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Even Steve Kerr admitted it: Every run ends, and sometimes it’s time for “new blood and new ideas.”
But is that time now?
As Kerr and the Warriors decide on the head coach’s future with the organization, a key factor to consider is how many stylistic adjustments the front office wants to see. A recent ESPN story (opens in new tab) noted that management believes there’s a “need for philosophy tweaks … focusing on diversifying the offensive attack and winning the analytically friendly possession battle more often.”
That seems to be a subtle way of suggesting the Warriors need to cut down on turnovers. Golden State has always been a high turnover team under Kerr’s read-and-react, organized-chaos environment but ranked an abominable No. 27 this season. The three teams with the lowest turnover rates were the Thunder, Nuggets, and Celtics — all bona fide contenders.
How much of the Warriors’ turnover issues this season were on Kerr and his system versus the team’s depleted roster? If Kerr returns, how much will he be expected to adapt?
Critiques of Kerr’s system rigidity or stubbornness may be a bit overstated in general. The Warriors have tweaked their approach in subtle ways at various points of his tenure, while maintaining his basic principles — pass, cut, make quick decisions. The result is an offensive style that fits Steph Curry’s on-ball, off-ball lethality but has stagnated in recent years.
Around the edges, Kerr has evolved based on his personnel.
Take last season. The offense was vastly different before and after the arrival of Jimmy Butler. The Warriors often dumped the ball to Butler along the baseline or the post to let him isolate mismatches, slicing into the paint and either scoring or kicking out. They similarly tweaked their approach this year when Kristaps Porzingis was in the lineup.
Kerr isn’t philosophically against playing iso ball; he just wants to make sure it’s efficient.
With Butler, it was. The Warriors’ turnovers dropped, and the team went 23-8 to finish the season. Golden State’s record from the day Butler debuted until he tore his ACL was the fourth best in the NBA.
Going back even further, Kerr granted Kevin Durant more of the offensive reins between his first and second years with the team. The Warriors went from No. 27 to No. 17 in isolation frequency between 2017 and 2018. Maybe it took Kerr too long to realize it, but he came to the right conclusion: Giving Durant the ball and getting out of the way is efficient offense.
The way the Thunder and Celtics run such low turnover offenses is by putting at least four 3-point shooters on the floor together, maintaining spacing, and often running high pick-and-rolls and isolations for their best perimeter players. Those low-risk plays prioritize getting a shot up — even, sometimes, a bad one — rather than working the ball around for a high-percentage look.
Golden State has never had the type of roster to make such a style realistic. The additions of Porzingis and Al Horford made playing that way more possible in bursts, but those two were rarely healthy together. And even if the Warriors had requisite floor-spacing, giving Brandin Podziemski and Gui Santos half a dozen more isos every game isn’t going to save their offense.
Like pretty much every Warriors conversation, the offensive style is a chicken-or-egg situation. If the front office provided Kerr with more players who can dribble, pass, and shoot, maybe his offense wouldn’t look stale. If he ran a different or simpler system, perhaps some of the players the organization drafted or acquired could have been more successful.
Health makes this season particularly difficult to evaluate. The coaching staff spent the majority of the season on its heels, game-planning with random lineup combinations.
The Warriors used 43 different starting lineups. Podziemski led the team in minutes played (2,333), followed by Draymond Green, Moses Moody, Santos, and Will Richard. The Warriors needed more than 1,000 combined minutes from LJ Cryer, Nate Williams, Malevy Leons, Omer Yurtseven, and Charles Bassey.
No wonder the team finished with 37 wins.
Even with the revolving door of limited players, the Warriors finished 18th in offensive rating, partly because they took the most 3-pointers in the league.
But the turnovers remained an issue.
The Warriors were horrendous in transition, ranking 26th in fast break efficiency — ahead of only the Nets, Grizzlies, and Wizards. Some of that is coaching; being organized while running the floor is crucial. But a lot of the issues stemmed from the players making decisions in the open court.
Turning turnovers into easy buckets requires athleticism and speed. How often did the Warriors try to push the ball up the floor, only for the defense to catch up and back-tap a ball-handler or intercept a pass? How many times did the Warriors turn it over because they threw a hit-ahead pass that a teammate wasn’t quick enough to catch up to? One such play led Kerr to scream at Richard (and later apologize): “The ball matters, the ball is everything!”
Old, slow teams have a hard time getting out and running. The Warriors had a 14.2% turnover rate in transition — third highest in the league — per Synergy.
It wasn’t just transition, though. The Warriors coughed up 20 turnovers in each of their play-in games. Fifteen of those came from Green and Curry. Kerr often likes to say that they are the only players allowed to turn it over, implying that their high usage rates afford them some cover. Curry and Green have certainly earned more slack over the years, but maybe absolving them isn’t the best precedent to set.
Beyond finding a way to reduce turnovers, perhaps the biggest priority Kerr or whoever the next Warriors coach will face is devising a way to keep Curry fresh. He has broken down at the end of each of the past two seasons and will turn 39 next spring.
That status quo is having Curry run around screens all the time and get wrapped up by physical defenders. It’s a physically demanding style, but one Curry has thrived in under Kerr. Putting the ball in his hands and asking him to run five more pick-and-rolls isn’t exactly giving him a breather. His efficiency in the pick-and-roll has also notably declined in recent years.
The last time the Warriors ran a top-five offense was in 2018-19, Durant’s final year with the club. In the past five seasons, the Warriors have ranked No. 17, No. 8, No. 8, No. 15, and No. 18 in offensive rating.
If that’s too much flatlining for the front office’s taste, maybe it is time for a fresh face in the huddle.
There’s always, ultimately, a time for new ideas and new blood. But new ideas aren’t always better, and new blood can be thicker.
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