The 2022-23 Golden State Warriors' first ten games of the season reviewed
Lineup data, concerning and intriguing trends for Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole, an extended look at James Wiseman's brutal start to the season, and much more.
Is anybody on the injury report after 10 games?
Andre Iguodala has yet to play a game, but he did tweet this in a typically cryptic fashion shortly after the Warriors’ loss to the Orlando Magic:
Donte DiVincenzo pulled a hamstring closing out on a jumper against the Denver Nuggets and has not played a game since. DiVincenzo is reportedly targeting a return to action for Friday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Who did the Warriors play in their first 10 games?
The Warriors played Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets, and Sacramento Kings at home, the Phoenix Suns on the road, and then the Miami Heat at home before embarking on a five-game road trip where they faced the Charlotte Hornets, Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, and New Orleans Pelicans.
How did the Warriors do in their first 10 games?
The Warriors went 3-7.
How did that happen?
On opening night, the Warriors beat the Lakers, 123-109. This, we’d later find out, was a fairly stress-free way to start the regular season. The Lakers, who have now found some mild success bringing former MVP, Russell Westbrook, off of the bench, were still trying to figure out their rotation on opening night while the Warriors ran an 11-man rotation that night. In the final competitive possessions of the game, Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins put the Lakers away alongside Donte DiVincenzo, JaMychal Green, and Kevon Looney. Wiggins was particularly impressive on opening night — he scored 20 points, including 9 points in the fourth quarter on 3/3 shooting from deep.
Two nights later, the Warriors fell behind as many as 20 points to the Nuggets at home, only to pull the game within a point with 14 seconds left. Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins scored 34 and 23 points respectively, but the rest of the Warriors’ supporting cast, particularly the bench, struggled. Moses Moody, who only played 13 minutes, was the only Warriors’ bench player to register a positive plus/minus in his minutes; Jordan Poole was -20 and only scored 7 points in 27 minutes, JaMychal Green and Jonathan Kuminga were each -10, Donte DiVincenzo managed a -13 in 9 minutes, and James Wiseman was a -14 in 16 minutes and got hunted ruthlessly by Nuggets’ guard, Bones Hyland.
When Wiseman came in during the first quarter, the Warriors trailed by only a point. 8 minutes later, the Warriors trailed by 11 points when Wiseman sat. This game was not necessarily lost in Wiseman’s minutes — the lineup that closed the first half fell behind as many as 20 points — but he certainly didn’t help. The Warriors’ starters opened the second half by trimming an 18-point Nuggets’ lead to just 7 by the time Wiseman came in, but within a few minutes that lead grew as high as 15 points during the fourth quarter.
Over the first ten games of the season, one of the most concerning trends has been the Warriors’ bench units, which initially included Wiseman, blowing leads that the starters worked hard for. In the Warriors’ third game of the season, a stress-free blowout was all but assured after the Warriors scored 89 points in the first half against the Kings and closed the third quarter with a 19-point lead. But a garbage-time lineup consisting mostly of the Warriors’ youthful core + Klay Thompson, let the Kings get within 12 points with less than six minutes left, and Steve Kerr had to bring in his starters to close the game, which ended in a 130-125 Warriors’ victory
Two nights later, the Warriors’ starters opened a road game against the Suns with energy, purpose, and force until Kevon Looney picked up his second foul barely three minutes into the game. James Wiseman subbed in at that point with the Warriors leading 10-8. By the end of the period, the Suns led by 10 points and Wiseman had committed one goaltending violation, several defensive blunders, and missed a layup in transition.
In the second period, Wiseman’s minutes were far less damaging and the Warriors trailed by only six points. But in the third quarter, Klay Thompson got ejected from the game about five-and-a-half minutes in with the Warriors down 7 points and things went south shortly after. The Suns went into the final period with a 19-point lead and while the Warriors did get as close as 12 points, Steve Kerr eventually turned to a garbage-time squad in what turned out to be a 29-point loss.
The Warriors’ fifth game of the season, a home game against the Heat, was pretty much the last time good things happened in the early regular season. Steve Kerr, chasing a much-needed win, ran a tighter rotation — Wiseman didn’t play any minutes in the second or fourth quarters after encouraging stints — and the Warriors got 18 points and 10 rebounds from Andrew Wiggins, solid contributions off of the bench, and Steph Curry finished the game with 33 points, 7 made threes, and this highlight at the expense of Heat guard, Tyler Herro:
In the five games since that win against the Heat, the Warriors are winless. They are now 0-6 on the road, a level of ignominy no previous defending champs have ever reached, and that’s after an 0-5 road trip against mostly bottom-feeder Eastern Conference teams — the Charlotte Hornets were 2-3 going into the first game of the Warriors’ road trip, the Detroit Pistons were 1-5, the Miami Heat 2-5, and the Orlando Magic 1-7. The Warriors’ first four road losses followed an excruciatingly familiar pattern; the Warriors’ starters would build a lead that would be squandered either by the end of the first quarter or Steph Curry’s re-insertion in the second quarter and after the Warriors’ starters would claw back control of the game, Steve Kerr’s closing lineups would run out of steam in crunch time.
That’s a reductionist summary of the last few games. For the sake of concision — something I’m quite bad at — let’s do just one paragraph on each game of the Warriors’ winless five-game road trip.:
10/29/22 vs. the Charlotte Hornets: 113-120.
The Warriors were trailing when James Wiseman subbed in and after a disastrous few possessions guarding fellow 2020 draftee, Nick Richards, Steve Kerr yanked Wiseman and didn’t play him again. The Warriors’ Nickname Lineup (Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/D. Green) was quite bad in the first half and dug a hole late in the second quarter, but they helped spur a third-quarter run. In the fourth quarter, the Warriors got the Hornets into the bonus early (this was a recurring problem in the road trip) and after a few possessions of Hack-a-Plumlee, the Warriors trailed by only five points with less than six minutes left. The Warriors hit big shots down the stretch and Draymond Green made a signature crunch-time steal in the post that felt like the emotional clincher, but sloppy defense and poor decision-making by Curry on the potential game-winning shot sent the game to overtime, where the Warriors only scored one field goal before losing 113-120.
