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USATSI

If you thought Chris Paul looked weird in a Golden State Warriors uniform, lay your eyes on this:

This will never be normal. Everybody's going to have to get used to it, though, and maybe, if both Klay Thompson and the Warriors have better seasons than the last one they spent together, it'll be clear that the split was for the best. As much as Thompson -- and Paul, even -- will be missed, Golden State could very well be a better, more well-rounded team in 2024-25.

Last year's Warriors went out with a whimper against the Sacramento Kings in the play-in round -- a forgettable game in which Thompson missed all 10 shots he took -- but the case for a bounceback is compelling: Stephen Curry is coming off his astounding performance in Paris, Draymond Green likely won't get suspended twice again and the three new vets (De'Anthony Melton, Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield) can all help in different ways. If Andrew Wiggins defends, rebounds and shoots at the level he's shown he's capable of, and if there's some internal improvement, maybe the Warriors will be battling Thompson's new team for playoff positioning near the top of the West.

Once again, though, Steve Kerr has a peculiar puzzle to put together. Can Brandin Podziemski be penciled in as a starter? Can Jonathan Kuminga make 3s at a good enough clip to play small forward? Should Green start at center sometimes, all of the time or none of the time? Golden State has one of the deepest rosters in the league -- I've already mentioned eight players who can reasonably expect to at least expect to be in the rotation, and you can add Trayce Jackson-Davis, Kevon Looney, Gary Payton II and Moses Moody to the list -- but, beyond Curry, the team doesn't boast the same top-end talent as many of its competitors in the West. At their most cohesive under Kerr, the Warriors could make up for that with stingy defense and an offense unlike anybody else's. It is unclear whether or not that is still possible. 

The state of play

Last year: The Warriors were pretty good, but not good enough to overcome Green missing 27 games, mostly because of suspensions. Curry had another All-NBA season, Kuminga earned a bigger role and Podziemski and Jackson-Davis had impressive rookie years, but Wiggins wasn't himself, Thompson wasn't happy and Kerr was constantly searching for reliable lineups. They finished 46-36 (9th on offense, 15th on defense) and lost to the Kings in the Play-In Tournament.

The offseason: The Splash Brothers separated, and the front office couldn't close deals for Paul George or Lauri Markkanen. Letting CP3 walk wasn't a part of Plan A, and neither was bringing back Wiggins, but the Warriors rebounded pretty nicely: Melton will be a bargain for a year, like Donte DiVincenzo was in 2022-23; Anderson will remind the vets of Shaun Livingston and Hield will love running split action with Curry.

Best-case scenario for 2024-25: The Warriors don't quite match the 18-2 start that showed they were serious in 2021-22, but Wiggins returns to form defensively, Kuminga's shot improves and the vibes are the best they've been for years, allowing them to approach trade season from a position of strength; minutes before the deadline, Dunleavy pulls off a blockbuster trade that A) relieves Curry of the responsibility to carry the offense, B) simplifies the rotation dramatically and C) makes a fifth title seem like more than a pipe dream.

Worst-case scenario for 2024-25: The Warriors aren't outright bad, but they're just weird, as Looney proves to be a more reliable shooter than Kuminga, Anderson is marginalized for the sake of spacing and Hield is marginalized for the sake of defense; everyone other than Curry sees his name in the rumor mill, but no one actually gets traded at the deadline and they end up in the play-in again.

The conversation

Warriors believer: I kind of like that everybody's overlooking the Warriors right now. It reminds me so much of 2021-22. That year, they were also coming off a play-in loss, but their record the previous season hardly reflected the quality of the team -- they'd won 15 of their final 20 games. Last season, as I'm sure you know, they went 25-11 down the stretch, and the roster they have now is better than that one. I'm bummed Klay won't be in the Bay Area for his entire career, but swapping him, Dario Saric and a 39-year-old CP3 for De'Anthony Melton, Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield is a huge win. A full season of Draymond and progression from the young guys will obviously help, too.

Warriors skeptic: Your premise is that the Warriors are somehow being overlooked? This team has missed the playoffs in three of the past five seasons, and yet they're always covered as if they're one small tweak away from winning a title. I hate to say it, but this is what the death of a dynasty looks like. If this is like 2021-22, who is going to tie lineups together like Otto Porter? Who is bringing the combination of shooting and defense that Peak Andrew Wiggins and Post-Peak Klay Thompson brought in those Finals? This team doesn't even have a stretch big like Nemanja Bjelica! Every year it gets harder to get away with playing multiple non-shooters at the same time, and the Warriors keep coming back with all these guys who have zero gravity. Individually, I like Draymond, Kuminga, TJD, GPII, Looney and Anderson. Having all of them on the same team is insane.

Warriors believer: Insane? Check the numbers. With Draymond and Kuminga on the court, the Warriors outscored opponents by 9.4 points per 100 possessions last season. With Draymond and TJD on the court, they outscored opponents by 10.6 per 100. Shooting isn't everything.

