The 2022-2023 Golden State Warriors' preseason debut: The Warriors beat the Wizards 96-87
Klay Thompson sits, the vets mostly rest, Steve Kerr tinkers with his second unit, and Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman get a whole bunch of reps together
Hours before the Warriors’ preseason debut in Japan, Steve Kerr announced that Klay Thompson would sit out the first two preseason games as a precautionary measure.
Forget all of the observations about substitution patterns and garbage time for the Warriors’ young players — load management for Klay might be the most significant indicator of what awaits in the regular season. The legendary big three of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green are four years and several injuries removed from the last time they attempted to defend a championship. This championship defense and this roster will look quite different than any Warriors team of the past and tonight/this morning was an eye-opening glimpse into just how different this team will be.
The Warriors won their game against the Wizards 96-87, but the box score isn’t really all that important. Unlike last preseason when the Warriors wanted to establish their identity and chemistry with big minutes for their veterans, the obvious emphasis of this preseason is to get the Warriors’ young players up to speed and figure out which players will fill out Steve Kerr’s rotation outside of the Foundational Six of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, and Jordan Poole.
What the Foundational Six did tonight wasn’t all that interesting or notable — most of those guys looked rusty and disengaged, and I don’t really mind that. I did, however, like seeing that Andrew Wiggins grabbed 6 rebounds in 16 minutes. What was far more interesting tonight was watching the Warriors’ new and young players. A few bullet-pointed thoughts before we get into the more granular stuff:
Donte DiVincenzo looked like a natural fit in the Warriors’ system. DiVincenzo hit two threes and made several nice passes, including this pocket pass to Kevon Looney:
DDV is not Gary Payton II, but his playmaking could provide a different element to the Warriors’ second unit and give Jordan Poole some more reps off-ball.
JaMychal Green played 16 minutes tonight, all of which — to my great surprise — came at the 4. Green missed his only three and was mostly solid on defense, but I didn’t love the Warriors’ floor spacing his minutes.
James Wiseman finished the game with 20 points on 8/11 shooting. With his size and footspeed, Wiseman can stumble into 4-5 easy buckets a night by running the floor and being in the right place at the right time and tonight exemplified that. I thought Wiseman looked solid on defense, but even though he shot 8/11 from the field, I thought his offensive positioning left something to be desired, especially in his minutes with Jonathan Kuminga (more on that later). By my estimation, Wiseman’s most intriguing minutes came alongside Steph Curry and Draymond Green. Without Kelly Oubre Jr. there to muck up the spacing and IQ, Wiseman looked much more at ease on offense.
Rotation watch:
1st quarter:
12:00 — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/D. Green/Looney: 0-0, tie game.
8:26 — Curry/Moody/Wiggins/D. Green/Looney: 4-6, Wizards lead.
5:47 — DDV/Moody/Wiggins/J. Green/Looney: 9-10, Wizards lead.
4:17 — Poole/DDV/Kuminga/J. Green/Wiseman: 12-10, Warriors lead.
Preseason basketball is rarely pretty, and this game's opening minutes were no exception. Steph Cury and Jordan Poole missed their first two shot attempts and the Warriors’ first three buckets were scored by Kevon Looney in the interior and Draymond Green on a Curry-esque floater. At the 8:26 mark, Steve Kerr made his first sub of the night and brought in second-year guard, Moses Moody. In his brief first-quarter stint, Moody was active, if a little scattered. Moody got up too high twice on pick-and-rolls and fumbled the ball dribbling or on easy passes, but he also made purposeful cuts to the hoop and hit a deep three off of an offensive rebound:
At the 5:48 mark, things got interesting as JaMychal Green came in alongside and not in place of Kevon Looney. Donte DiVincenzo subbed in at this point as well and a little over a minute later, Jordan Poole came back in and the Warriors went to something resembling a second unit of Poole/DDV/Kuminga/J. Green/Wiseman. What was most surprising to me about this lineup was that Kuminga was at the small forward alongside a jumbo frontcourt of JaMychal Green and Wiseman. Perhaps if Klay Thompson had played and pushed Jordan Poole and Moses Moody down the depth chart, we’d have seen Moody in this lineup and Kuminga at the 4. In any event, the jumbo frontcourt makes some sense if you believe JaMychal’s shooting struggles last season were an aberration. These two possessions below demonstrate both some of the limitations and workarounds of the spacing in that frontcourt:
2nd quarter:
12:00 — Curry/Moody/Kuminga/D. Green/Wiseman: 16-12, Warriors lead.
