The Golden State Warriors were dismantled by the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night. They simply have to be better going forward, and Draymond Green let it be known what he thinks is wrong with the team right now.
Golden State's commitment to winning feels far less than optimum right now, perhaps best signified by an increasingly concerning road record that now sits at 1-6 despite an opening night victory in Los Angeles.
Draymond Green puts entire Warriors roster on notice after Thunder loss
"I think everybody was committed to winning and doing that any way possible," Green said in reference to the team's strong finish to last season. "And right now, it doesn’t feel that way.”
The veteran forward isn't afraid to be blunt and issue a wake-up call. He called out Jonathan Kuminga to a degree after the team got blown out by the Denver Nuggets recently, so he's always going to call it like he sees it.
It's hard to disagree with his analysis right now. This Warriors team simply looks disjointed and evidently isn't playing as a cohesive unit. There are many people who could be blamed for this, but ultimately the team wins and loses together.
Of course, it's easy to overreact to early season struggles. The Warriors are 6-6 on the campaign and still have plenty of time to get things turned around and get their mojo back. However, Tuesday's brutal showing in Oklahoma City is sort of a worst nightmare version of this iteration of the Warriors. The team looked old and tired on the floor which was the big fear considering they have one of the oldest rosters in the league.
Entering the season, the thinking was that maybe the age issue would become more of a factor as the season wore on, but it seems it may be catching up with them faster than they may have anticipated. Stephen Curry has been sick and not at full strength, while Green and Jimmy Butler may have been playing through some ailments that kept them out of recent contests.
It was really the worst time for the Warriors to face a well-oiled machine like the Thunder. The defending champs looked every bit as good as they figured to be going into the season, which is good in a way because the Warriors now know how much they are going to have to improve to reach that level.
It's going to take getting healthier and playing better, but at least this sort of performance happened in November rather than later in the season. Maybe Green putting the roster on notice will jolt the team into playing better amidst this difficult stretch in the schedule.