Warriors hierarchy at odds with analyst on level of free agency success

The offseason may be defined by a period of significant change for the Golden State Warriors, yet there's still fierce debate on how successful their roster moves have been this Summer.

Those moves have been headlined by the departure of franchise legend Klay Thompson and fellow veteran guard Chris Paul, the subsequent additions of De'Anthony Melton, Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield, along with the failed pursuits of Paul George and Lauri Markkanen.

Did the Golden State Warriors have a successful offseason and where should that rank among the other 29 teams in the league?

The Athletic's Anthony Slater reported this week that "the Warriors believe they improved this summer" citing team sources. That's based "partially on internal number models that gave a positive-value thumbs-up to the additions of Melton, Anderson and Hield," Slater went on to write.

According to the report, one rival's metric model even has Golden State as fourth in the Western Conference entering next season. To jump from tenth to fourth would be impressive, suggesting that the franchise's offseason moves will pay dividens and that they'll get further production from their young players.

Yet not everyone is so bullish on the Warriors chances. For starters their over/under win total is around 43.5 which would suggest they'll miss the playoffs, while The Athletic's David Aldridge also bypassed Golden State in his recent ranking of the top 10 best offseasons across the league.

Aldridge, a long-time journalist and analyst, even preferred those who made little moves and simply retained their main core -- teams like the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers who each featured in the top 10.

So which one is it? Should fans really buy into the "internal number models" that the Warriors hierarchy is basing their optimism on? Well there are fairly simple, publicly available numbers that would provide a similar mindset.

Thompson is undoubtedly a franchise great, but how much will Golden State actually miss last season's version of the 34-year-old? The team was a -0.5 net rating when he was on the floor in 2023-24, and a +7.1 when he was off. Melton had an on-off rating of +9.0 last season, providing the argument that flipping the two shooting guards could actually be an upgrade.

Anderson and Hield were less productive in on-off numbers, but no where near as detrimental to their team as Thompson was going by those numbers last season. Paul was a slight postive (+1.1) for the Warriors last season, but another now departed veteran, Dario Saric, was a major negative (-5.3).

This is just one analytical tool to try and gain a sense of how Golden State's offseason should be assessed. Ultimately you can make arguments in any which way, making for fascinating viewing when the season actually starts, results are laid out, and the Warriors offseason moves are seen in reality rather than theory.