The Golden State Warriors bench is bad, but it's probably not serious



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Once DeMarcus Cousins ​​is healthy, and making sure he becomes the team's starting point, the Warriors will be able to create a formation with a combination of 19 combined seasons and 25 team selections. 41 seasons, although no one is still 30 years old.

It's absurd at all levels. That's the reason the world burned in early July when Boogie's decision to join the back-to-back Warriors champion for a cheap contract was announced.

It is undeniable that this is by far the most talented unit in the NBA, consisting of five people, and perhaps the most talented unit of all time, based on raw inputs. We will have to see it in action to see if it really works, but the ingredients are first rate. Warriors should have no problem waiting for the sheer size of these starters.

The question is what happens when some of them rest.

This is the strange problem with the Warriors this season: they have their best lineup at the start, with a really good center available instead of role players such as Andrew Bogut, defender-defender, Zaza Pachulia, who fills the space, or Kevon Looney and Jordan Bell, raw swag-machine athletes. But the Golden State bench has never been so small.

Even at the opening night against thunder – a team known for its dull spare unit, and a team forced to start Dennis Schroder in place of injured star Russell Westbrook – the bench of the Warriors was disappointing. In fact, Golden State was under water whenever Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant were seated. They outclassed Oklahoma City by 15 points when they were both in the game, thundered even when there was one, and were outclassed by six in such a short time.

Andre Iguodala left the game with a very tight game, which shows how Golden State depends on a mix of older players prone to injury and unproven young players like the dual-choice player Alfonzo McKinnie second district of the first game of the season). Without Iguodala, the perimeter players on the bench are Quinn Cook, Shaun Livingston and Jonas Jerebko. Livingston has been a Golden State hero in the past, but slowed down last season. The warriors have trusted Cook, and perhaps he will reward him one day. Jerebko was virtually invisible in his six minutes of Tuesday.

The Warriors carry four centers, including cousins, and this puts their depth on the list elsewhere. Given that Cousins ​​is probably a year of rental, Golden State must determine which are the two members of Damian Jones (who started on Tuesday), Looney and Bell valid for the future and which can be dismissed to leave the room for another wing. Honestly, if Boogie had not approached the Warriors with his idea of ​​accepting the mid-level exception in a rehabilitation lawsuit, Golden State would probably have used this asset to add a backup of the key. The incredible discount Cousins ​​hurts the depth elsewhere on the list.

But every time we start worrying about the Warriors' imbalance – both the enormous commitments to the centers and the fierce disparity between players – we have to go back to the beginning, to this incredible starter list. How do players play the few minutes that Curry and Durant spend when they are so impossible to stop for the 32 to 36 minutes they play?

The outcome of Iguodala and Livingston, the strange absence of Patrick McCaw, the long list of great men who can not play together – it's all very interesting if we look for ways to defeat the Warriors. But that also looks like nothing really Questions. It would be if the Warriors were a normal, fallible team, but they are not, at least until they are.

We will not know if the problems of alignment imbalance in Golden State will really matter before the playoffs. Even in this case, they may be of importance, but this impact will be mitigated by the dust storm created by the raw and pure power of the starting five.

We will see where we will not do it.

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