Golden State Warriors at rock bottom as Draymond Green faces another suspension?

The Golden State Warriors find themselves in an unenviable situation as Draymond Green continues to be a distraction.

A little more through the first quarter of the 2023-24 NBA season, the Golden State Warriors have been just another team in the Western Conference. They've been nothing special and haven't shown much promise as a team, much less a possible championship contender. In short, they've been pretty disappointing.

On the flip side, it's also just been 24 games. Even though things don't look great now, there's still a hope that the Warriors can change the narrative if they somehow are able to flip a switch in the final 58 games of the season. The Warriors have time to turn things around. It won't be easy but they're not completely dead in the water just yet.

However, they are in a place where they are going to have to make some big decisions soon. With Klay Thompson in the final year of his contract, the Warriors have to make a decision on their direction as a franchise. Do they double down after re-signing Draymond Green during the offseason on this core by inking Klay to a long-term contract, or is this the right time to pivot away toward a youth movement around Stephen Curry?

Draymond Green continues to take missteps

The hope was that question would be put to bed this season. So far, it hasn't. Klay has not looked like his usual self and Draymond continues to be more of a headache than not. Draymond is expected to be suspended for the second time this season after getting into another in-game altercation, this time with Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic. Draymond was suspended five games earlier this season for choking Rudy Gobert.

Another suspension is more than likely coming after striking Nurkic with the back of his hand.

The good news was that Draymond was apologetic after the game, but it's not clear what exactly Draymond was attempting to do when this happened, other than, you know, trying to hit Nurkic. Draymond says he wasn't trying to hit Nurkic but I'm not sure that's believable at all.

With Draymond's reputation, there probably isn't anyone in the league that believes Draymond when he says this. Nevertheless, this is another obstacle the Warriors are going to have to clear to dig themselves out of his early-season hole.

At 10-14, the Warriors are sitting in the 11th spot of the Western Conference standings. They're already four games out of a top 6 seed in the West and there aren't many signs that this team is beginning to hit its stride of click as a unit.

The Warriors has a ton to figure out as a team. They're in a bad spot and may be approaching rock bottom as a core. Something has to change. The difficulty for the front office is finding out exactly what that might be.