Golden State Warriors: The ever evolving Warriors look to stay afloat in 2019-20

Despite losing Kevin Durant this summer, the Golden State Warriors have, once again, managed to evolve to the circumstances and look to remain competitive in 2019-20

The prominence and success of the Golden State Warriors has grown in lock step with its surrounding area in recent years. This is a team that wasn’t even considered to be a “big market” option until recent years.

Though this is mostly due to the presence of Los Angeles and the fact that the Dubs are the fourth team in California, they were still overlooked. This team may have five titles in their history, but two of them predate 1976 and obviously three are from their most recent run.

After enduring almost a 40-year championship drought, they’ve managed to become one of the most prominent and well-known organizations in the NBA. Prior to controversially drafting Stephen Curry in the 2010 NBA Draft, the most recent surge they had was their brief stent of the Stephen Jackson/Monta Ellis teams. Not to Omit Matt Barnes, but you know who the show was.

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After Steph it was Klay Thompson. After Klay it was Draymond Green. After Draymond it was Harrison Barnes. These four pieces became intricate pieces to a championship caliber team, surprisingly enough. Curry was seemingly plagued by ankle injuries and a volatile prospect, and Draymond was a position-less point forward taken in the second round. Klay and HB were much safer picks, but for them both to have developed into what they are now is a testament to the Warriors draft choices.

We could either suggest that they got lucky on two of the four, and there is some involved no doubt, or we could accept that they took calculated risks that paid off in a huge way. Nobody expected Draymond Green to become a floor running playmaker that could also defend several positions and play defense. Nobody would’ve seriously suggested that Steph might become the best shooter we’ve ever seen.

Much of the reason I think we have to lean towards quality decision making over luck is because of the other moves that were made. It wasn’t just about having prospects become the best versions of themselves, which also includes player development, but it’s also about their ability to fill the roster with care. Trading for Andre Iguodala has to be one of the most critical pieces in the entirety of this considering all that he’s contributed to it. Taking someone like that and making him a 6th man is a big adjustment and not just any player can do it adequately, but they knew who they wanted.

Not only this, but picking up players like a devalued Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, Marreese Speights, David West, JaVale McGee, and more.

All of these sound acquisitions has led them to the position they’re in now, which is an unusual one in comparison to the last five years. This team fully healthy quite obviously would’ve beaten the Raptors in six or seven games. However, this wasn’t the case and that’s how the game works. You can’t change it, you play with who you’ve got. As a result though they lost their second NBA Finals, and the imminent decision of Kevin Durant’s departure did occur as expected.

This leaves a big void in Golden State. When they lost Harrison Barnes and replaced him with KD, that was no problem. When you lose KD though…who do you replace that with? Especially when you consider the fact that now Klay is also out the majority of next season also. Well, the Warriors are a shrewd operator when it comes to team management as we’ve seen. So in light of hearing Kevin would be leaving, they of course did the due diligence and were able to turn it into a sign-and-trade to pick up D’Angelo Russell.

Does this help? Does he replace KD? Obviously D-LO is nowhere near Kevin Durant, and though he’s been praised a lot recently is still a controversial player to many observers. Nevertheless, to pick up a big name who can shoot three’s at the rate they like, handle, pass, and more? This isn’t a bad acquisition.

Though they’ve stated they didn’t get him to trade him, if the need arose he would be a quality asset for another team. Considering this as the big addition, in lieu of other nice pickups, I think they did at least a B+ job in recovering. The team added Willie Cauley-Stein on a light deal, a quality guard in Alec Burks, and upside in both Glenn Robinson III and especially Jordan Poole.

None of this is guaranteed to workout. DLO could get hurt, he could disappoint, the role players could fail to live up to expectations, a lot could go wrong. There’s also this new wrinkle of Thompson being the starting 3 assuming everyone is healthy. I don’t see it being an issue considering he’s an elite defender and the only “small forwards” I wouldn’t like him against are limited to maybe 3-4 players at most.

Ultimately, hindsight is 20/20 and nobody can know how these changes will culminate in the future. With all things considered though, the team did approximately the best job it could in setting itself up to remain in contention, and for future success.