NBA: Draymond is out at least two weeks, so who's up next for the Warriors?
Time without Green in the starting lineup should give other options time to develop, even if it involves losing some games.
First, on Saturday, Golden State announced that Steph Curry would miss Sunday’s game against Minnesota after falling hard on his right hand in Chicago on Friday. Sure, the fall came at the start of an excellent run for the Warriors, in the beginning of the second quarter against the Bulls. But Steph was wincing coming up from the play, and the team decided to send him home early and miss the end of the road trip.
Then, on Sunday, the Warriors announced that Draymond Green will be out for at least the next two weeks while he receives treatment for a lower back problem that had already sidelined him for multiple games.
Green, who is in his 10th season, is one of the most important members of Golden State’s operation. He is the heart and soul of the team on both sides of the ball. His knowledge of both basketball strategy and the abilities of his teammates is the key to everything. He runs the offense, knowing where to send cutters and who he wants to try to put in particular spots on the floor. He leads the team in assists, and they’re just 3-4 in the seven games he’s missed. Despite the fact that he’s one of the team’s worst three point shooters, he’s third in overall field goal percentage because he knows when to make his moves—making 73.6% of his shots within five feet of the basket.
Draymond is currently averaging 7.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game this year. He had one of his best seasons as a floor general last year, averaging a personal best 8.9 assists, and this year he’s matching his career second-best, while also leading the league’s best defense.
The man is just straight up smart as hell.
Not only can he think about all of these things when he’s reviewing film between games, but he can also read and react moment to moment on the floor, which is a decidedly special skill. Draymond knows when to cheat off of a guy, or how much space to keep so that he can close out a shooter or prevent a drive, regardless of what they try. There’s a reason he leads the league in defensive plus/minus and has the fifth highest defensive RAPTOR rating of all players with more than 1,000 minutes played.
He’s also developed a truly ridiculous chemistry with Steph after years of orchestrating the highly active Warriors offense that we’ve all come to know and love. He knows just how to drop off the ball to Curry and set a screen, or how fake a handoff and use the space created by defenders watching Steph to get the ball to someone else.
And somehow, it feels like Steph and Draymond are still getting better at playing off of each other. They try new motions, exploit new defensive tendencies, and work hard to figure out how their play can fit in with the rest of the team around them.
It’s going to take a while to figure out how to re-integrate Klay Thompson, who has played just four games since returning. But if anyone can help make it happen, it’s going to be Draymond. That’s why it’s a great thing that the Warriors are about to start a seven game home stand, so that he can still be around the team to work with them and talk through the development of the team as his rehab progresses.
Hopefully Draymond is back before the All-Star break. Between now and then, the Warriors are going to play 16 more games, 11 of them at home. Without their spiritual leader it’s hard to imagine them seizing the top spot in the Western Conference before the break, but either way it will be good to have him back whenever he returns.
While he’s out, Golden State is going to have a four-game stretch during which they play Utah, Dallas, Minnesota, and Brooklyn in a six day span.
So who do will we get to see step up while he’s taking care of himself? Two great guys: Otto Porter Jr. and Jonathan Kuminga. Also JTA, who I love, but am choosing to ignore for this column.
Porter is having a comeback year with the Warriors on a bargain contract, and he is sure to get interest in the offseason after proving that he can still be a strong player off the bench and even as a starting power forward. The 28 year old had signed a four year contract with the Wizards in the summer of 2017, earning him some $106 million over the four years leading up to him signing with the Warriors.
Over his first four years with Washington, Porter went from making under 20% of his three in his rookie appearances to shooting an excellent 43.4% from deep and 57.6% on twos the year before he signed his extension. He was traded to the Bulls for Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis in February of 2019, just a season and a half into his extension.
But over the final two years of his contract, Porter played just 14 and 28 games each, missing serious time with multiple injuries. He never got the time or the opportunities to be effective with either the Bulls or the Magic, after he was sent with Wendell Carter Jr. to Orlando in the trade that brought Nikola Vučevič to Chicago.
As a result, Porter decided to accept the pay cut coming his way in serious fashion, going from $28.5 million in the final year of his contract before signing with Golden State for just $2.4 million in August—less than he had made in any of his previous eight years in the league.
And it’s paying off.
Halfway through the season, Porter has been a key member of a hugely important bench mob for the Warriors. In 180 minutes with Porter plus Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins on the floor, Golden State is outscoring opponents by 17.2 points per 100 possessions.
Maybe Otto just likes playing in front of fans and feeling like there’s a real chance of success—in 19 games at home, he’s shooting 44.2% from deep compared to 34.4% on the road. He had a bad January from beyond the arc, but he was shooting above 43% on threes in October end November and is back up above the 40% mark again in January.
Not only is he a reliable shooter, but Porter has been a solid defensive contributor as well. In Friday’s win against Chicago, he had a season-high five steals to go with nine points, seven rebounds, and six assists and was +24 overall. He’s also able to spend time defending larger guards, forwards, and smaller centers, which helps add some stopping power and rebounding ability to an otherwise small lineup.
Porter has played in 37 games now this season, and he stands a chance to play more than 60 games for the first time since 2018. For our sake and for his, I hope he gets that opportunity.
The other guy who will be getting more playing time in the front court is Jonathan Kuminga, the seventh pick in the 2021 draft. On Friday in Chicago, he was one point shy of his career high and led all scorers with 25 points.
He followed it up with 19 points and seven rebounds against Minnesota—unfortunately he ended up -30 on the night thanks to being around for a horrible stretch that saw the score go from 80-79 Golden State advantage with four minutes to go in the third quarter to as bad as 84-111 with six and a half minutes to go in the fourth. That’s a 32-4 swing. Ouch. Minnesota tied the Raptors for the most points anyone has scored against the Warriors all season, and they got absolutely torched by Malik Beasley from beyond the arc over that stretch.
But that’s also what happens when you’re missing two of your most important players. Kuminga is going to have to learn both from victories and defeats, but he’s been showing a whole lot of promise so far.
Kuminga is actually in the 86th percentile for all players in defensive plus/minus, and he’s shown a lot of potential thanks to his athleticism and growing anticipation of the game. He’s shooting just 29% on threes, but he’s also letting basically all of them come on assists, because they aren’t quite his bread and butter.
Where Kuminga really excels is with a full head of steam—he’s taking the same portion of his attempts within three feet of the basket as Gary Payton and Draymond, and he’s finishing 75% of those tries. But he does so with a whole different kind of energy and power than what either of those two bring to the table.
Whereas Payton tends to get almost all of his buckets in the flow of the offense (81% of his field goals are assisted) and Draymond does a combination of cutting and working with his back to the basket, Kuminga is capable of doing both at a high level. He has the explosiveness to drive and cut to the basket the same way that GP2 does, but he’s also got 210 pounds of muscle to post guys up, draw helpers, and beat a whole lot of the defenders who will get sent to try to stop him.
As a result, with increased playing time and opportunities, Kuminga is averaging 19.7 points and 5.7 rebounds over the last three games while shooting 52.5% from the floor. Seriously, watch this man.
He’s also just 19 years old.