Living the Present: Three years after the collapse, Golden State is back
The Warriors manage to combine well with the club's future players Kerry, Clay and Green, who remain the three big stars of the franchise.
Three years after that terrible summer, Steve Kerr's team returns to the main stage of the best league in the world and proves that its story is still written
Sagi Rafael
30/05/2022
Monday, May 30, 2022, 3 p.m.
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Stephen Kerry celebrates Golden State's victory in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals (from the official NBA Twitter account)
The summer of 2019, or rather the NBA Finals in 2019, marked the disintegration of the Golden State Warriors dynasty, literally.
It was the team's fifth consecutive final, five seasons of about 100 games, 5 seasons in which the team managed to avoid significant injuries throughout the season and the playoffs.
Then it's over at once.
Kevin Durant tore the Achilles tendon and Clay Thompson tore the cruciate ligament playing after him.
Two serious injuries with long rehabilitation.
Durant's decision to leave was the final stamp - Golden State's crazy run ended.
I described the construction and running of that team in the book 'Splash - The Story of Golden State' published in 2019.
As a fan and commentator, I ended the book with a pessimistic chapter about the future.
3 years later, the Warriors are back in the league finals again.
They do it in the typical style: with lots of luck, avoiding encounters with the main contenders for the crown, and lots of fun basketball.
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His decision to leave was the final stamp of the Golden State run finish.
Durant in Warriors uniform (Photo: Reuters)
In the summer of 2019, the group faced a crossroads.
A lot of league fans will associate the end of the dynasty with Durant's departure, but that's a partial picture.
The Warriors relied on six players to lead the team - Steph Kerry, Kevin Durant, Drymond Green, Clay Thompson, Andrei Iguodala and Sean Livingstone.
By the end of the playoffs Clay had undergone surgery whose recovery time is about a year, while Iguodala and Livingstone have already reached an age where one can start talking about retirement.
Bob Myers had to decide how to go, and he had a few days under the departure gun of Kevin Durant who concluded in Brooklyn.
Myers has served as GM since 2012 and played a key role in building the Golden State dynasty, but now he faces a higher hurdle.
The window of opportunity to build around Kerry, Clay and Green was short.
Full liquidation is out of the question.
There was no flexibility around the salary cap because the team was above the tax threshold, and if that was not enough, the whole league looked and expected failure.
The bragging rights of Joe Leikov, the team’s owner in 2016 were still in everyone’s head.
Everyone wanted to see how a team whose management was "light years ahead of the rest of the league" would deal with the difficult situation.
And so Golden State chose to face:
Faced a significant junction in the summer of 2019. Myers (Photo: AP)
Russell comes, Russell goes
The Warriors as mentioned had no flexibility under the ceiling.
That is, if Durant leaves unpaid, they would not have been able to sign another player at a salary approaching the maximum salary.
The only way to get such a player was to make a sign-and-trade deal with Brooklyn.
The only player in Brooklyn who could fit was DiAngelo Russell who ended his rookie contract in a breakout season with an All-Star appearance and a Netsel lead leading a surprising playoff appearance, but became redundant in Brooklyn, signing Kyrie Irving on his box.
Russell on the other hand did not really fit into the Warriors squad or the nature of the team.
They did not hesitate and signed him to a maximum contract.
Mark Stein, the New York Times' senior NBA commentator, claimed that the decision to sign Russell was made with the intention of using his salary slot to trade another player in his place at a later stage.
In light of the chain of events, it is difficult to argue with Stein's claim.
On the other hand, if Stein was right it was a huge gamble.
The demand for Russell (on a maximum contract) was the size of one team - the Minnesota Timberwolves, who wanted to get Russell to play with his good friend and team star Carl-Anthony Towns.
As the trade deadline approached in the 19/20 season it was clear that both sides were not really happy with the situation.
Even if we did not plan Russell's trade in advance, the past half season with him caused the Warriors to give up.