Warriors skeptic: Yeah, the Warriors beat up on some bad teams when they started Draymond and TJD together, but it's not going to work most of the time. All of that "success" was about defense; they scored 109.8 points per 100 possessions with them both on the court, which would have been a totally fine number a decade earlier. Last year, the woeful Washington Wizards scored more efficiently than that. As for the Draymond-Kuminga lineups, you surely know the problem here: That combo only worked with Draymond at the 5 spot. If you're counting on "a full season of Draymond," don't you think asking him to primarily play center is a bit much? He's turning 35 this season.

Warriors believer: We are talking about the best smallball 5 in NBA history, the man who made the term mainstream and inspired copycats all around the league. It would be crazy not to play him at center. And if Steve Kerr does decide to start him there, it doesn't mean he'll be boxing out behemoths for 30-plus minutes every game. Green is just as strong as most "bigs," and, if the end of last season is any indication, he'll also play plenty of minutes alongside TJD. The Green-Looney pairing might be more viable this time around, too, if Looney is as serious as he sounds about getting 3s up.

Warriors skeptic: We've heard this Looney stuff before. I hope he's the next Brook Lopez/Al Horford, but I wouldn't bet on it. As much as I love his high school mixtape -- "Is Kevon Looney the next Kevin Durant?" --  I must point out that, unlike Lopez and Horford before their respective transformations, he hasn't even been much of a midrange jump shooter in the NBA. (To be exact, he has made a total of 52 long 2s on 150 career attempts, per Cleaning The Glass.) And even if he started the season knocking them down at a decent rate, how long would it take for defenses to actually pay attention to him out there? The same goes for Kuminga's supposedly improved jumper, obviously, and it's telling that, even after a good-by-his-standards shooting season from Draymond last year, we don't even talk about him as a real threat from 3-point range anymore.

Warriors believer: What's your point? Since when have the Warriors had five amazing 3-point shooters on the floor? If all people remember about their championship teams is Steph and Klay and KD raining 3s, they've got the wrong idea. The defense was the foundation of the dynasty, and the offense was more about their collective basketball IQ and passing than sheer shooting ability. Shooting matters, obviously -- that's why the Hield signing was smart -- but what I love about this roster is that it feels like a classic Warriors team. Bob Myers may not be involved anymore, but you can tell there's institutional knowledge here. The front office learned from the D'Angelo Russell experience, the Kelly Oubre experience and the Jordan Poole experience. It went after guys who fit this style of play. If anything, the roster is too deep with rotation-caliber players. Personally, I'm worried about what the offseason additions mean for the playing time of Moses Moody and GPII, both of whom I'd trust in a playoff game right now. This is not the worst problem to have.

Warrior skeptic: Ugh, there's part of me respects the Warriors for sticking to their guns -- they clearly still believe they can make up for iffy spacing by screening well, passing well and having Steph run around all over the place. There's another part of me, though, that finds this almost arrogant. Not only are they the team that weaponized the 3-point shot more than anybody at the beginning of this era, they're the team that, just last season, decided to ignore Jaylen freaking Brown on the perimeter because they were so desperate to roam off of somebody. (They also sort of invented the roaming thing.) At some point, instead of continually testing the limits of Steph's ability to lift up flawed offensive lineups, shouldn't the front office make Steph's life easier? He deserves better than this, doesn't he?

Warriors believer: You think Steph could benefit from having more shooting around him? You think it would help to have another star playmaker to draw the defense's attention? What brilliant, novel ideas! If only Mike Dunleavy had you at his side! Unfortunately, the reality is that opposing teams aren't rushing to help the Warriors out. We know that the front office tried to make at least two splashy moves in the offseason, and we know that they didn't work out. Sometimes, though, the best trades are the ones you don't make. I wouldn't have given up Podz, either, and I think it's totally reasonable to bet on both a Wiggins revival and a Kuminga breakout rather than trading them for less than you think they're worth. Maybe the right time to strike is this coming deadline. Maybe this group will jell so well that a trade isn't even necessary.

Warriors skeptic: If this groups jells, a trade will be even more necessary! Listen to Steph himself. At media day, he didn't say the team is a contender. He said, "We can be a relevant team early and give ourselves a chance to compete and then assess where we are." If everything goes right -- i.e. Steph and Dray stay healthy, Wiggins bounces back, Podziemski makes a leap, Kuminga makes his 3s, the rotation works itself out quickly -- it's reasonable to think the Warriors could potentially win 50-plus games. But winning 50-plus games is going to be extremely difficult for any team in the West, as almost nobody is tanking. And if the goal is to actually compete for a championship? Look at the Boston Celtics' top six last year. Look at what the Oklahoma City Thunder have built. Look at the Philadelphia 76ers' Big 3. If you're telling me the Warriors are just one trade away from being on that level, the trade better bring back Durant.