The Golden State Warriors have now lost six games in a row, dropping their record to 6-8 after an impressive start to the season. And while they’ve been undermanned either because of Stephen Curry’s injury or Draymond Green’s suspension, those who have been on the court have been less than impressive.
Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins haven’t been able to get out of their early-season slump, scoring at a much less efficient clip than usual and with their overall numbers taking a dip.
That’s why, following their sixth consecutive defeat, coach Steve Kerr pivoted from his words of earlier in the season, finally admitting that he could look at making some lineup changes to get out of this funk.
“Yeah, it’s a possibility,” Kerr told the media. “You know, we love the lineup that we’ve started the last couple of years and we want to give that unit every opportunity to get going and we know when [Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson] are shooting the ball well, that lineup makes perfect sense.”
The coach hinted at potentially giving more minutes to rising rookie Brandin Podziemski, who has been quite impressive early in the season and even played 39 minutes against the Minnesota Timberwolves:
“I think he can play backup point guard,” Kerr said. “But I think he’s just a basketball player. So we can play him anywhere. The beauty of him is that the game connects when he’s out there. I’m excited to see him play with Steph and Klay. He’s gonna get those guys a lot of shots just with the way he plays, and the way the ball moves. So we’ll see. We’ll have to figure it out.”
They Need Draymond
The Warriors are 6-8 and aren’t playing their best basketball right now, but Kevon Looney and company aren’t ready to hit the panic button just yet. If anything, they know they have more than enough resources to turn the ship around.
“I wouldn’t say I’m worried,” Looney told The Athletic. “I guess you can say worried a little bit because you can’t be losing games like this at home. I think we’ve got enough to be good but we‘ve got to figure it out.”
Looney also talked about Draymond Green’s importance and how they need him to be back on the court, as he’s pretty much the quarterback of their defense and their vocal presence and leader:
“His voice,” Looney said. “He helps us make adjustments a lot. When things aren’t going right, he’s one of the best basketball minds in the league. So he’s seeing things and he’s able to adapt and tell coach, ‘We should do this instead’ and we adjust. He makes things happen like that. Or he can just do it all himself on the court where he sees things happen. He cleans up a lot of mistakes. I think we missed that a lot from him. And he pushes the pace. When things aren’t going right, we can’t score, he pushes (it) and gets guys open shots and different guys good looks.”
Green has two games left in his suspension before being eligible to come back, and while he’s definitely going to give them another strong punch on both ends of the floor, coach Kerr will have to dig deep into his bag of tricks to turn this around soon.
SURVEY Can the Warriors turn things around?
Can the Warriors turn things around?
ALREADY VOTED 10 PEOPLE