Golden State Warriors need to play smarter basketball

The Golden State Warriors have looked good recently, but they need to play a smarter brand of basketball in order to keep winning.

Through the first few weeks of play, the Golden State Warriors are… above water. Just barely though. They hold a 4-4 record and have had inspiring wins over a few teams but it’s clear the Dubs have a ton of work to do before punching their tickets to the playoffs.

Holding Players Accountable

As of now, the Warriors rank 16th in assists, a sign that they haven’t been moving the ball as fluidly as they should. With an all-time great shooter in Stephen Curry, a prolific lob catcher in James Wiseman and talented slashers such as Eric Paschall, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Andrew Wiggins – how are the Dubs not racking up more assists?

Well, it’s likely a combination of chemistry and IQ. Keep in mind, this group hasn’t played much together – and, heading into the season, few members of the team aside from Curry and Draymond Green had any history of being adequate playmakers.

Curry said it best himself, the team needs to be smarter. In particular, Oubre seems to need the most work in becoming a more fluid decision-maker as he often has blinders up when he’s in attack mode. Oubre has the third-worst assist/turnover ratio on the team, ahead of only the two rookies – Wiseman and Nico Mannion.

Learning the system takes time. We’ve seen Steve Kerr master a selfless offense that produces points at a historic rate. As of now, these new guys just haven’t figured it out. Thankfully, players like Kent Bazemore saying they’ve been watching Andre Iguodala film and learning how to set up Curry more frequently is an encouraging sign.

Steve Kerr criticism 

There’s been a lot of chatter that Kerr is being ‘exposed’ as a bad head coach. And, I think that’s a pretty unfair assessment so early into the season. Before we make any conclusions on the man who coached the greatest five-year run in basketball, how about we give him more than a month to integrate numerous new faces into the team?

A heavy concern is the Warriors’ lack of pick-and-roll usage. They rank towards the bottom half of the league in this action. This is puzzling considering Curry is in the 84th percentile as a P&R Ball Handler and Wiseman seems to be the perfect roll-man in today’s league.

However, won’t people don’t consider is Wiseman’s lack of experience. The kid is only 19 years old and ranks in the 32nd percentile as a P&R Roll Man. This aspect of his game isn’t fleshed out yet and there is no reason for the Dubs to pound isolation plays like they are the Houston Rockets in an attempt to abuse a dynamic that they haven’t mastered yet.

As I stated, Kerr deserves a bit more time to hash out this new collection of players. We know his system works, why not give them a chance to learn it before we rule it out?