In their season-opening victory over the Lakers, the Warriors played an 11-man rotation. Ten Warriors scored. Golden State’s bench outscored that of the Lakers 41 to 24.
Golden State’s first five off the bench — Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, James Wiseman, Moses Moody and Donte DiVincenzo — might be talented enough to compete with some starting lineups. Steve Kerr could run hockey line shifts and still play serviceable combinations.
Poole, the bench’s catalyst and the Vegas favorite for Sixth Man of the Year, knows better than anyone how much potential his fellow reserves have.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who know how to play basketball,” Poole said postgame.
That sounds reductive, but having a plethora of players who know how to play the game may be one of the most important factors for the freestyling, read-and-reacting, back-cutting, always-moving Warriors.
If the Warriors are to repeat as world champions this season, they’ll have to get through the regular season whole. The best way to do that, and to brace for the natural injury misfortune of any NBA season, is to have a deep bench full of capable players. Guys who know how to play basketball.
“The biggest thing is that throughout the 82 games, you’ve got to weather the storm,” Stephen Curry (game-high 33 points) said. “You know there’s going to be a couple injuries, you know you’re going to hit some rough patches. It’s good to have that many guys to throw out there, it matters.”
GSW head coach Steve Kerr said this group’s depth reminds him of the 2014-15 team — the first of this regime to win a title — albeit younger. That year, 12 players averaged at least 11 minutes per game. Kerr noted there were games in which Shaun Livingston or Leandro Barbosa, two of the bench’s most productive guards, didn’t even see the floor.
That bench was the birth of Strength in Numbers, a mantra that’s persisted through the decade despite various roster iterations.
“Yeah, there’s a vibe of that,” Curry said when asked about the 2014-15 team’s bench.
“That team was veteran, we had veterans,” Kerr said. “This team is young guys. But the talent is really obvious.”
Against the Lakers, Poole went 4-for-15 from the floor but still finished with 12 points and seven assists. James Wiseman, the third-year center, played his first regular-season action in almost two years and recorded eight points and seven boards.
Wiseman provides a lob threat the Warriors historically haven’t had. He’s still learning how to set screens at the correct angles and get his timing down right with Poole, but the duo will have ample opportunities to develop chemistry in the pick-and-roll.
“It’ll only take a matter of time before we really start to dominate the two-man game,” Poole said.
Part of the reason the Warriors used 11 players in the season-opener is because Klay Thompson and Draymond Green aren’t yet ready to take on a full workload.
And even despite the aggressive deployment, some players may feel short-shrifted. Moses Moody, who played important minutes in last year’s Western Conference Finals, only logged eight minutes Tuesday.
“There’s going to be lots of opportunities for (Moody) and other young guys,” Kerr said. “What I told the team yesterday was because of our depth certain nights aren’t going to go your way.”
Being able to use the bench to ease stars into the season after a short summer is valuable; the more games the Warriors can win without over-taxing their veteran stars, the better off they’ll be in the postseason.
More than anything, superstars drive teams to championships. Playoff rotations tighten, often to seven or eight players. When the games matter most, the bench becomes more of a luxury more than a necessity.
But for that shift to happen, teams need to endure the regular season first. That’s where the depth pays dividends.
“We have a lot of guys,” Kerr said. “If we’re healthy, we can go really deep. It’s rare to play 11 guys in a rotation…we’re not going to be healthy for 82 games.”