8:14 — Curry/Moody/Wiggins/D. Green/Looney: 26-19, Warriors lead.
5:08 — Poole/DDV/Wiggins/J. Green/Looney: 29-26, Warriors lead.
The Warriors started the second quarter with a lineup of young guys anchored by Steph Curry and Draymond Green. That’s not a lineup you’d expect to see at the start of the second quarter, barring another deviation from Steph Curry’s 12/6/12/6 substitution patterns, but it’s one that might see regular season minutes. In a little less than four minutes together, that lineup was +3 and James Wiseman got an easy lob dunk off of a pick-and-roll with Steph Curry.
On the whole, Wiseman looked better than I expected in his first stint. For the most part, Wiseman avoided egregious mistakes on defense and had two blocks by virtue of just being in the right place at the right time. It was on offense that I thought Wiseman was a little more uneven. The floor spacing was quite cramped during the Kuminga/Wiseman minutes alongside either of the Greens — that’s not Wiseman’s fault — and Wiseman compounded that lingering in the paint, which made Kuminga’s life more difficult.
The lineups that Steve Kerr plays in preseason aren’t necessarily going to be staples of his rotation — thank god. But the Kuminga experience in the first half was frustrating because it felt situationally imposed by the Warriors’ poor floor spacing. Remember Steve Kerr talking about Kuminga’s potential to play a Shawn Marion-type role? Well, it’s hard to be effective cutting and running the floor ala Marion in cramped lineups and Kuminga made things harder on himself by taking matters into his own hands, rather than trying to find shots in the flow of the offense.
Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney subbed in for Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman at the 8:14 mark and Moses Moody got a few more minutes alongside the adults. Those minutes were rather uninspiring — pretty much every player that played a big role in the Warriors’ championship run looked tired and rusty in the first half. Of far more interest was the last five minutes of the half as Jordan Poole got more minutes without Steph Curry, but this time with Andrew Wiggins and Looney in place of Kuminga and Wiseman. The Warriors held onto their lead in those minutes, but I didn’t love the floor spacing of the J. Green/Looney frontcourt.
3rd quarter:
12:00 — Poole/DDV/Kuminga/J. Green/Wiseman: 41-37, Warriors lead.
6:50 — Poole/DDV/Moody/Kuminga/Wiseman: 53-47, Warriors lead.
5:49 — Rollins/Moody/Wiggins/Kuminga/Wiseman: 55-49, Warriors lead.
5:31 — Rollins/Weatherspoon/Moody/PBJ/Kuminga: 56-49, Warriors lead.
3:30 — Rollins/Quiñones/Weatherspoon/Moody/PBJ: 61-56, Warriors lead.
Jordan Poole and the presumptive second unit started the second half for the Warriors and these were the last of the minutes for the Warriors’ grownups. The Warriors stuck mostly with a pick-and-roll heavy attack in the Poole/Wiseman minutes. The results, by my eye, weren’t great, but when JaMychal Green subbed out for Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga moved up to the 4, I thought the Warriors’ spacing cleaned up:
At the 5:49 mark, Ryan Rollins came in for his first minute and this effectively signaled the beginning of garbage time. But to call the last 18 minutes of the game garbage time isn’t fair — given how unsettled Steve Kerr’s bench rotation is, every minute counts for the backend of the roster. Shortly after Rollins subbed in, Patrick Baldwin and Quinndary Weatherspoon got their first minutes and a few minutes later, two-way contract player, Lester Quiñones joined them. With Rollins running the point, Patrick Baldwin Jr. got up several shots in a hurry. The first of his shots came off of a pick-and-pop and turned into a very pretty swish:
Although Rollins made some nice passes in the flow of the offense, his dribble-drive aggression didn’t work in his favor at the NBA level. I counted at least three instances where Rollins’ drives got swallowed at the rim by bigger defenders and it wasn’t until he separated for a mid-range jumper, that he scored his first bucket. This play below is a good example of how Rollins looked attacking NBA-level athletes:
4th quarter:
12:00 — Robinson/Quiñones/Weatherspoon/PBJ/Williams: 69-64, Warriors lead.
