The Golden State Warriors are currently trying to walk the line of contending and rebuilding, and doing so quite nicely as well, coming off of their 2022 NBA Finals win while still having a young core and their future picks still with the team.
What has made the Warriors so successful over the past near-decade has been the elite small ball that they have been able to play on a nightly basis. Continuing this trend may not be the focus of the front office though.
Instead, they seem to be going with a much larger lineup of young players set to lead the next generation of Warrior basketball.
Jordan Poole, the shortest of their major young players still stands at six feet and four inches in height, a solid height for a combo guard.
they also have Patrick Baldwin Jr and Jonathan Kuminga both at six feet and nine inches as well as their future-forward tandem. Incredible size for a pair of forwards that can shift between the small and power forward positions.
The Warriors also have six-foot, six-inch two-guard Moses Moody who has split his minutes between the shooting guard and small forward position, playing good defense at both positions.
This all goes without mentioning the large frame of the former number two overall pick James Wiseman who stands at seven feet tall with a seven-foot, six-inch wingspan and has put on visible muscle mass since his meniscus injury.
For those not keeping track at home, that averages out to a height of six feet and eight inches tall for the young squad outside of Ryan Rollins and the other players who will, unfortunately, not get a ton of minutes this season.
Even the players who will likely lead their G-League roster for the season are decent sized. Gui Santos is six foot eight while Mac McClung and Ryan Rollins are both six foot two, while that’s not the greatest size, it’s still better than some teams have had this past season.
The most impressive part of the Golden State Warriors core is many of these players could be a part of both a small ball lineup and a bigger lineup as well.
Jordan Poole was commonly used as the shooting guard in the Golden State Warriors’ small lineup that dominated in the first round, and Moses Moody can play the three in a similar lineup.
They could also shift to the guard spots to allow the team to run a big lineup that is still capable of switching onto smaller players due to Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman and their ability to move their feet incredibly well, allowing them to stay in front of quicker players.
The biggest issue with running that big lineup next year featuring the young players would be the foul trouble, so it’s likely that they won’t use that lineup very often, only when they need to against a team like the Minnesota Timberwolves or Cleveland Cavaliers that feature much larger players than the Warriors did last season or in garbage time.
This young team that bolsters the Golden State Warriors’ bench unit seems much more interesting this year with their ability to switch from playing big and playing small with relative ease, allowing the Warriors more flexibility with the rotation and potentially making a championship much more attainable.