What can the Golden State Warriors do now that two-time MVP Stephen Curry has been ruled out for at least three months after surgery to repair a fracture of the second metacarpal in his left hand?
The Warriors' rough start, which extended to 1-3 with Wednesday night's home loss to the Phoenix Suns, got worse during the third quarter when Phoenix center Aron Baynes landed on Curry while Baynes attempted to take a charge. Though Golden State announced before the final buzzer that Curry had broken his hand, it wasn't until Friday that we learned Curry would need surgery with an atypically long timetable before his return. The Warriors' PR department indicated Curry's status would be updated in three months, while ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Curry could need as long as four months to play without risk of reinjury.
So what now for Golden State, already struggling to replace departed Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston and injured Klay Thompson with young talent? What are the Warriors' options during what looks like a lost season?
Nothing going to plan for Warriors
The optimistic view of Golden State's 2019-20 season relied on stars Curry and Draymond Green staying healthy and carrying a group of young role players until Thompson returned from his torn ACL midseason. Now Curry is out and Thompson might not return.
Already, Golden State was struggling to bank the wins necessary to ride out any time Curry and Green might miss. After getting blown out in their first two games of the season, they rebounded to beat a short-handed New Orleans Pelicans team Monday. But by the time Curry was injured, they were already down 29 to the Suns, having been on the wrong end of a 30-1 run during the first quarter.
Wednesday night's loss didn't help the Warriors' league-worst defensive rating. At some point, they can expect opponents to cool off from 3-point range. Only the Brooklyn Nets have seen opponents make a better percentage of their 3s than Golden State's 42.9%, an unsustainable rate. Opponents shot no better than 38% against any team in the 2018-19 regular season.
At the same time, the Warriors have given up too many easy opportunities inside the arc as they've struggled to build defensive cohesion with only three returning players (Curry, Green and reserve wing Damion Lee) in their current rotation. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Golden State's defense ranks 27th in terms of opponent quantified shot quality (qSQ), which measures the expected effective field goal percentage for an average shooter based on the location, type of shot and distance to nearby defenders.
Offensively, the Warriors' limited shooting outside of Curry had cramped their spacing and made life difficult for him and Green. Golden State's 10.5 3-pointers per game ranks tied for 20th in the NBA, and that's with Curry making a team-high total of nine so far. Take him out of the mix and the Warriors could be among the league's worst 3-point shooting teams in his absence.
Coach Steve Kerr was able to create some additional spacing by moving Green to center against New Orleans, a lineup that also started against Phoenix. But with fewer perimeter options and a center rotation that is getting healthier -- Willie Cauley-Stein returned for his Warriors debut Wednesday, scoring 12 points in as many minutes off the bench -- those lineups might be used less frequently going forward.
Time for Russell to take over?
If there's a silver lining for Golden State, it's that the Warriors happen to have another All-Star point guard on the roster after acquiring D'Angelo Russell from the Nets in a sign-and-trade deal for Durant. Obviously, Russell -- an injury replacement in his All-Star debut last season -- is not an equivalent replacement for Curry, setting aside the fact that he also has to be replaced on the wing, but he gives Golden State more options than the team might have had otherwise.
Kerr has been reluctant to swap out his favored emphasis on ball movement in terms of more pick-and-roll opportunities for Curry and Russell. Now he might not have much choice. With Russell sliding to point guard, the Warriors' remaining wings (with the possible exception of veteran Alec Burks, who also returned from injury for his Golden State debut Wednesday) are more comfortable as catch-and-shoot options than as creators and decision-makers.
Last season's Nets offer something of a template for what the Warriors might be able to do. They had better secondary playmakers than Golden State will but still built their offense around Russell operating in the pick-and-roll. Per Second Spectrum data, he ran the league's third-most pick-and-rolls last season, nearly as many (3,197) as the Warriors ran as a team (3,354).
Alas, that didn't necessarily translate into an elite offense. Brooklyn was 19th in offensive rating in 2018-19, and Golden State will surely still struggle to generate offense with Russell on the bench -- particularly if Kerr prefers to tie Green's minutes to Russell's rather than keeping at least one playmaker on the court at all times. Unless the Warriors can develop into an elite defense overnight, they figure to be one of the league's worst teams during Curry's absence.
Warriors might not have a choice on tanking
After Wednesday's game, ESPN's Ramona Shelburne reported that Golden State owner Joe Lacob scoffed at the idea of the team tanking the season. At some point, however, the idea of fighting for a playoff spot might not make sense for the Warriors.
FiveThirtyEight's projections, which account for injuries, have Golden State's current roster rated sixth-worst in the NBA and last in the loaded Western Conference. Realistically, it's probably going to take at least 45 wins to make the playoffs in the West. If Curry comes back at the front end of his timeline and the Warriors win nearly two-thirds of their remaining 32 games (21-11) -- a pace far better than they'd managed with a healthy Curry -- they would still need to go .500 over the next three months to reach 45 wins.
If Golden State falls out of playoff contention, focusing on developing young talent will be easy -- most of those players are already in the rotation. The Warriors could take a conservative approach to Thompson's return from a torn ACL, an injury that typically would sideline players through the entire following season if suffered in June. They can manage the minutes of Green and Curry, after the latter returns.
Beyond that, there's not a whole lot Golden State can do to strip the roster. Veterans Cauley-Stein, Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III might have some trade value ahead of free agency next summer (Cauley-Stein has a $2.3 million player option for 2020-21, while Burks and Robinson are both on one-year deals), but the rest of the team is made up of either young players or members of the Warriors' core.
For now, the coaching staff will surely do its best to find a way to compete without Curry. Unfortunately, that looks like a difficult challenge, if not an impossible one.