10/30/22 vs. the Detroit Pistons: 114-128.
Klay Thompson missed the back end of this back-to-back and Jordan Poole started in his place. Poole scored 30 points, including an explosive 12 points in 52 seconds, to supplement Steph Curry’s 32 points, and that was pretty much it in terms of offensive firepower for the Warriors. Andrew Wiggins scored just 10 points for the second night in a row and no other Warrior reached double-digits. Draymond Green and Kevon Looney struggled with the physicality of a bruising Pistons team. 2020 draftee, Isaiah Stewart, was particularly impressive and he had his way with pretty much everyone in the Warriors’ frontcourt, most notably, James Wiseman, who Stewart has battled (and beat handily) dating back to high school). Steve Kerr turned to the Nickname Lineup to close the game, but the Warriors never got closer than 8 points in crunch time, and with a minute left in the game, Steve Kerr waved the white flag.
11/1/22 vs. the Miami Heat: 109-116.
The Warriors opened their game against the Heat with focus and energy and led 13-9 at the first mandatory timeout of the night. James Wiseman checked during the stoppage and by the time the quarter was over, the Warriors trailed 24-33 as Wiseman missed a dunk, committed three fouls, and got outplayed by veteran backup big, Dwayne Dedmon. In the second quarter, the Warriors gained some traction against a zone defense by the Heat — foreshadowing! — and Steve Kerr got some good minutes out of Moses Moody in small-ball lineups with either Andrew Wiggins or Klay Thompson playing the 4. The Warriors led going into the fourth quarter, but that aforementioned zone defense by the Heat gave the Warriors’ nickname lineup trouble — that lineup, improbably, struggled to create good shots or force the Heat defense to rotate around the floor. The Warriors got two really good looks in crunch time — Steph Curry was fouled shooting a potential game-tying three, but the refs overturned that call after instant replay, and Klay Thompson missed an excellent look after setting a staggered screen for Steph Curry and popping out to the wing. Thompson also played solid defense on Jimmy Butler for the deciding bucket, but Butler hit a very tough shot that gave the Heat the win.
11/3/22 vs. the Orlando Magic:
This was undoubtedly the worst of the Warriors’ five losses during their road trip. Steph Curry scored 39 points, Klay Thompson hit 7 threes, Kevon Looney scored a regular-season career-high 17 points, and Draymond Green played excellent defense throughout the fourth quarter despite having five fouls, but Green did eventually foul out, JaMychal Green committed five fouls in 16 minutes, as did Kevon Looney, and the Magic shot 46 free throws to the Warriors’ 15. James Wiseman had a particularly brutal third-quarter stint, which included him frustrating Steph Curry when he didn’t execute a play call, and ended after Wiseman fouled Magic guard, Kevon Harris on an offensive rebound and-1 and was then called for a technical. Those fouls turned out to be terribly consequential — after Wiseman subbed out, Draymond Green failed to secure the defensive rebound on Harris’ free throw, and Magic guard RJ Hampton hit a bank three immediately after, which gave the Magic 7 points in seconds. That sequence gave the Magic enough momentum to take a lead for much of the fourth quarter. Despite 11 points in the final three minutes by Steph Curry, the defensive and shooting heroics of Jalen Suggs, who hit dagger shots and forced Curry into two costly turnovers, gave the Magic the win.
11/4/22 vs. the New Orleans Pelicans:
Kevon Looney was the only Warriors’ starter to play on the second game of this road back-to-back and he was flanked by a young starting line up Jordan Poole, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, and Anthony Lamb. The Warriors’ struggles turned into this game, a likely loss, into an audition for the back-end of the roster. Lamb, the surprise starter, made the most of his minutes and scored 16 points with 4/6 shooting from deep, Ty Jerome had 18 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 0 turnovers in 31 minutes off of the bench, but the most encouraging story of the game was probably the play of Jonathan Kuminga, who had received a DNP the night before. Kuminga scored 18 points on 12 shots and was a willing passer and cutter, rather than an over-dribbler and after the game, Steve Kerr indicated that Kuminga was likely to get more minutes in the foreseeable future. That’s the good news. The bad news is the Warriors lost that game and that Jordan Poole struggled all night, but that the game was watchable despite the absence of the Warriors’ veteran core was an (upsetting) emotional balm.
What lineups have played a lot in the first 10 games of the season?
Before we dive into the lineups, here’s a valuable point of reference: league-average ORTG in the NBA is currently 112.0.
Below is a screenshot from Cleaning the Glass that shows all of the Warriors’ five-man lineups that have played at least 15 possessions of non-garbage time together (positive ones are highlighted in green):
The Warriors’ starting lineup is kicking ass and through 10 games, they are the fourth-best lineup in basketball that has played over 100 possessions together. The only other Warriors’ lineup that has played over 100 possessions is the Nickname Lineup of Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Draymond. After a rough start to the season, they finally have a neutral net rating. That they have only managed a neutral net rating after what should have been an easy start to the season is concerning and it is also concerning that the Warriors’ most-used starting lineup last season, Curry/Poole/Wiggins/D. Green/Looney, has a -13.9 net rating and is hemorrhaging points on defense this season.
Something of note with the Nickname Lineup — NBA.com does not filter out garbage-time minutes, so they register a lower rating in NBA.com’s data sets than they do for Cleaning the Glass. But one thing that NBA.com does do that I appreciate is sorting or specific time frames, like quarters. The Nickname Lineup is the Warriors’ second-most used fourth-quarter lineup. Unfortunately, they have a -15.8 net rating in the fourth quarter and their 97.1 ORTG would rank around the 7th or 8th percentile. Sort, however, for the second quarter, and that lineup is the Warriors’ most-used lineup and while their scoring improves in that period (117.5 ORTG), their defense has been quite bad and they have a -13.0 net rating in 25 second-quarter minutes.
