Golden State Warriors have made good use of their injuries
By Eric He
The Warriors have seen several key players step up as injury replacements.
Injuries are never a good thing in sports. They are debilitating, awful, and unfair. Imagine the careers Grant Hill or Brandon Roy might have had.
And let me preface this by saying no one should ever, ever, ever celebrate or wish for an injury. That’s when you cross the line from “hardcore sports fan” to “disgusting human being.”
But this is undeniable: injuries have helped the Golden State Warriors.
Stephen Curry‘s recurring ankle problems early in his career gave the Warriors enough leverage to sign him to a four-year, $44 million deal that today has become the largest bargain for a superstar in his prime. Now, he will cash out very soon as that contract expires in 2017, but the low contract amount for a franchise player has given the Warriors cap space to build around him by adding free agents like Andre Iguodala and re-signing key parts of the core in Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
Speaking of the core, would Green be in line to start the All-Star game today if David Lee hadn’t gone down with an injury to start last season? Everyone knows the story by now: Green replaces an injured Lee, shows his flexibility as a Swiss-army knife, does everything on both ends, locks down the starting job for good and becomes one of the most valuable players in the league. That might not have happened had Green been relegated to the bench, and Lee might still be chucking up jump shots and allowing blow-byes on defense for your Warriors today.
Those are the two big ones, but this season, a few more injuries have led to several revelations up and down the roster.
Case in point: Brandon Rush, who toiled at the end of the bench last season, barely averaging a point per game. No one expected him to be a major contributor anymore, with the season-ending knee injury he suffered in 2012 severely affecting his performance.
But, as he’s shown over the past month, Rush still has some game left, and we wouldn’t have known it had Harrison Barnes not gone down with an ankle sprain and been sidelined since late November. Rush has started 18 games in Barnes’ absence and has upped his once minuscule average to 5.1 points per game, shooting nearly 45 percent from three-point range. He has shown that he is once again capable of making a three-point shot, and has held his own on defense.
Rush’s performance has in turn allowed the Warriors to slowly work Barnes back into the starting lineup. He has been coming off the bench in spurts, playing well, and should be back in the starting five in no time. Now, the Warriors know they have a healthy Barnes and a legitimate option off the bench in Rush.
Same goes on a lesser extent for Marreese Speights, who struggled mightily to start the season, watching as Festus Ezeli has claimed the majority of minutes at the backup-five spot. But Ezeli has missed the last five games with a toe injury, forcing Luke Walton to turn to Speights for playing time, and “Mo Buckets” has delivered.
Speights has scored in double-digits in three of his last five games, and hit some big shots down the stretch in an overtime win over the Nuggets last Saturday. Part of it is due to the fact that Speights thrives offensively in a backup center spot, where he can stretch the floor and take advantage of opposing big men who are reluctant to challenge his jump shot. With Speights at center and Barnes at the backup-four, the Warriors have a lethal frontcourt on the second unit.
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Ian Clark, too, has shown promise recently as the Warriors have dealt with a slew of injuries to guards in Curry and Leandro Barbosa. Clark, who claimed the final roster spot out of training camp, is averaging 24.8 minutes in the Warriors’ last six games after barely getting off the bench early in the season. In that stretch, he scored in double-digits for four consecutive games, including a 21-point outing at Dallas and a big 15-point performance against Denver, when he made a clutch up-and-under move for a key bucket in overtime.
Due to injuries, the Warriors now know more about several reserves in Rush, Speights, and Clark, and have more confidence in them to step up and contribute should the injury bug strike again. This could be an implication of the roster that Bob Myers has assembled, a roster so deep that playing time for some reserves are hard to come by.
Again, nobody is advocating for injuries, and not all injuries result in beneficial outcomes — Warriors fans everywhere are hoping Curry’s shin will heal. But the Warriors have taken several injury situations and used them to their advantage, giving role players who usually play sparingly a chance to shine.