A change was essential after the Golden State Warriors posted a 37-45 record last season and missed the playoffs for the second time in three seasons. Their manpower looks pretty much the same — they only added a couple of role players in Georges Niang and Brandon Williams along with the 11th pick of this year's draft in Yaxel Lendeborg — so the turnaround would have to stem from a schematic revolution.
The NBA is a copycat league. Teams start adopting whatever strategy is clicking with other teams, just like the Warriors' rivals tried to imitate their small-ball lineup, "the Death Lineup", back in 2016 to dethrone them. Now on the other side of that trend, the Warriors have decided to shift from a "horn" system — two players at the elbows — to a five-out offensive setting, meaning that all five players start the possession on the perimeter. But that's not all. Coach Steve Kerr also expressed his desire to play a more organized brand of basketball after spending more than a decade thriving off a deliberately sought-out chaos.
A more organized style of ball is synonymous with getting to consistent spots, making consistent cuts, following a more intricate scheme, and working through new formations. The new spacing and the different wrinkles attached to it have to be taught, understood, practiced, and mastered before the benefits can be noticed on the court. Once, and only once, those adjustments have been processed, those benefits should allow the team to accomplish a goal it has pursued for years: limiting turnovers.
The clock is ticking and the Warriors aren't ready
Five games into the preseason, payoff time feels like a distant mirage.
Over those five contests, the Warriors have committed a total of 104 turnovers. When they committed 15.7 per game last season, which ranked 27th in the league, Kerr said he wanted to remove one or two. On average, they're at over 20 right now.
Now less than a week removed from the start of the regular season, the Warriors don't have a lot of time to figure things out. Their last preseason game is on Saturday against the Blazers, then it starts counting for real.
"We're not anywhere close to where we want to be, but we are working on the right things," Kerr said following the Warriors' win over the Lakers in Sin City. "Our execution is just scattered at this point."
Turning the ball over with the right idea in mind is one thing; handing the opponent extra possessions is another. Those kinds of miscues are the ones that drive the 61-year-old coach crazy, the ones that lead to him screaming behind his whiteboard or reacting in disbelief on the bench.
Once upon a time, the Warriors could afford those unforced mistakes, as exasperating as they were. Kerr even mentioned that Steph Curry and Draymond Green used to have a free pass to commit a handful each. Those times were very different times and have never felt further away. The talent level gap is incommensurable, which magnifies the cost of those self-inflicted errors.
It's been a team-wide issue so far this preseason, not just an issue for Curry and Green. Gui Santos has 11 in roughly 87 minutes. Bassey has 12 in 90 minutes. Newcomer and backup point guard Brandon Williams has piled up 15 of them in just 83 minutes.
A portion of that sloppiness can be attributed to the team implementing a brand-new system, but a big part of it also stems from the decisions the players are making with the ball in their hands. On Monday at Chase Center, that was the practice's main focus.
"I haven't harped on them (the turnovers) until now, because I know we're really teaching a lot of things that are new four our guys. But now is the time," Kerr said after Monday's practice. "Much of the film session was our decision making and showing poor decisions from the other night, time and score, risk-reward type stuff. I give our guys a lot of credit, they really took the film session to heart, and in the scrimmage part of our practice today, they did a great job."
When game time rolled around, there was carelessness all over the floor. In the second quarter alone, the Warriors coughed the ball up nine times. Many of them were not of the right kind.
Out of the nine turnovers they committed in the second period against Los Angeles — which resulted in 12 Lakers points — six suitably fit in the head-scratcher category. Third-string center Charles Bassey accounted for three of them by simply throwing off-target passes. Curry was flagged for a backcourt violation after being caught in the air and flinging a pass behind him that swooped by Melton. Lendeborg stopped in traffic and lost his handle with Bassey glued to his face. Niang fell down trying to post up a much- smaller Jaden Hardy. You get it.
Every single one of those miscues is related to a bad decision. According to Kerr's encouraging evaluation of Monday's practice, the Warriors are capable of playing a clean brand of basketball. They just need to do it on a regular basis. And during actual NBA games ideally.
"Just like things (when) you're attacking the rim, there's nobody there you keep going if somebody is there, pick it up, play off two feet, and then if the stuff that we're teaching is holding, there's always going to be somebody open," Kerr said. "It sounds simple but it's not because the game is going a million miles an hour out there."
The goal for next season is to hover around the 13-turnover mark, which would turn them into a better-than-average team in that category. Remove those six very avoidable ones and a couple more in the other three quarters, and that goal is achieved. Easier said than done, of course. But it's doable. In the meantime, some trust in the process is needed.
"I do think that it'll come, but we're not there yet."
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