The Warriors’ third-most used lineup this season is a surprising one: Poole/Jerome/Wiggins/J. Green/Looney. After Donte DiVincenzo’s injury in the second game of the season, Ty Jerome got thrust into the Warriors’ rotation. Much to my surprise, he’s actually been a rare bright spot on this Warriors’ team and the second unit he’s played in is one of just 6 positive lineups in the list above. The next positive lineup, Poole/Moody/Kuminga/Lamb/Looney, started the Warriors’ recent loss to the Pelicans. I don’t know how much playing time that lineup will get in the future, but its broad outlines — Poole/Moody/Kuminga/Looney and one other wing — is an intriguing blueprint for non-Steph Curry minutes.
There are three positive lineups with James Wiseman in this list, two led by Steph Curry and the other by Jordan Poole. Both of the positive lineups of Steph/Wiseman also include Draymond Green, while the Poole/DDV/Moody/J. Green/Wiseman lineup has only played in two games together. All of the other lineups with Wiseman in them are bad. For most of the Warriors’ winless road trip, Curry/Poole/Wiggins/D. Green/Wiseman was typically the lineup that played after Steve Kerr’s first subs and they have not only a -35.1 net rating — their DRTG is a horrendous 166.7, despite the presence of two excellent defenders in Wiggins and Draymond.
It gets worse — James Wiseman should get some cushion playing alongside the Warriors’ starters in Kevon Looney’s place, but that lineup has a -15.8 net rating. Their defense is merely bad (115.8 DRTG) but what’s more concerning is that lineup only has an ORTG of 100.0. The promise of James Wiseman as a rim runner who provides vertical spacing for the Warriors’ core? That’s simply not been the case. Plays like these, where Wiseman botches simple actions that are staples of the Warriors’ offense, have been common:
Something I noticed a few games ago was Steph Curry and the Warriors’ veterans have occasionally ignored Wiseman on offense and done their thing while he lingers in the dunking spot. This play below is one such example:
That game against Orlando was humiliating and seemed to be a breaking point for the patience of Steph Curry and Steve Kerr. We won’t know until the next few games if Kerr intends to give Wiseman more shots at rotation minutes or not, but it is deeply concerning that Wiseman seems to be getting increasingly anxious as he plays alongside Steph Curry and the Warriors’ vets — Wiseman seems to be aware of their impatience and frustration, which is well-warranted, and it seems to be affecting his play.
Here are the Warriors’ 25 most-used three-man lineup combos from this season (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Wiggins/D. Green: +5.9 net rating (119.4 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/D. Green: +12.0 net rating (120.9 ORTG) in 190 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Wiggins: +9.9 net rating (120.7 ORTG) in 176 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/D. Green: +13.3 net rating (123.1 ORTG) in 170 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +20.0 net rating (127.5 ORTG) in 149 minutes.
Curry/D. Green/Looney: +17.8 net rating (126.5 ORTG) in 138 minutes.
Wiggins/D. Green/Looney: +17.4 net rating (125.7 ORTG) in 131 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Looney: +18.9 net rating (126.5 ORTG) in 119 minutes.
Thompson/D. Green/Looney: +21.6 net rating (128.0 ORTG) in 115 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +17.6 net rating (124.7 ORTG) in 114 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins: -13.3 net rating (111.2 ORTG) in 96 minutes.
Curry/Poole/D. Green: -9.3 net rating (115.2 ORTG) in 95 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/D. Green: -15.4 net rating (112.9 ORTG) in 83 minutes.
Poole/Moody/J. Green: -23.0 net rating (93.3 ORTG) in 75 minutes.
Poole/J. Green/Wiseman: -28.6 net rating (89.7 ORTG) in 70 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/J. Green: -2.2 net rating (105.8 ORTG) in 66 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: -2.1 net rating 106.8 ORTG) in 63 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Thompson: -18.1 net rating (104.9 ORTG) in 59 minutes.
Poole/Jerome/J.Green: -0.7 net rating (108.0 ORTG) in 58 minutes.
Poole/Thompson/D. Green: -11.6 net rating (106.7 ORTG) in 58 minutes.
Poole/Thompson/Wiggins: -21.3 net rating (102.9 ORTG) in 57 minutes.
Poole/J. Green/Looney: +1.0 net rating (98.2 ORTG) in 54 minutes.
Poole/Moody/Wiseman: -26.0 net rating (99.2 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Poole/Moody/Looney: +0.9 net rating (96.2 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Wiggins/J. Green/Looney: +21.6 net rating (124.5 ORTG) in 50 minutes.
It is in the Warriors’ three-man combos that you start to see other problems plaguing the team, such as Jordan Poole’s ineffectiveness this season. The moment that Poole shows up in these three-man combos, things go south. Poole has been unusually bad around the rim this season — more on this later — and his defense, outside of an impressive stretch against the Hornets, has been bad. Let’s use the Curry/Poole/Wiggins combo as an example: that’s an interesting trio because they’ve played lots of minutes both alongside James Wiseman and also in the Nickname Lineup. If you remove Wiseman from their minutes, they have a -2.9 net rating per Cleaning the Glass, which is bad, but it’s not horrible. Unfortunately, they’re still defending poorly without Wiseman on the court.
Just three of the non-Steph combos listed above come out positive. The Wiggins/J. Green/Looney combo is an interesting one because it has done well in two entirely different contexts — Jordan Poole/Ty Jerome-led bench units and alongside Steph Curry. The trio of Curry/J. Green/Looney didn’t hit crack the 25-most used trios, but in 34 minutes together, they have a +70.4 net rating in 34 possessions together, and Andrew Wiggins figures prominently in their limited minutes together. I wouldn’t have expected much out of the JMG/Looney combo — JaMychal’s three-point shooting has been rough to start the season — but somehow they’re making it work.
