THE CHASE CENTER in San Francisco sits empty, even as the Golden State Warriors occupy the floor. It's a cavernous structure, an ark whose features capture the novelties and aesthetics of the technology age. Not so long ago, Golden State was one of those novelties, a team that changed how basketball was played. Stephen Curry defied what for decades was deemed a good shot. Draymond Green challenged what for decades tacticians believed an NBA center should be. Klay Thompson embodied a modern-day shooting guard. The team struck the right balance between data-driven efficiency and the fine arts of basketball.
Five consecutive NBA Finals appearances, three championships.
Two and a half years removed from their most recent title and seven games into the season, the Warriors today appear more like a workaday NBA team than an exceptional one, grappling with the same issues that middle-of-the-pack squads spend the early months trying to solve -- team identity, individual roles, collective buy-in. They still have Curry, a star who is demonstrating he's capable of dragging an average roster by the scruff of its neck into the postseason. But without much depth, the Warriors have to empower young prospects and fringe players to fill functions previously performed by savants such as Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston.
With Thompson out for the season, they'll spend the time acclimating newcomers such as Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr. and coaching up their promising rookie, James Wiseman. These are exciting projects for the Warriors. If they squint hard enough and imagine Thompson swinging around stagger screens, the sum of those parts could tantalize in 2021-22.
But the Warriors also have an existential uncertainty: Will this core ever win another title?
That question informs every item on the to-do list. Wiseman is being groomed to have the skills and know-how to be the stretch-5 on a championship team. Curry and Green are charged with maintaining their prime playing level and the aptitude that enabled the Warriors to outsmart opponents. There's the larger imperative of bringing strangers into the fold and feeding them that Golden State special sauce.
The Warriors don't figure to be contenders this season, not absent Thompson. The early results say as much, as they come into their two-game series with the LA Clippers (10 p.m. ET Wednesday on ESPN) at 4-3, ranking 18th in offensive efficiency and 24th in defense.
But the Warriors have as much at stake as any other fringe playoff contender -- so much of it invested in Curry, Green and Wiseman -- even as they wait to place their bet. They are in a state of discovery, learning how to be mortal in a league in which they were transcendent for an NBA lifetime.
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STEPH CURRY COULDN'T miss. Launching shots in perfect rhythm, Curry snapped his wrist toward the basket, the ball inching ever so slightly from the base of his palm to his fingertips before its nonstop flight from his hand to the bottom of the net.
The drill is called "two times," an invention introduced by Steve Nash during his tenure as a player-development consultant for the Warriors. The goal is to hit 50 consecutive shots combined from five spots along the 3-point arc -- or average 10 from each location. Contestants are afforded two early mulligans, then shoot until they miss, at which point they move on to the next spot.
Curry holds the record -- 77 a few years ago -- but he came into Chicago only 4-for-20 from distance over the Warriors' first two games. After practice finished up at the Bulls' training facility on Dec. 26, Curry assumed his place at the first spot in the sequence, the right corner.
Following his release, Curry turned his hips a smidge, at which point Warriors assistant Bruce Fraser fired a pinpoint pass for his next shot. Fraser has performed this task hundreds of thousands of times. His precise delivery is almost rote at this point, but as Curry approaches 77, he grew a bit nervous, knowing if he laced one pass outside Curry's pocket, he could blow the streak.
Security guards had now taken notice of this spectacle. Trainers dropped what they were doing. Teammates who have witnessed all kinds of stunning displays stood with their mouths agape, as he broke 77, approached 100, then passed 100, before missing shot No. 106.
After the Warriors won the last two games of the road trip, Curry brought this show home to San Francisco. The Portland Trail Blazers spanked the Warriors on New Year's night, and the two teams faced off again on Sunday. Curry moved through his patented warm-up routine, still trying to find the spark to ignite his season.
Teammates and coaches had seen a glint of vintage Curry coming. There was a collective sense that he was close to having a "Steph game," in which he'd unleash a barrage of unconscionable bombs that would enliven the whole team.
"It only takes one," Green told teammates and coaches.
Curry's form and mechanics are flawless -- the body of work says as much. But in recent days, he'd been refining the middle of his shooting motion, trying to generate more power into his deep shots off the dribble. This much was in his control, and the pregame workout was productive.
Less in his direct control is another variable that's essential to Curry's success: familiarity, or what's commonly known as continuity -- being so in sync with the other four guys on the floor that decisions and movements become almost automated. For Curry this season, the surroundings have never been less familiar.
How do we get Steph his shot?
This is one of the most important questions in basketball over the past seven years. For his teammates, the answers come with pattern recognition. The brilliance of the Warriors during their championship runs was that few of those exquisite offensive possessions were scripted. The challenge for the Warriors as they try to regain their form with new personnel is ... little of what they've done is scripted. With Green now back in the lineup and one game under his belt, the Warriors were optimistic they could start to reset those patterns for Curry.