The team had complaints about Russell's defensive ability and unwillingness to get better on this side of the field.
Russell's offense was reasonable, but after Kerry was injured, the team played bad basketball and no one was happy with the situation.
All this in a season when Golden State moved to play in the shiny new hall built in San Francisco on the waterfront - the Chase Center.
The only one who could fit in to get into Durant's shoes at the time.
Russell (Photo: AP)
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Myers entered into intense talks with the Timberwolves, but had very little advantage in the negotiations. No other team chased Russell. Eventually the trade was agreed - Minnesota would move Andrew Wiggins and a protected first-round pick. The Warriors would send Russell to play with CAT. .
In retrospect, this is a robbery in broad daylight.
Golden State finished with Allstar and a lottery pick.
According to rumors, Minnesota is looking for a trade for Russell this summer.
So how did Myers get both Wiggins and a first-round pick?
Wiggins was the first pick in the 2014 draft by Cleveland.
He was sent to Minnesota after LeBron signed with the Cavaliers, with Kevin Love doing the opposite.
Expectations from Wiggins were sky high.
A formidable, tall athlete with defensive and offensive potential in the sky.
Wiggins received the label of a franchise player.
A year later Minnesota brought in Carl-Anthony Towns in the draft and the team seemed to be on the way up with two promising youngsters.
But Wiggins did not keep his promise.
That did not stop the Timberwolves from giving him a maximum contract after 3 seasons in the league.
Despite expectations and despite the physical data, Wiggins was unable to come close to realizing his potential.
The highlight was the season when Jimmy Butler came to Minnesota, and just couldn’t handle the two young stars.
It ended in an explosion and a significant decline in Wiggins' value.
This is the stage where Minnesota has given up as well as the rest of the league.
But the Timberwolves did not know how to maintain a trade value for Wiggins, and failed to hide their desire to bring in Russell.
For that they paid in the first round pick, which was pretty clear there would be a lottery pick.
The Warriors got it and so did the first-round pick.
Wiggins (Photo: GettyImages, Will Newton)
Andrew Wiggins for example
So why gamble on Andrew Wiggins?
First of all because the Warriors had a pit in the small forward position.
The fit to the group was better.
Beyond that the potential, athleticism and length were still there.
Golden State believed its coaching staff and stars would be able to reach Wiggins better than Minnesota.
Practically Wiggins replaced Kevin Durant.
In practice the continuum that the Warriors set for him was much lower - Harrison Barnes.
Keep tight, move the ball, the rest will work out.
At the start of the 21/22 season the media discourse was around corona vaccines.
Who got vaccinated and who did not.
The first to come to the fore was Andrew Wiggins.
Kyrie arrived two weeks later.
In San Francisco, as in Brooklyn, home players are required to be vaccinated.
But unlike Kyrie, Wiggins really did not like the position he was in.
Press conference after a press conference with the same question - "Will you get vaccinated?"
Wiggins had no ambition to be the William Wallace of vaccine opponents.
In Minnesota it would have ended in an explosion.
At Golden State it ended with a vaccine.
The Warriors left the decision in Wiggins' hands.
All the players, the coaching staff and the management understood the price of a decision not to get vaccinated - Wiggins would not be able to play home games.
And yet everyone respected his decision and asked the journalists to give him the respect.
With so much love, the forward could not disappoint the team, and eventually chose to get vaccinated.
He was accepted into the gang.
The choice was between him and Wiggins, and he is less liked.
Gover (Photo: GettyImages, Alex Goodlett)
In many ways Wiggins has provided a peak season, including a pick for the West's All-Star five.
In the eyes of quite a few, the forward is not a player for the top five in the All-Star.
Under the current rules, however, and the amount of injuries for forwards in the West (Kwai, Paul George, Anthony Davis and even Drymond Green), there was no other option.
Luca or Boker are probably more suited to the class, but they are guards, and the guard squares have been captured by Kerry and Morant.