The struggles of other combos, like, say, Poole/Thompson/Wiggins, are disorienting. That trio has played 101 of its 124 possessions in the Nickname Lineup and they only have one possession alongside with James Wiseman. This is to say — that trio has played almost exclusively alongside Steph Curry and it’s still struggling.
There are some trios here that don’t crack the top 25 that I’d like to see more of: Curry/Poole/Thompson, for example, has a -5.4 net rating in 129 possessions together, only two of which came alongside James Wiseman. Last season, that trio crushed teams to the tune of a +33.6 net rating in 274 non-garbage time possessions together with a 91.6 DRTG. There’s no reason this trio should struggle defensively for an entire season when it has a body of work that shows its ability to hold up on both ends of the court.
Here are the Warriors’ 25 most-used two-man lineup combos from this season (positive ones bolded):
Curry/D. Green: +6.5 net rating (120.1 ORTG) in 254 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +6.1 net rating (120.4 ORTG) in 245 minutes.
Wiggins/D. Green :+4.9 net rating (119.2 ORTG) in 219 minutes.
Curry/Thompson: +8.6 net rating (119.2 ORTG) in 198 minutes.
Thompson/D. Green: +11.0 net rating (120.0 ORTG) in 196 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +15.3 net rating (123.3 ORTG) in 187 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins: +8.2 net rating (119.7 ORTG) in 181 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +17.2 net rating (127.2 ORTG) in 165 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins: -12.3 net rating (109.0 ORTG) in 151 minutes.
Poole/J. Green: -17.4 net rating (93.3 ORTG) in 148 minutes.
Curry/Poole: -14.7 net rating (108.0 ORTG) in 140 minutes.
D. Green/Looney: +16.8 net rating (126.1 ORTG) in 138 minutes.
Poole/Moody: -9.9 net rating (101.4 ORTG) in 130 minutes.
Thompson/Looney: +16.8 net rating (125.1 ORTG) in 120 minutes.
Poole/Looney: -7.5 net rating (103.1 ORTG) in 108 minutes.
Poole/D. Green: -10.8 net rating (113.4 ORTG) in 103 minutes.
Poole/Wiseman: -24.0 net rating (97.0 ORTG) in 99 minutes.
Moody/J. Green: -17.2 net rating (100.0 ORTG) in 88 minutes.
Wiggins/J. Green: +2.5 net rating (114.2 ORTG) in 81 minutes.
J. Green/Wiseman: -31.7 net rating (92.2 ORTG) in 78 minutes.
Poole/Kuminga: -15.6 net rating (93.0 ORTG) in 77 minutes.
Poole/Jerome: +0.6 net rating (106.7 ORTG) in 77 minutes.
Poole/Thompson: -20.6 net rating (100.6 ORTG) in 75 minutes.
Moody/Wiseman: -20.0 net rating (100.6 ORTG) in 74 minutes.
Curry/Moody: +13.6 net rating (116.0 ORTG) in 74 minutes.
These numbers follow a similar trend — James Wiseman and Jordan Poole have not been good with, well, pretty much anyone this season. I expect Poole to turn his season around — he has a track record and was just a key part of a championship-winning team — but I don’t think this roster provides him with the level of insulation last season’s did. Poole benefited immensely last season from Andre Iguodala’s infrequent presence, the defensive stability that Gary Payton II gave non-Steph minutes, as well as the rugged floor spacing and rebounding of frontcourt players like Nemanja Bjelica and Otto Porter Jr.
The return of Iguodala could help, but his health and availability are not guaranteed. Unfortunately, the same is true for the oft-injured Donte DiVincenzo, whose rotation spot has been temporarily filled by Ty Jerome. DiVincenzo could be back as soon as Friday and I’m curious how Steve Kerr intends to use him. DiVincenzo’s defensive prowess could provide defensive stability in Poole’s minutes, but would it come at the expense of Jerome, who has been genuinely useful in the Warriors’ second unit? Could it come alongside Jerome? Or perhaps, Kerr will make a point of using DiVincenzo alongside Steph Curry and Jordan Poole.
In any event, DiVincenzo’s return, should provide Kerr with options and right now, the Warriors need those. It’s essential that Jordan Poole’s minutes become positive again. Through 10 games, he’s only been a positive presence with just two players: Anthony Lamb and Ty Jerome. Here’s a screenshot from NBA.com on Poole’s two-man combos:
In the interest of seeing how much of an impact James Wiseman is having on Poole’s numbers, I tallied his two-man combos filtering for possessions without Wiseman below, and for the sake of avoiding garbage-time and load management games, I’ve only included players in the rotation and am not including the Warriors’ rookies:
Poole/Wiggins: -7.9 net rating (112.8 ORTG) in 265 possessions.
Curry/Poole: -3.5 net rating (119.9 ORTG) in 216 possessions.
Poole/Looney: -6.9 net rating (107.5 ORTG) in 214 possessions.
Poole/D. Green: -11.4 net rating (115.7 ORTG) in 185 possessions.
Poole/J. Green: -8.5 net rating (99.4 ORTG) in 159 possessions.
Poole/Moody: -1.5 net rating (103.8 ORTG) in 159 possessions.
Poole/Thompson: -10.0 net rating (110.9 ORTG) in 147 possessions.
Poole/Jerome: +4.7 net rating (108.4 ORTG) in 107 possessions.
Poole/Kuminga: -1.2 net rating (111.6 ORTG) in 86 possessions.
Poole/Lamb: +5.4 net rating (108.6 ORTG) in 58 possessions.
Poole/DiVincenzo: -17.3 net rating (75.0 ORTG) in 12 possessions.