The early returns on Sunday night were encouraging, as Curry lit up Portland for 31 in the first half, with the majority of the buckets on drives through the trees, not from long range. Wiseman and Oubre shared improvisational, two-man sequences with him, and he teamed up with old pal Kent Bazemore on the Warriors' signature split action. The second half was more reminiscent of the Steph Games of lore. There were unspeakable crossovers yielding to quick-trigger discharges, nonsense from 29 feet, and the coup de grace -- a lurching 27-footer off a shovel pass from Green in the final minute. Sixty-two points, a career high.
Moments after coach Steve Kerr addressed the team postgame, Curry was in the performance area off the locker room, riding a recumbent bike, still in his game jersey. Fraser, the Warriors assistant who fed him 106 passes in Chicago for 105 makes, approached Curry on the bike to bid congratulations.
"One word," Curry said to Fraser. "Ridiculous."
AT HALFTIME OF his first NBA game, James Wiseman poked his head into the visiting coaches' locker room at Brooklyn's Barclays Center.
"Coach Kerr," he said. "Is there anything I can be doing better?"
During his 12 minutes of floor time, Wiseman scored six points -- including a nifty dribble drive from the top of the key on which he blew by one defender, then impressively sidestepped another on the doorstep of the basket -- grabbed four rebounds and snared a couple of steals.
"Just keep doing exactly what you're doing," Kerr responded.
After Wiseman nodded and left the room, the coaching staff shared a laugh. In dozens of years of collective coaching experience, not one had ever witnessed a player enter their sanctum at halftime.
Who does that?
Apparently only Wiseman, the Warriors' starting center and No. 2 pick in the 2020 NBA draft.
"It was a fun moment as a staff," Kerr said. "Like, 'How lucky are we to coach this guy?'"
Through seven games to start his career, Wiseman is averaging 11.4 points, with a true shooting percentage of 52.5. Though it's an early sample size, the Warriors are 5.5 points better defensively per 100 possessions when Wiseman is manning the middle. He's accumulated a bit of foul trouble, but such is life for a 19-year-old rookie in the NBA, where dominance is achieved through a mastery of nuance, not exceptional athleticism and physical gifts -- just about everyone has that.
"They put me in the fire," Wiseman said. " Every time you step on the floor, you have to make smart decisions."
Talk to anyone with the Warriors -- Draymond Green, Steve Kerr, president Bob Myers, assistant coaches, front-office execs -- and they'll each eventually come around to the exact same characterization of Wiseman:
"He's a sponge," Green said.
Wiseman has to be. He played only three games during his stint at Memphis. The NBA didn't hold a summer league last July, and Wiseman missed all but two days of training camp because of the league's health protocols. The path here wasn't a gradual uphill climb -- it was a crag.
"This is unprecedented," Kerr said. "Playing in an NBA game at that level with two practices total and three college games? I mean, it's nuts. It really is."
WITH EACH SUCCESSIVE game, Wiseman applies his sponginess to another item on his to-do list. Kerr recalled Wiseman picking up his second foul early in the first quarter in the Warriors' win in Detroit. The coach offered his young center some instruction about not biting on a ball fake. The teaching moment turned into application five minutes into the second half when Wiseman stayed planted on a feint from Saddiq Bey in the lane, upright in the lane, a paragon of verticality, big hand in the air. Bey's desperate shot attempt didn't have a chance.
NBA centers are being asked to do more than ever -- protect the rim, space the floor as a shooter, switch out to guard the best playmakers in the business, handle the ball competently and read defenses to serve as a secondary playmaker. Even big men who conquer most of those tasks can find themselves on the bench during the closing minutes of big games, when the matchup doesn't allow for a single liability.
The Warriors are one of those organizations that hasn't placed a premium on the center position. Spacing, pace and defensive versatility fueled the dynasty, which makes the drafting of a 7-footer with what might be their only top-five pick for a generation a curious selection.
"The reason the position has been devalued is because it's so hard to find somebody that checks all those boxes," Myers said. "But what if you find someone who is 6-10 and above who can do all that? And there's not one skill for James where you can say, 'Well, he'll never be able to do X.' It's all there for him."
Asked precisely when he knew Wiseman was a natural fit, Myers said it was at a table for four on a Miami patio that included him, Kerr and the Warriors' principal owner, Joe Lacob. The dinner at Fi'lia took place in November 2019, the Warriors brass' only in-person encounter with Wiseman before COVID-19 shut down any face-to-face meetings between teams and the incoming draft class.
"My favorite thing about the dinner was that James walked in by himself," Myers said.
Faced with such an invitation, most teenage prospects bring along an adviser, parent or agent. Yet Wiseman projected a quiet confidence when he walked through the door, and curiosity and inquisitiveness when the group sat down. He described big men he'd been studying -- Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan, David Robinson and Anthony Davis. Myers and Kerr offered a primer on day-to-day life in the NBA, and Lacob touted the franchise's resources and creed.
"I treated it as a job interview," Wiseman said. "This was a team I really wanted to go to. I got ready, put my clothes on, looked in the mirror and I looked nice. I wanted to give them my best impression, but I didn't see it as intimidating."