Eventually voters were forced to decide between Wiggins and Guber, and Guber liked less.
A defensive hole in a terrible defensive team, Wiggins has become the senior personal guard of one of the best defensive teams in the league.
Beyond the high abilities, Wiggins introduced exceptional versatility.
Ark Gordon, Ja Morant and Luka Doncic.
Different styles, different sizes, different qualities.
For Andrew Wiggins and the Warriors it did not change.
Wiggins is another proof that proper management and a good coaching staff are worth far more in this league than the credit given to them.
Wiggins is much easier on the Warriors.
He does not have to lead, he does not have the burden of the franchise player.
On offense he enjoys the focus of the defenses on Steph and on defense he enjoys the backing he gets from Drymond Green.
This is a perfect situation for him.
After a year and a half, it can be said that Russell-Wiggins' trade worked excellently for both sides - both the Warriors and Wiggins.
He does the same things he did before, more slowly, and it works.
Jordan Paul (Photo: Reuters)
There are home players, and there is a pool
Wiggins is not the only player to break out this season.
The Warriors discovered a diamond that grew under their hands - Jordan Paul.
Paul was selected in the 28th draft in the 2019 draft. Expectations were low.
It's hard to find stars at the end of the first round.
Golden State took a gamble.
Paul looks like a very talented attacking player, who just does not know how to connect talent to ability.
This is what his rookie season looked like.
Bad percentages and bad shots selection.
But the Corona break gave the player seven months to work on his game and get better.
Paul worked hard.
He slowed down his game.
He does the same things he did before, more slowly, and it works.
The results came.
He made a big leap in the second season when he became the sixth player, and this season another leap came, but even the fans did not expect such a playoff.
Paul averages over 18 points per game and tremendous efficiency.
The three opening games of the playoffs were a dream come true.
After that came Kerry's return to the top five, and with it a slight drop in Paul's output.
Paul gives the Warriors a dimension she has not had in the playoffs before - important rest minutes for Steph Kerry.
In the past Steve Kerr had to hurry to get Kerry back on the field, today he can be more relaxed.
Kwon Looney has been with the Warriors since being drafted in 2015, after the first championship.
Over the years he has shown sparks, but really not like in the current playoffs.
Before the playoffs they talked about the hole the Warriors have in the face positions.
Lonnie serves as the team's sole center.
When he and Green are on the field, this is supposedly the top five of the team, but Shloni is a total of 206 cm tall (with a 222 cm arm bar). When he leaves, he is replaced by Green (198 cm), Porter (203 cm) and And gave Cuminga (201 cm).
Great State does not really have high fives.
It has lower fives and lower fives.
What he lacks in inches he completes in connecting to the group.
Lonnie (Photo: GettyImages, Thearon W. Henderson)
What Lonnie lacks in inches is complementary in the connection he has to the team.
His numbers do not jump off the page, but the stars of the team know what he is giving and how important he is.
The media started talking about him after Game 6 against Memphis where he dropped 22 rebounds.
Before the game it was reported that Green and Thompson had spoken to the coaching staff to bring Lonnie back into the top five.
His minutes went up and in the Western Conference Finals he returned dividends with a double-double average.
In 2018 Kerr had to cut a player from the squad, and there was talk that the choice was between Omri Caspi and Kwon Lonnie.
So the team had six chins on the roster (David West, Zaza Patchouli, Javille Maggie, Lonnie, Damien Jones and Jordan Bell).
The fortune fell on Caspi mainly because of the injury he suffered from it before the playoffs.
You could say that four years after the election it paid off big time.
Both present and future.
Clay Thompson with Jonathan Cuminga (Photo: Reuters)
Present or future?
The Warriors used the bad two years to pick up young stars in high draft picks.
James Weissman, Jonathan Cuminga (who came through the Minnesota pick) and Moses Moody.