It is quite amusing that Poole’s two positive net ratings in two-man combos without Wiseman are still with the Warriors’ two-way contract players. Still, things look less bleak without Wiseman here. Curry/Poole, for example, is 11.2 points better without Wiseman on the court, and assuming Poole returns to form at some point, things should trend positively again. I am intrigued by Poole’s nearly neutral play with Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga when Wiseman sits and I’d imagine both players will get increased minutes as Steve Kerr tinkers with his rotation. One last combo of note: Poole/Lamb’s +5.2 net rating is encouraging, but 28 of its possessions together came in the Warriors’ load management loss to the Pelicans, so I’m not sure how predictive they are.
James Wiseman watch:
It only took 10 games for Steve Kerr to commit to drastic rotation changes and after a disastrous start to the season, James Wiseman is the obvious candidate to see his minutes reduced, if not shrunk to zero. In a press conference on Sunday, Kerr said this about Wiseman:
“I have no doubt long term he’s going to be a good player” is an implicit admission that Wiseman is not a good player right now. Normal teams with a lottery pick can survive a blown draft pick. Hell, it might actually get a bad team another high lottery pick. But the Warriors are not a normal team. Wiseman’s struggles made me think about something Marcus Thompson II wrote after TMZ released the infamous video of Draymond Green punching Jordan Poole:
These are the Golden State Warriors, who live in a fishbowl and with whom everything is huge news (which is exactly why the video was leaked).
Wiseman is one of the more famous 21-year-old basketball players on the planet and not on the merit of positive contributions. With each game that Wiseman gets outplayed by anonymous bigs and gets outmuscled for rebounds by two-way wings, the more obvious his flaws become to those staring into the fishbowl. Forget considerations about Wiseman’s on-court or trade value. Let’s just think about James Wiseman, the 21-year-old human being for a moment.
Before he’d played a single NBA game, his boss, Warriors’ owner Joe Lacob, had already compared him to Joel Embiid and referred to him as a once-in-a-decade talent. In his rookie training camp, Steve Kerr, unprompted, compared him to David Robinson. Those were the unfair expectations foisted onto Wiseman during his rookie season after playing just three college games and missing most of training camp with COVID-19. Good luck kid!
Wiseman proceeded to play as badly as any top-five draft pick in recent history during his rookie season. After he tore his meniscus in April of 2021, the Warriors went on a 15-5 run and Steph Curry proceeded to look like the best player on the planet. Wiseman missed his second season when his torn meniscus never fully healed over a year-long period, but the Warriors built a roster light in the frontcourt to give him a path to minutes last season. At the trade deadline with Wiseman and Draymond Green both expected to not play until at least March, the Warriors opted against bolstering their frontcourt and instead crossed their fingers and prayed that Kevon Looney — he of multiple surgeries and a neuropathic condition that causes him occasional numbness in his limbs — could stay healthy for a full season.
So that’s the context for Wiseman’s return to action: he’s been bad in his limited NBA minutes, he’s been prioritized by the Warriors’ brain trust to the point of risking the health of their frontcourt, and he’s also been the subject of an immense amount of hype.
Through 10 games this season, James Wiseman has the 7th-worst net rating differential in the NBA, — that is exactly what he ranked during his rookie season — and the Warriors have a -21.2 net rating with him on the court. The optimist’s view of Wiseman notes his lack of experience and the fact that the 2020-21 Warriors employed Kelly Oubre Jr., who was a terrible fit Wiseman and played 84% of the Curry/Wiseman minutes. This season Oubre is not on this team and I think most sensible people would argue that the 2022-23 Warriors’ roster is far more favorable to Wiseman and other young players, and yet, he’s been significantly worse in an objectively better environment.
Prior to the season, the Warriors planned on Wiseman being a big part of the second unit and several articles were written on the promise of the Poole/Wiseman pick-and-roll as a staple of the bench’s offense. It only took five games for Steve Kerr to stop playing James Wiseman in the second and fourth-quarter second units and turn instead to a JaMychal Green/Kevon Looney frontcourt in the hopes of stabilizing the second unit’s porous defense. Instead, Wiseman has played the bulk of his minutes alongside Steph Curry since Kerr changed his rotation against the Miami Heat on the 27th of October.
Improbably, Wiseman has been even worse with Curry this season than he was as a rookie when he tallied a -8.1 net rating alongside Curry. As I noted after his rookie season, that was the worst net rating any player had ever registered alongside Steph Curry during the Steve Kerr-era in a sample size of 100 or more minutes. Wiseman has only played 63 minutes alongside Steph Curry this season. If the Curry/Wiseman combo had played over 100 minutes together, their net rating would be the second-worst combo of all time — only Curry/Mikki Moore’s -20.8 net rating during Steph’s rookie season, would be worse. For additional context, Moore only played 7 more NBA games after that season. Here are the net ratings for Wiseman two-man combos:
On the season, the Warriors have a -1.9 net rating in non-garbage time possessions. Without Wiseman on the court, that net rating is a very solid +5.9, which is actually better than the +5.7 non-garbage time net rating of the 2021-22 Warriors’ team. Here are the net ratings of each Warrior player and then their net ratings without Wiseman (positive ones bolded with the rookie and Kevon Looney, who hasn’t played a single minute with Wiseman, excluded):
Steph Curry: +5.8 net rating (121 ORTG) in 677 possessions.
Steph Curry w/out Wiseman: +12.5 net rating (125.6 ORTG) in 535 possessions.
Klay Thompson: +8.9 net rating (118.9 ORTG) in 465 possessions.
Klay Thompson w/out Wiseman: +11.0 net rating (121.1 ORTG) in 413 possessions
Andrew Wiggins: +5.9 net rating (120.5 ORTG) in 635 possessions.
Andrew Wiggins w/out Wiseman: +9.7 net rating (122.0 ORTG) in 555 possessions.
Draymond Green: +5.3 net rating (119.8 ORTG) in 566 possessions.
Draymond Green w/out Wiseman: +8.1 net rating (121.8 ORTG) in 482 possessions.