9:18 — Robinson/Quiñones/Weatherspoon/Kuminga/Wiseman: 75-71, Warriors lead.
8:26 — Rollins/Robinson/Weatherspoon/Kuminga/Wiseman: 76-73, Warriors lead.
7:27 — Rollins/Robinson/Moody/Kuminga/Wiseman: 77-74, Warriors lead.
2:46 — Robinson/Weatherspoon/Kuminga/Wiseman: 90-85, Warriors lead.
Trevion Williams, a subject of my preseason intrigue, got his first and only minutes in the fourth quarter. Williams has an uphill battle ahead of him if he wants to make the roster and didn’t do much to distinguish himself beyond attacking Taj Gibson in the post, stalling out, and having to throw a doomed pass to a cutting Baldwin Jr. to avoid falling out of bounds. James Wiseman checked back in at the 9:18 mark for additional reps, as did Jonathan Kuminga. The chemistry of Kuminga Wiseman was the most intriguing storyline of the remainder of the fourth quarter. I’ve included a few film clips below that show both the good and bad of the Kuminga/Wiseman pairing in the fourth quarter:
ROOKIE WATCH BABY!!!
For most of last season, I wrote a recurring segment on Jordan Poole titled, “POOLE WATCH BABY!!!” That segment carried over from Poole’s sophomore season when he was an unproven and intriguing prospect. Poole is still a prospect, but he’s a pretty known commodity at this point. This space may yet turn into a Poole-oriented segment, but for now, its subjects will change as I see fit and for this article, I’ll write some of my thoughts on the Warriors’ rookies:
Patrick Baldwin Jr: In 8 minutes, I thought PBJ demonstrated an intuitive sense of where to be on the court. He spaced the floor effectively, hit a pick-and-pop three, attempted another one, and perhaps most intriguingly, he demonstrated some low-post ISO chops against Daniel Gafford:
Baldwin Jr. did, however, look like a teenager out on the court and when he was matched up at the 5 against Gafford, the Wizards got several easy buckets in the interior. I’ll be curious to see if PBJ gets any minutes alongside the adults in the preseason — his shooting and obvious BBIQ could make him an intriguing fit alongside Steph Curry and Draymond Green and playing alongside the adults could help minimize his defensive shortcomings. I don’t think it’s out of the question that PBJ earns occasional spot minutes in the regular season at the expense of Jonathan Kuminga when Kuminga steps outside of Steve Kerr’s comfort zone.
Ryan Rollins: Although Ryan Rollins, earned the praise of Kevon Looney in training camp with his three-level scoring, it might take him some time to adjust to the size and physicality of the NBA. Rollins was able to get to his spots and did a decent job of protecting the ball, but he too looked like a boy amongst men, especially on his drives to the hoop. Rollins did, however, shoot 6 free throws in 11 minutes. It’s possible that Rollins’ forrays to the hoops might be less physically punishing for him in lineups with better spacing, but with Andre Iguodala back on the roster, it’s likely Rollins isn’t asked to do much outside of garbage time for the immediate future.
I wonder what this good game / bad game exercise would reveal about players we already know how good they got? Thinking specifically about Klay Thompson, who if you ran the exercise on his 2022 season he'd look like an inefficient chucker who did pretty good in spots. But obviously he's more than that. Would his college tape have shown something different?