All the basketball commentators argued that the Warriors should choose between the present and the future.
Either they use assets to get a player who can contribute now, or they build the young for the future and pay at the cost of losses.
Drymond Green has also admitted in recent days that he has argued to Myers that the present should be preferred and young people traded.
Joe Jacob and Bob Myers were unequivocal - present and future.
Why not both?
Golden State refused to part ways with the three youngsters even though they could get players who would help the team.
Despite the big disappointment from Weissman, it should be remembered that this is a 21-year-old boy at 2.16 and a great athlete.
His rookie season was disappointing, but it came after a year of not playing neat basketball and a short training camp.
This season he has only appeared in two G-League games before exacerbating the injury and being sidelined.
There he controlled.
The Warriors still believe in him and refused to give up on him.
Cuminga went into rotation during the season, getting more and more minutes as she progressed.
At the start of the playoffs he disappears from the rotation, and yet occasionally Steve Kerr uses him for specific situations.
Moody played sporadic minutes during the season.
In the Western Conference final, Steve Kerr remembered the young guard and gave him significant minutes in the games against Dallas.
Moody did not disappoint.
He did not do too much, but kept strong, and made no mistakes.
Golden State invested in the youngsters when they signed Kenny Atkinson, a former Brooklyn coach to the standard of the player development coach.
It was clear to her that she had unpolished diamonds in hand.
Someone will have to polish and unleash the potential.
For that the Warriors pay Atkinson a lot of money.
Atkinson left Brooklyn after failing to see eye to eye with Durant and Kyrie, but he had a very successful tenure there, and is highly regarded in the league.
That way players like Kominga and Modi are willing to contribute in the playoffs, even though their place in the rotation is not guaranteed.
Still the big stars of the franchise.
Kerry, Clay, Green (Photo: GettyImages)
Depth, leadership, seniority
The Warriors had no flexibility in the summer, and all it could offer was minimum contracts.
They were looking for IQ basketball.
They found a lot like that in Andrei Iguodala, Otto Porter and Nemanja Bielitsa.
Three veterans who completed the roster.
Three leaders connecting the locker room, and it was not that there was a lack of leadership even before.
Myers and Leicov succeeded in a task that many teams failed at.
To integrate young and old, to incorporate present and future.
In the current playoffs the big stars of the franchise are still Kerry, Clay, Green.
Just because I did not write about them here does not mean that I take them for granted.
Without Kerry's ability, without Clay's return, and without Green's genius it would not have happened.
That was the starting point of this column, and of Bob Myers in the summer of 2019 - that the three are still good enough to lead this team, and now just need to wrap them up well enough.
Warriors, like other successful organizations in the world have a way, have values, have direction.
Some of it also comes from Steve Kerr.
There are a lot of reviews among basketball people about the status of the coach in the NBA.
Many times the job of the coach is just to manage the work arrangement.
Let the stars do their thing.
It's not like that in the Warriors.
Golden State built a method in 2014 when a lie came to the team.
Share the ball, let everyone be a part of the game, a part of the attack.
Move all the time.
Once there is a method, it is much easier for junior players to get into rotation.
They understand what they need to do on the field.
This is how Gary Peyton II turns an offensive burden into an advantage.
That’s how Imagination Lee and Moses Moody are able to play significant minutes in the playoffs.
That way Kuminga can play a yes game, a no game, but be focused every time he hits the floor.
The chapter on the Warriors in the book has not yet been written.
Reality has not yet been written.
Friday's final in eight seasons is a huge achievement.
There are quite a few fans calling for a player who reached the top ten NBA loser because he took “only” 4 championships.
Sport is a cruel world.
A world where you only remember your last loss.
Still need to evaluate.
We got used to phenomena like LeBron and the Warriors.
They are disposable.
The future of the league is promising and tempting to look at it, but this season Golden State wants to remind us that it is not only the past, but also the present - and it is no less fascinating.
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