Jordan Poole: -13.0 net rating: (107.2 ORTG) in 625 possessions.
Jordan Poole w/out Wiseman: -7.0 net rating (109.4 ORTG) in 405 possessions.
Moses Moody: -2.2 net rating (110.8 ORTG) in 360 possessions.
Moses Moody w/out Wiseman: +6.8 net rating (112.7 ORTG) in 204 possessions.
Ty Jerome w/out Wiseman: +2.3 net rating (106.0 ORTG) in 134 possessions.
JaMychal Green: -15.1 net rating (104.8 ORTG) in 353 possessions.
JaMychal Green w/out Wiseman: -2.1 net rating (109.6 ORTG) in 187 possessions.
Jonathan Kuminga: -17.4 net rating (102.5 ORTG) in 203 possessions.
Jonathan Kuminga w/out Wiseman: -9.2 net rating (107.3 ORTG) in 109 possessions.
Anthony Lamb: +4.2 net rating (114.9 ORTG) in 87 possessions.
Anthony Lamb w/out Wiseman: +1.9 net rating (106.3 ORTG) in 63 possessions.
Donte DiVincenzo: -13.4 net rating (107.6 ORTG) in 92 possessions.
Donte DiVincenzo without Wiseman: +2.9 net rating (131.0 ORTG) in 29 possessions.
So all but one Warrior, Anthony Lamb, who has enough received rotation minutes to have a representative sample has a better net rating without Wiseman than they do with. Ty Jerome is the only other oddity here — his ORTG actually improves with Wiseman — but I suspect part of that has to do with Jerome playing in punch-less bench units and getting a big dose of minutes during the Warriors’ load management game against the Pelicans on Friday. But for the rest of the roster, there is a clear trend — the Warriors’ offense craters with James Wiseman on the court.
Wiseman’s negative impact on offense dates back to his rookie season when he had a -4.0 OBPM, an identical number to rookie-year Festus Ezeli despite a far superior TS% of 55.2% to Ezeli’s 46.7%. In Wiseman’s rookie season, he finished over 75% of his shots in the restricted area, but middling percentages (and high volume) from the mid-range and a poor points-per-possession (PPP) yield as the roll man in pick-and-rolls (a 12th percentile 1.12 PPP) tanked his offensive impact. The presence of Kelly Oubre Jr. was an obvious negative influence, but there is no Oubre on this team and the only player who even comes close to resembling him, Jonathan Kuminga, has barely played after starting the year in the rotation alongside Wiseman.
This season, Wiseman’s 1.75 PPP as the roll man is the third-highest in the entire NBA and he’s shooting 86.7% in those possessions, per NBA.com’s play type data. But those numbers don’t account for other possessions where Wiseman sets a screen and does not get the ball, like this one:
That’s a good finish by Jordan Poole despite a poor process. Here’s another play, bookended by another good Poole finish, where a PNR with Wiseman doesn’t manifest:
Too often, when Wiseman doesn’t get the ball right away, he beelines to the restricted area and starts trying to post up or call for the ball. That’s even happened in transition:
Wiseman posting up is not optimal for anyone. Up until this point, neither has bending the Warriors’ offense to accommodate Wiseman. Friend of the Substack, Charlie Cumming, wrote a very measured look at Wiseman’s second-season offerings that you can read here, and I’m going to quote from it liberally:
On the offensive end, Golden State has made a serious effort to compartmentalize Wiseman’s role to form a building block he can grow on. They have also tailored their offensive possessions to play to his strengths. His pick-and-roll frequency of 23.9% is more than double Kevon Looney‘s (11.3%), who generates as much offense from cutting as any other center. He’s been very effective when he can catch (13/15 FG, 1.75 PPP) but the catching is a serious issue. He’s only been able to catch 50% of his lobs and finish 74% of dunks so far, a sharp decline from his rookie year despite the presence of much better playmakers. For his career, he’s 13/48 on hook shot attempts (27.1%).
Last year, more than 58% of Looney’s offense came from hustle plays, cutting and hitting the glass. Wiseman checks in around 30% this year, right in line with the 29% mark from his rookie campaign. That stark difference in a need for prescripted plays has put undue burden on the Warriors creators and coaches. Especially when he can only convert a very small amount of those looks.
To illustrate Charlie’s point, here’s a Wiseman post-up that should have ended much differently:
Wiseman’s desire to post-up/propensity for clogging the paint has had consequences for pretty much every Warrior on the roster. Here are side-by-side screenshots from NBAWOWY on the Warriors’ finishing from 0-3 feet — the one on the left is with Wiseman and the one on the right without Wiseman:
There are five players who have played >100 possessions with James Wiseman together: Jordan Poole, JaMychal Green, Moses Moody, Steph Curry, and Jonathan Kuminga. All of them, save for Steph Curry, see their percentage of shots between 0-3 feet shrink when they share the court with Wiseman while Kuminga is the only one whose finishing improves with Wiseman on the court, and that’s because he’s made the only two attempts from 0-3 feet he’s taken during those minutes.
Here is the differential in FG% from 0-3 feet without and without Wiseman for those five players (positive ones bolded):
Poole: -13.6% worse with Wiseman on the court.
J. Green: -19.2% worse with Wiseman on the court.
Moody: -33.4% worse with Wiseman on the court.
Curry: -20.0% worse with Wiseman on the court.
Kuminga: +42.9% better with Wiseman on the court:
Turnovers also skyrocket with Wiseman on the court. Here’s another side-by-side screenshot from NBAWOWY:
Among those five players to have more than 100 possessions alongside Wiseman, JaMychal Green is the only one who has a lower TOV% when he shares the court with Wiseman. When Wiseman is on the court, Steph Curry’s TOV% nearly doubles, Poole’s jumps up 2.4%, Kuminga’s increases by 5.8%, but Moses Moody’s TOV% increase is staggering: he goes from a 12.4% TOV without Wiseman — this is still higher than I’d like it to be, but is only 47th percentile — to 24.3% TOV with Wiseman. Take note also of Draymond Green’s TOV%: he goes from 14.7% TOV without Wiseman, which would be the third-best rate of his career, to what would be a career-worst 26.7% TOV with Wiseman on the court.
