the game as more of an advantage-creator than play-finisher looms almost as large, and Tuesday's game provided more evidence Kuminga has taken offseason strides in that role, too.
Still, prioritizing defense, size and overall talent by starting Wiggins, Kuminga and Jackson-Davis alongside Curry and Green will only work if the Dubs don't sacrifice too much on the other end. Spacing is paramount in the modern NBA, and there's not a single plus long-range shooter other than the greatest one ever in that prospective starting five.
Jackson-Davis' range doesn't go past six feet. Defenders won't exactly stick close to him off-ball or close-out hard to Green, but his shot still looks solid after hitting a career-best 39.5% on triples last season. Smart teams will always be wary of the vaunted two-man game between he and Curry, too, paying him a bit more attention beyond the arc than his reputation warrants.
If Kuminga really is a reliable, somewhat versatile three-point shooter now, the onus falls on Wiggins to knock down long balls like a typical shooting guard for Golden State's peak lineup to really hum. He clanked all three of his attempts versus the Lakers, but Kerr seems confident Wiggins will enjoy a bounce-back effort from deep in 2024-25.
“I've already told him: six three-pointers a game,” he recently told NBC Sports Bay Area's Kerith Burke of Wiggins. “He is a really good 3-point shooter. It was down a little bit last year. But since he’s been here—39, 40 percent. I want a lot of threes, and I want a lot of attacks to the rim.”
Wiggins played with verve and intensity during his exhibition debut Tuesday night, supporting widespread internal talk of his strong performance at offseason workouts. Even if he can't completely tap back into the on-ball exploits that has Kerr dreaming of Wiggins becoming Golden State's No. 2 scorer this season, he'll still play a crucial two-way role for this team whenever he's on the court.
This is type of sequence that surely has Kerr thinking hard about starting Steph-Wiggs-JK-Dray-TJD.
Wiggs switches onto AD in post, forcing tough 2 w/some help from Dray. JK flies in for board, pushes for early offense. Dray initiates on strong wing, creating corner 3 for Steph. pic.twitter.com/EFuF96XzOq
— Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) October 16, 2024
Entire thing hinges on Wiggs guarding D-Lo instead of Bron, given JK's presence. Even w/Melton in Wiggs' place, can't switch initial screen for AD.
Lack of playmaking is biggest worry. Pushing pace, getting into early offense and leveraging Steph's off-ball threat alleviates it.
— Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) October 16, 2024
Size, athleticism and defense is Warriors' best hope of scraping ceiling
Shooting and playmaking is paramount for every team in the NBA, but especially these Warriors. They'll need the whole to be more than the sum of their individual parts this season to be a top-10 offense. There isn't a plausible starting five for the Dubs that provides less theoretical spacing and the collective court sense needed to play in those tight confines than the group that took the floor for tipoff in Sin City.
The extended primes of Curry and Green are no time to play it safe. After clinging to homegrown talent this summer in failed attempts to land Lauri Markkanen and Paul George, the Warriors must try to maximize their deep, varied talent on hand to solidify themselves as a top-six team in the West ahead of what could be a transformational trade deadline in early February.
Obvious realities of its low floor be damned, that means the Warriors striving to scrape their ceiling by settling on a starting five of Curry, Wiggins, Kuminga, Green and Jackson-Davis to tipoff the regular season.
