Open Floor: Examining the Warriors’ Recent Struggles

We answer your questions in the mailbag about the Warriors’ and Nets’ struggles, Ja Morant’s exceptional season and more.

On this episode, Michael and Rohan open up the mailbag to discuss Golden State’s worrisome recent stretch (and whether Draymond Green can save them) and why Steve Nash doesn’t receive as much criticism for the Nets’ struggles as other coaches that have fallen short of expectations (like the Lakers’ Frank Vogel). They then break down Ja Morant’s incredible third season. How surprising is it, really? If they could pick one player 25 and under to build a franchise around would it be Morant? And, of the most importance, will he win a championship in Memphis?

The following transcript is an excerpt from the Open Floor podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.

Michael Pina: So I want to open up today’s show with an email from a listener named Darren, who has something to say about the Golden State Warriors. Darren writes; “Hello guys, like most people, I haven’t paid too much attention to the Warriors’ recent struggles, figuring that there isn’t much to see, because if Draymond returns healthy they will be fine, and if he doesn’t, they won’t. I caught their last few games and it has me questioning if we are glossing over flaws that we know have sunk good regular season teams in the playoffs. Number one, do they have too many weak perimeter defenders? Seeing Luka hunt Steph repeatedly wasn’t new and when Draymond is there, they have proven they can mitigate that. Seeing LeBron and even Westbrook repeatedly hunting and torching Klay was an eye-opener – it shouldn’t be unexpected after the injuries he has had, but it is a big problem. The Warriors now have to cover for two, maybe even three guys you can hunt if they’re closing with Steph, Klay and Jordan Poole. That is all a tall task even with a healthy Draymond. Number two, they play so many bad free-throw shooters who can be exploited with the Hack-a-Shaq in key spots; Looney, Draymond, JTA, Kuminga and GP2 are all bad free-throw shooters, and most concerning Andrew Wiggins is only at 63%. I feel like if another playoff contender has these issues, we’d pay more attention to it than we are with them.”

Thank you so much, Darren. That was a wonderful email. I’m just going to say before I throw it to you Rohan, I am not concerned about the Golden State Warriors and I still fall into the “when Draymond is healthy, then there’ll be good, and when Andre Iguodala is in the rotation, there’ll be a little bit better.” And if neither of those guys, or most importantly Draymond is not 100% then it won’t matter and it will be irrelevant. So I hear the concerns here about weak perimeter defenders. I’m not that low on Klay frankly. The version of Klay that we saw over the weekend, I don’t think is going to be the version that we see in the playoffs. And Steph Curry—I don’t think of someone that really gets hunted-hunted. I mean, like if you get into a matchup with Luka, then you kind of figure that out. And I think the Golden State Warriors are smart enough defensively to figure that out as best as any team can figure out Luka Dončić. But I don’t see Steph Curry as a glaring defensive weakness. And also the free throw shooting is like, whatever to me. Maybe that’s just me being blind to it as an actual issue. And it could nip them in the bud at some point. But I’m not that concerned. What do you think about this?

Rohan Nadkarni: Well, I do think there are a few things here. One, I think Draymond has become as close to being as important as Steph to the team as you can be, by not being Steph Curry. I mean, he’s just so much of a driver of what they do on both ends of the floor, just as a playmaker, getting over into the right position, offensively, making the right pass, etc. Obviously what he does defensively, the way he covers up for holes, etc. I’m with you on Steph defensively. I mean, we talked about this … Devin Booker for example is who teams hunt—on the Suns. But I don’t think Devin Booker is a bad defender. It’s just the best option for opposing offenses at this point. I’m a little bit concerned. I’m with you on, when Iguodala plays they’ll be a little bit better, but I just don’t know how much you can count on Iguodala at this stage of his career, or how many consistent minutes he can give you in a playoff series. And that is giving them some holes in their rotation. I mean, Draymond could come back as early as next week, but we’re going to have to see how he looks. Dealing with a back injury is no joke, and he’s been out for a while now, him and Klay haven’t played together except for those couple of seconds against Cleveland. So they’re going to have to find a way to reintegrate those two together as well. Wiggins has not been good I think for like a month now. He’s put up kind of a series of clunkers in a row. His shooting I think has dropped off a little bit, so he’s not getting to the free throw line. I’m a little bit concerned. I mean, I was really high on this team coming into the season. They started off super hot, I still think we can see what they can be when Steph and Dray have it going. But it’s not so much that I think they are bad or they don’t have a chance. I just think that gap that was previously there between them and all these other teams in the West, it doesn’t really seem to be there for me anymore.

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