Wiseman’s hands are an obvious issue — he’s dropped about one pass a night by my count and he’s only 3/6 on lobs this season, as we learned from Charlie’s article. As the season has gone on, I’ve noticed that Jordan Poole is more reluctant to pass to Wiseman. A few games ago, Wiseman bobbled an easy pass that Poole threw, and during the dead ball, Poole yelled at him to “catch the ball.”
Distrust of Wiseman also extends to the defensive end of the court. Here are a few examples:
Here’s Charlie Cummings again in written form:
According to Cleaning the Glass, Golden State’s defense allows 14.1 more points per 100 possessions with Wiseman on the floor compared to their starters. Opponents are getting 6.9% more offensive rebounds with him on the floor, despite being at least 4 inches taller than any other rotation player on the Warriors. They allow 126.3 points per 100 with him on the floor, the worst mark in the league for any center.
Charlie had a brilliant Twitter thread on Wiseman’s defense that I’ve linked to here. The short of it — Wiseman is indecisive in drop coverages when he defends pick-and-rolls, although there have been some encouraging moments of switchability on the perimeter. But the Warriors need more than that from their former #2 pick and it’s been jarring to see good defenders like Draymond Green make mistakes trying to pre-emptively clean messes on Wiseman’s behalf. Here’s one example:
Wiseman has tanked bench units this season and in theory, playing him with the starters should insulate the team’s lesser players. But those minus have not gone well either and it’s concerning that Wiseman seems to be getting increasingly anxious when he shares the court with Steph Curry and the Warriors’ veteran core. This play from Wiseman’s last stretch of minutes with Curry was particularly alarming:
The next night, the Warriors load-managed their veterans — save for Kevon Looney — and James Wiseman played only 17 minutes, ranking seventh overall on the team. On a night that Steve Kerr likened to an open audition for rotations minutes, two-way contract players, Anthony Lamb and Ty Jerome both more minutes than Wiseman. The funny thing is that Wiseman was actually ok against the Pelicans and he looked far more comfortable playing alongside the Warriors’ JV squad than he has with the vets.
Wiseman’s liberated mood against the Pelicans speaks to a bigger issue — the vibes are really bad on this team right now, particularly when Wiseman shares the court with the veterans. Do you think James Wiseman doesn’t realize that? How do you think he feels when the best player in Warriors’ franchise history is getting visibly upset with him at least once a game for not knowing where to be? How do you think Wiseman feels about Curry and the Warriors’ veterans getting asked about the Two Timelines plan by media members after losses? How do you think the Warriors’ veterans feel about the Two Timeline plan? Do you think Steph Curry and Draymond Green enjoy having to hold Wiseman’s hand on the court knowing that they only have one other true center on the roster? Do you think that Steph and Draymond and Steve Kerr don’t feel sorry for Wiseman?
For the sake of the Warriors’ future, but more importantly, for the sake of James Wiseman, the Warriors need to trade him to a team that isn’t under the microscope. It’s clear that whatever potential Wiseman has won’t be reached anytime soon for the Warriors. In theory, that shouldn’t be an issue, but the Warriors have a huge luxury tax bill coming next year, Draymond Green’s future contract status is murky as a result of that looming tax bill, and the Warriors have championship ambitions this season. Barring an unforeseen leap that breaks with all the information and priors we have on James Wiseman, he won’t help this Warriors’ team win a championship and he’s unlikely to be useful in the playoffs this year or the next.
I think it’s clear to James Wiseman he’s out of his element and that this is not a healthy environment for his development. That’s not his fault, to be clear — Joe Lacob made a choice to prioritize and hype the development of his young core and pick another two rookies in this draft, rather than keep one or several of Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr., Juan Toscano-Anderson, or Damion Lee. Just two games into the season, Sports Illustrated wrote a long-form article on Wiseman’s recovery and return to action. A week later, DIME Magazine put him on the cover of a recent issue — Wiseman has been thrust into the front of the fishbowl, yet again, and if the Warriors continue to struggle during his minutes, he will be the subject of increased scrutiny and negative attention.
Wiseman’s struggles during his rookie season were frustrating. LaMelo Ball was picked right after him and won the Rookie of the Year while the Warriors had their best run of the season in Wiseman’s absence. Back then, social media opinions on Wiseman were much more divided and much more civil. This season, Warriors’ Twitter has mostly coalesced around a Wiseman-skeptical POV, and with good reason. But it’s been hard to see the majority of my timeline reach that conclusion because it means that the noise is probably getting louder around Wiseman. There’s no way he’s not aware of the public perception of him and on a lesser team, one that wasn’t the most famous US sports franchise of the last decade, he’d have the space that he deserves to grow at his own speed and without the burden of heightened expectations and visibility.
Here is a visualization of Wiseman’s shot chart this season, courtesy of Positive Residual, and take note of the total absence of three-point attempts:
Stray thoughts and observations:
Steph Curry’s crunch-time turnovers against the Orlando Magic aside, he’s been spectacular to start the season. Per NBA.com’s play type stats, he ranks 6th in the NBA in PPP as the pick-and-roll ball-handler. What’s more surprising is that Curry is running 8.1 PNR’s a game, which ranks 15th in the league per volume. By comparison, Curry ran just 6.5 PNR’s a game in the 2021-22 season.
