Over a month removed from re-joining the Golden State Warriors, Gary Payton II has yet to suit up with his former team this season, and there's still no concrete timetable for his return.

The defending champions were out-shot from beyond the arc in last week's losses to the Memphis Grizzlies and Atlanta Hawks. A lack of collective size has been exposed on the glass of late, the Warriors allowing eight of their last nine opponents to grab at least 30% of their own misses. Draymond Green has already been suspended one game for hitting the technical foul threshold, and Kevon Looney is dealing with nagging back pain that's left him questionable to play on multiple recent injury reports.

Making burgeoning fan criticism of Golden State moving James Wiseman at the trade deadline even louder? The former No. 2 overall pick is putting up big raw numbers with the Detroit Pistons, averaging 17.0 points, 10.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks on 56.4% shooting over the last seven games despite playing just 29.3 minutes per night.

There's no doubting the Warriors would be better off employing another proven two-way option up front.

JaMychal Green has come alive offensively after a rough start, hitting open threes and finishing with authority around the rim, but is no longer a capable switch defender and doesn't have the length or girth to make his presence felt in the paint defensively. While his -23.6 net rating since the All-Star break is inevitably noisy, that ugly team-worst number still speaks for itself.

What happens if Draymond or Looney gets in foul trouble or suffers injury come the postseason? They'll get pretty much every available minute at center in the playoffs, but it sure would be nice if Golden State had another experienced big man with positional size to play the five when Draymond or Looney is forced to the bench.

But Wiseman's solid box score production and more sustained flashes of all-around offensive dynamism with the Pistons hardly mean he'd be well-suited to playing that role for the Warriors as they chase another title. Golden State doesn't need a center who has the nascent skill to score on the block, face-up for perimeter jumpers or rake-and-take in transition.

What this team needs more than anything else behind Draymond and Looney is reliable rim-protection and defensive rebounding, areas in which James Wiseman has continued to struggle with Detroit amid mounting fanfare of his counting stats.

The Pistons own a porous 118.6 defensive rating—just better than the San Antonio Spurs' league-worst mark, per NBA.com/stats—over the last 12 games with Wiseman on the floor, all of which he's started. That number dips all the way down to 105.6 when he's been on the bench, yielding an easy team-high net defensive rating of +13.0.

Dubs fans know the genesis of that massive discrepancy all too well.

Opponents are shooting a whopping 10.6% better at the rim against Detroit with Wiseman in the game, per Cleaning the Glass, also taking slightly more shots from that hallowed ground. His 69.7% shooting allowed at the basket over that timeframe ranks fourth-worst among the 37 players contesting at least five such attempts per game, according to NBA.com/stats. The Pistons' defensive rebound rate is 2.1% lower with Wiseman manning the middle, too.

It's still too early to count out Wiseman going forward as a positive contributor at the highest levels. Learning the intricacies of NBA defense takes time for all young players, but especially big men, and Wiseman's career path dating back to his lone season at Memphis has been beset by starts and stops. He's nowhere near a finished product.

But the Warriors need to win right now, and nothing he's done in Detroit—with a much longer leash than he ever got in the Bay—indicates Wiseman is a more sound, consistent back-line defender than earlier this season when he was an abject liability. It's also not like Wiseman's individual scoring ability would be prioritized even if he was able to get on the floor for Golden State. Kerr's offense requires quick, canny decision-making from bigs as passers and screeners, nuance Wiseman clearly needs time to grasp.

There's still a chance the Dubs come to “regret” trading Wiseman at the deadline, as Joe Lacob admitted in early March. Any notion that possible misgiving has already been cemented by James Wiseman putting up hollow numbers for one of the league's worst teams not only ignores Golden State's win-now mandate during Steph Curry's extended prime, but his inability to actually impact winning for the Pistons—the very same trend that marked his ill-fated tenure with the Warriors.