xdrta+ wrote:Warriors Analyst wrote:whatisacenter wrote:
how does making the playoffs this season help the Warriors win a ring? Unless some ring chasers look at the play-in Warriors and jump to join them on the cheap the best way to get back to the top is by the Minny pick conveying and the Warriors own pick being as valuable as possible.
Ring chasers are exactly what we need. I absolutely want the Minnesota pick to convey. But I don't want to be in the position of relying on that to happen. We should not be planning around a best case scenario and banking on the Minnesota pick to give us the assets to go big fish hunting. This team could have been six wins better, this year, with better coaching and rotations. Kerr was pretty open about the fact that he wasn't playing his best lineups earlier in the year and it's clear that front office politics were playing into coaching decisions.
So imagine now that Kerr had actually... chased wins with coaching decisions and we'd had someone like Serge Ibaka or Marc Gasol or Nicolas Batum this year. Even without Klay, I think it's not out of the question that this team could have been sitting around 40-20 this year in that scenario. But when Klay went down before the season, it clearly had an impact on our ability to get ring chasers. The best way to bring those vets into the fold is a playoff run that reminds them that Steph Curry is an immortal who can put the fear of god in any team, even with the most meager of supporting casts.
The whole "chasing wins" thing keeps being taken out of context. It was all about how much Steph would play, not about coaching decisions, or development, or whatever else people thought. The quote was
“For me, for our organization, we're not throwing Steph out there for 40 minutes to chase wins. We got another game tomorrow. We want Steph to be playing at a high level for many years so we're gonna stay very disciplined and try to keep him at that 34-35-minute mark."
Now, maybe you disagree with that and think Steph should have been playing 40 minutes game. OK, but that's what 'chasing wins' was about.
My focus here is less on Curry's minutes and more on rotation decisions. Kerr said early in the year, when our starting lineup with Oubre/Wiseman was playing worse than the Process era Sixers, that he knew this wasn't his best 5 players. We watched JTA get DNP's for a big chunk of the season only for it to be crystal clear that he is at worst, our 5th best player. Oubre started for a long time, which I can make sense of politically and in the locker room. But my bigger point here is that the 5th/6th seed were very attainable this year and that a playoff push probably makes us get a foot in the door with better vets next offseason.
whatisacenter wrote:Warriors Analyst wrote:whatisacenter wrote:
how does making the playoffs this season help the Warriors win a ring? Unless some ring chasers look at the play-in Warriors and jump to join them on the cheap the best way to get back to the top is by the Minny pick conveying and the Warriors own pick being as valuable as possible.
Ring chasers are exactly what we need. I absolutely want the Minnesota pick to convey. But I don't want to be in the position of relying on that to happen. We should not be planning around a best case scenario and banking on the Minnesota pick to give us the assets to go big fish hunting. This team could have been six wins better, this year, with better coaching and rotations. Kerr was pretty open about the fact that he wasn't playing his best lineups earlier in the year and it's clear that front office politics were playing into coaching decisions.
So imagine now that Kerr had actually... chased wins with coaching decisions and we'd had someone like Serge Ibaka or Marc Gasol or Nicolas Batum this year. Even without Klay, I think it's not out of the question that this team could have been sitting around 40-20 this year in that scenario. But when Klay went down before the season, it clearly had an impact on our ability to get ring chasers. The best way to bring those vets into the fold is a playoff run that reminds them that Steph Curry is an immortal who can put the fear of god in any team, even with the most meager of supporting casts.
I agree that the team needs some vets to join them in the offseason but I am not expecting the Warriors to put a scare in anybody in the playoffs when the opposing teams will leave Draymond and Kevon while swarming Curry.
I also did not have a problem with Kerr playing the lineups he did earlier in the season when he was trying to get Wiggins, Oubre and Wiseman used to playing with Curry in the Warriors system. I see Wiggins playing at a much more comfortable level in the system at the moment and unfortunately Oubre never figured it out and Wiseman was snakebit from the jump with Covid/injuries derailing his rookie season.
The dream scenario here is facing Utah in the first round. I think we'd be lucky to win a game against Phoenix. I definitely think the motion offense will get messed up by smart, veteran teams who scout us well. But I still think we get better role players next year if we make the playoffs than if we don't. What's the appeal of coming here next offseason if you're an older vet and the Warriors, who missed the playoffs two years in a row, come calling?
out of this decision to keep him playing at an optimal physical level for the 36 minutes he is on the court. Between injury risk and the history of Steph being worn down at the end of the year and the compressed schedule of this season, maybe just maybe the collaborative and well considered minutes limitation was a good idea and not just about the naked pictures Wannamaker had?