Jordan Poole, on the hand, has run four PNR’s a game with a PPP of 0.65, which ranks in the 18th percentile. He’s also shooting 53.3% in the restricted area, a number only five percentage points higher than his brutal rookie season. I expect that to change. Poole is also 0/9 on corner threes this season and he’s shooting 23.3% on pull-up threes on 3.0 attempts a game. Last season, Poole got that percentage up to 34.2% on 2.9 attempts a game and in the last 13 games of the season, Poole shot 36.2% on pull-up threes on 5.3 attempts a game. This is to say, Poole has a track record of finishing the ball and of being able to hit shots off the dribble at an acceptable clip, so I expect those things to come back. Mediocre free-throw shooting aside, Poole’s other shooting percentages indicate that his shooting is still intact — Poole’s 48% on mid-range shots is nearly 6 percentage points higher than what he shot last season and he’s already taken nearly a quarter of the attempts from mid-range as he did all last season. Poole is also shooting over 50% on floaters this season. But I do suspect that Poole misses the secondary play-making of veterans like Andre Iguodala, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Nemanja Bjelica, and to some extent, Draymond Green. Through 10 games, Poole has only played 16 non-garbage time possession with Draymond in non-Steph minutes. Here’s hoping that more Poole/Dray without Steph is one of the many changes coming to the Warriors’ rotation.
Speaking of Draymond.... He’s shooting a career-high 68.1% on two-point field goals and he’s shooting the ball as much as he has since the 2018-19 season. But he’s averaging career lows per 36-minutes in rebounds, blocks, and steals, his free-throw shooting percentage is below 60%, and the last time his assist numbers were this low was the 2014-15 season. Draymond’s effort hasn’t been an issue this season. He’s playing hard, and he’s had some great moments, including what should have been the game-sealing steal against PJ Washington in the eventual loss to the Charlotte Hornets. But Draymond has been unusually quiet on the court and he’s only recently started to yell at officials again. I’ve wondered if Draymond’s punch of Jordan Poole has given him pause about yelling his younger teammates into position on defense. To that point, Draymond has played 807 combined minutes with Steph Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson, and Andrew Wiggins. But he’s only played 103 minutes alongside Jordan Poole and just 106 with the rest of the Warriors’ roster, most of whom are young and unproven. If it’s chemistry concerns that are the reason for this discrepancy in minutes, that’s concerning. I would like to see Draymond play more with Jordan Poole in non-Steph minutes and more alongside the Warriors’ younger players who need a stabilizing force on defense when they play.
Klay Thompson, per Steve Kerr, might not play a single back-to-back game during this regular season. He seems to be nearing the end of his minutes’ restriction, but he’s been wildly inconsistent this season. I trust Klay’s shot — he’s drifting less than he did last season and he did put together a really nice stretch to close the season where he hit at least five threes in 7 of the Warriors’ last 11 games, after only reaching that mark three times in the Warriors’ previous 21 games. But one huge point of concern — less than 2% of his shots are coming from the 0-3 feet mark after a career-low 6.1% of shots in that range during the 2021-22 season. Simply put, Klay Thompson is not taking any easy shots this season, save for catch-and-shoot three-pointers, but he’s hitting those at a paltry 29.4% mark and he’s taking 8.5 attempts a game. Last season, Klay hit 36.4% of his catch-and-shoot threes, so he should regress to the mean eventually, right?
I am excited to see Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody play more minutes and ideally without James Wiseman by their side. As we discussed in “James Wiseman watch”, Moody’s finishing and turnovers have been horrendous when he shares the court with Wiseman. But Moody has been a positive alongside all of the Warriors’ veterans — save for Jordan Poole, although that duo has a -1.5 net rating without Wiseman — and he should benefit from Steve Kerr turning to a tighter rotation, as should Kuminga.
Ty Jerome has been an unlikely bright spot for the Warriors. I don’t think it’s out of the question that he takes some of Donte DiVincenzo’s minutes, especially if DDV’s career keeps trending the way it has — lots of injuries, increasingly poor finishing, and inconsistent shooting. Steve Kerr seemed to view DDV as an organizing ball-handler on offense, which is not a great use of his skillset considering his inconsistent three-point shooting off-the-dribble and his poor finishing. DDV is a smart passer, but the inability to create shots for himself makes it easier to overplay against his passing, especially in Kerr’s motion system. But Ty Jerome has been placed into a similar role on offense and he’s been surprisingly capable. Jerome seems to be getting more confident with each game and during the Warriors’ loss to the Pelicans, he demonstrated some real flair and creativity with the ball in his hands. Jerome has been the best version of Steve Kerr’s “true point guard” — through 7 games, Jerome is averaging 2 assists and just 0.3 turnovers a game, he’s shooting 100% from 0-3 feet, 80% from 3-10 feet, and 60% from 10-16 feet. Jerome’s hilariously efficient shooting should come down to earth, but he’s at least proven he can be useful and he’s only one of two Warriors that has a positive net rating with Jordan Poole right now.
JaMychal Green has been bad this season, especially when he shares the court with James Wiseman. But with rotation changes coming, I think it’s possible we see more of JMG playing the 5. Through 10 games, JMG at the 5 has not been good. In 63 possessions without either Wiseman or Kevon Looney, JMG has a -29.8 net rating. In 25 possessions, the Green/Green frontcourt has a -53.9 net rating. Yikes. But JMG has been really good next to Kevon Looney this season both in bench units and alongside Steph Curry. Hopefully, over a larger sample size, Curry/JMG/Looney (+70.4 net rating in 34 possessions) gets some more chances.
Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Ryan Rollins got their first extended minutes during the Warriors’ loss to the Pelicans and it was ugly. Rollins had four turnovers in 9 minutes, while PBJ managed a -13 in under four minutes as he got hunted on defense. Both players just got sent down to the G-League and look like they need some extended time there. That makes it all the more frustrating that the Warriors so clearly need veteran stability and have what looks like two empty roster spots in PBJ and Rollins.
Author’s note:
Work, the thing that pays my rent, is going to get in the way of games between 11/8-11/15. I’ll do my best to watch those games, but I’ll likely have to watch them after that chunk of time and do a week-in-review post, rather than nightly recaps.