Wiseman has a ton to learn, something he conveys repeatedly in conversation with virtually everyone. Green cites as his favorite Wiseman moment in the early season a conversation about "2-9" -- the 2.9 seconds an NBA defender is allowed to roost in the paint without accounting for a specific offensive player before he is whistled for a three-second illegal defense violation. Two-nine is a bedrock term in the nomenclature of NBA defense, but in conversation with Wiseman, Green learned that the rookie didn't know what it meant.
"It goes to show how clueless he is," Green said. "And I say clueless in the most positive way. Because if you're clueless and you can go out in your first game and score 19 and six [rebounds], then go out in your second game and play a phenomenal game, and play impactful basketball, and you don't have a f---ing clue? That's uplifting. That's how special he is. As a veteran, it's so exciting for me to be able to try to help impact someone like that move forward in his career."
WITH THE WARRIORS trying to notch their first victory of the season after two blowout losses, Green called a film session prior to the team's breakdown of that evening's game against the Bulls.
Green had worked with the team's video coordinator, Jacob Rubin, to cull clips of some elite NBA screen-setters of recent seasons -- Tristan Thompson, Andrew Bogut, Chuck Hayes and the Warriors' Kevon Looney.
Sidelined to start the season with a strain in his right foot, Green had watched those two debacles from the bench -- and he didn't like what he saw. An extremely vocal observer, Green had yelled from the sideline at the appropriate moment in the Warriors' half-court possessions, "Screen! Screen! Screen!"
"Some of our young guys just weren't getting the job done," Green said.
As he has since the first tip of the season, Green paid particular attention to Wiseman in the loss at Milwaukee. During a timeout in the first half, Green had pulled the rookie aside and told him that, against the Bucks' defensive coverage, if he set an effective screen and dove to the basket, he'd be wide open. When Wiseman returned to the court, Green saw him get to the spot promptly but whiff on execution.
"I turned to [Looney] and said, 'He don't know how to screen,'" Green said. "You think about it: A year and a half ago, he was playing against 14- to-17-year-olds, destroying them in the post and on the wing. When did he ever have to set a screen? He never had to learn."
Green marvels at Wiseman's physical gifts -- "He's a freak of nature" -- and the promise he's already shown during his first couple of weeks in the league: shooting, handling, catching in traffic, finishing. Yet without the same impeccable measurements, Green made his bones in the NBA mastering the dark arts like the infinite number of variables a screener has to consider.
"Are you reading the situation?" Green said. "What are you doing if the big is in the drop? What are you doing if the big is at the level of the screen? What are you doing if the guard goes under? If the guard chases over?"
Green held court in Chicago. Warriors assistant coaches said it was a master class in the art of screen-setting. Wiseman, Eric Paschall and the roster's young big men were schooled on how to count their steps when sprinting high for a step-up screen, how long to hold a screen in different contexts and when to make contact. Curry added additional guidance as the guard who is looking to exploit certain advantages that are often amplified or diminished based on the finer qualities of that screen.
What was a voluntary session emerged as a galvanizing event for an 0-2 team groping for an identity. It was a reminder of Green's capacity to intuit the game and how those instincts elevated the team's basketball IQ to a genius level.
"He sees everything," Wiseman said.
Green thoroughly enjoys the role of player-development coach and the satisfaction that comes with imparting knowledge. It was a way to remain engaged while he was out of action during the season's first four games. The process also affirms that the little things Green has made a career of mastering are essential to winning, and that he's a more polished, mature, veteran voice than the enfant terrible who could grate on teammates and coaches.
But there's also something more vital to educating Wiseman and the less heralded young players -- their understanding of Green's cheat codes will be crucial in determining whether Green ever wins another title.
"He wants to win more than anything else," Kerr said. "And he knows that James is a possible ticket back to back to winning."
NO TEAM IN recent memory got the separation the Warriors did from the rest of the league during their illustrious run. The talent was central, no doubt, particularly after Kevin Durant's arrival in 2016. But they somehow managed to be impervious to periodic injuries, static in the locker room and the boredom that accompanies perennial finalists, even though there was plenty of each.
Franchises fortunate enough to enjoy a run like the Warriors' know that they come to an end. Sometimes the talent ages out of its prime, and sometimes the front office pulls the brake so the rebuild can start at the optimal time or, increasingly, the stars who fueled the success decide they want to move on. The Warriors don't believe this collection of players is anywhere near extinction.
"It's hard to evaluate a team without health," Myers said. "But I'm excited to see what we can do. It's a lot of 'new.' It's a band that just sat down in the garage, playing songs for the first time. Sometimes the drummer's too loud, or the singer says, 'Hey, turn down the guitar.' And that's who we are. We're a band that hasn't even fully formed."
The Warriors do know exactly what they have in Curry and Green, though they can't project how each will age on the back side of his prime. They're confident Thompson's return will vault them back into serious contention, especially if Wiseman continues on his current trajectory in an environment as empowering at Golden State's. But all of this is in a state of suspension.
Asked specifically where they are in the life cycle of their team, Myers said, "Without Klay, we're at intermission."
The Warriors -- and the league and its fans -- wait for the second act.