Let’s set the record straight: Try as they might to have you believing the contrary over the past six games heading into the NBA All-Star Break, the Golden State Warriors are a very good basketball team. They are a very good basketball team because the players that take the court wearing Warriors jerseys are very good at playing the sport of basketball. These players win games most nights like it is their job, which is good because, well, that is their job!
And these players are very good at winning games against other good basketball players whose job it is also to win basketball games. Winning basketball games against teams with those kinds of players is a devilishly hard thing to achieve. Yet this year, the Warriors are the second-best team in the league this year at achieving those devilishly hard to achieve wins.
That is the basic chemical make-up of what constitutes a very good NBA team, which, at 42-17, the Warriors most definitely are. Warriors fans know a thing or two about very good NBA teams. And for some reason, despite all the above being true, there is something about this very good Warriors team that makes it feel different. Not as good. The words “very” and “good” mushed together next to each other at the end of a sentence that begins with “The Warriors are…” seems perfectly appropriate. Not too low a rating, but not too high either. Like Baby Bears porridge, it is just right.
Perhaps this year’s Warriors team is living in the shadow of its past. After all, in the years immediately following the San Francisco Giants most recent World Series triumph (the Warriors title winning 2014-15 season began in Sacramento the night of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series) Warriors fans have bared witness to:
- Two years of near flawless, team-oriented basketball that obliterated what mankind thought was possible for an NBA team
Followed immediately by:
- Three years of basketball that fractured space time and, depending on who you ask, nearly destroyed the very fabric of the NBA universe
Even at very good, this Warriors team is on pace to win 58 games. That is the same number of games the 2018 Warriors won, and not only was that one of the “destroy the very fabric of the NBA” Warriors teams, that team won the NBA title too.
So too did other great 58-win teams, like the Toronto Raptors teams that denied the Warriors a three-peat in 2019. The Warriors say they want to be like the San Antonio Spurs, well that very same Spurs organization won 58 games and an NBA title in 2007. 58 wins is very much in the realm of “championship team.”
For some reason, this team still feels different. Perhaps in losing 17 games, including losses to lottery bound teams like the Indiana Pacers, New Orleans Pelicans, and most egregious of all, the New York Knicks, has drained this team of some of its shine. Perhaps, the Warriors just don’t run roughshod through the rest of the NBA like they used to. Here is how the Warriors have ranked compared to the rest of the NBA in past years Steve Kerr has coached a championship team.
Sam Lubman/95.7 The Game
Compared to the rest of the NBA, this year’s Warriors team is not scoring as much, but they are holding up in 3-point percentage as a top five team. On the boards, this year’s team has had the most amount of success that we have seen in five seasons. They are also turning the ball over at the second-highest rate in the NBA.
The league may be catching up to the Warriors offensively. Or perhaps the Warriors offense just isn’t getting its normal traction due to the prolonged absences of Draymond Green and Andre Igoudala, the shooting slump of Stephen Curry and the reintegration of Klay Thompson. All of those points are equally valid.
While the offense has usually provided us the most dazzling of highlights, it is the defense that the Dubs have made their true calling card. And while the last few games have shown a massive dip in defensive production, overall, this team continues to hold its spot at the Cool Kids Who Play Defense table.
Sam Lubman/95.7 The Game
Even with the recent defensive slide the Warriors have been on the last six games, this year’s team defense is, compared to the rest of the league, one of the best of the Steve Kerr era. Not even the vaunted 2016-17 Warriors, who after adding Kevin Durant were accused of ruining the NBA, were not so adept at shutting down their opponents offensively on a nightly basis.
Defensively, the Warriors are still among the elite in the NBA, even while the rest of the league may be catching up (or the Warriors are retreating to the rest of the pack, depending on your certain point of view), how does this year’s Dubs team compare to itself over the duration of the Kerr Era? I am glad you asked, Dear Reader.
Sam Lubman/95.7 The Game
Aside from 3-point shooting, this year’s Warriors team is putting up almost the same offensive rating as the original championship team that used joy and fun to make hundreds of professional basketball players look like silly amateurs by comparison. Numbers that would have led the league in offense just seven years ago have you pushed outside of the top 10 today. The NBA might be catching on to what the Warriors have been doing under Coach Kerr.
And as you predicted, the teams that had Durant playing alongside Curry, Thompson and Green put up all around better numbers than this year’s team, which has Curry, Andrew Wiggins – who, while he may be an All-Star, is not Durant – a returning-to-game-shape Thompson, and has been without Green for the better part of two months. Some drop off should probably be expected. Maybe.
The Warriors offense may not be quite what it once was, but it is still putting up numbers worthy of the standard the team has set for itself, and that is with all the health issues factored in, something that rarely impacted those teams from 2014-19.
And on the defensive end, the Dubs have not just continued to set the standard for the rest of the league, but they still attain the standard they set for themselves.
Sam Lubman/95.7 The Game
The Warriors’ league-leading defensive rating is the best the team has posted since cranking out back-to-back-to-back 60-plus win seasons, and that is even more impressive when you factor in this year’s rating has been inflated by the absence of Green, who has missed 25 games so far this season and counting. They are holding opponents to a similar shooting percentage from the field and from beyond the arc, and are doing as good as any of their past championship teams at preventing opponents from pulling down rebounds. In fact, the Warriors’ consistency on defense this year is even more impressive compared to years past when you remind yourself of the offensive explosion that occurred around the league in the past seven years.
The 103 points per game the Warriors are allowing so far this season would be the best since the 14-15 season, when they allowed just a tick under 100 points per game. And in that season, that was good enough to be considered an average defense. This year, despite allowing on average an entire three pointer more per game, and not having Green, the Warriors still boast a top four scoring defense.
This year’s Warriors team is still very good, even if it lacks the flashy pizzaz that past very good Warriors teams have shown. But could this Warriors team be better, as the title of this post asks? The fact that the “shortcomings” of this Warriors team can be attributed to some buzzard luck in the health department, the answer is an unequivocal “Yes.” But even in its hobbled state, this Warriors team is more than carrying its weight.
So even though they stumbled into the All-Star Break, and even though Draymond isn’t expected back on the court for a few more weeks, and even though the rest of the NBA is getting better, and even though the players on this team are older than the players on past teams, and even though the product you are watching on the court every night may not cause your eyes to pop out of your head in mind-scrambling amazement, the Warriors this year are still a very good basketball team. They are playing like a championship team. They are defending like a championship team. They are walking like a championship team, and quacking like one, too. And they are not even a whole championship team, to boot.
With the second “half” of the season tipping off Thursday night, things may appear rather dire for the Warriors, but that should not distract you from the fact that that is not stopping the Warriors from continuing to showcase the nightly excellence that past teams once used to ruin the NBA. The Warriors are good, they could be better, and they probably will be soon.
