By beating the Blazers in Portland Thursday night, the Warriors officially surpassed their win total from last year.
As if they needed to win more games than last year to prove the simple point: this season’s team is better than last year’s. Their roster makes more sense, they’re less dependent on journeymen bit players, and they gel together better.
Steve Kerr has repeatedly said that this season’s group has been among the most fun he’s had the opportunity to coach. Take his word for it.
“We’re definitely a better team,” Kerr said this week. “Better two-way basketball, better connection, better chemistry. Much better vibe with this team. So I still believe, firmly, that we can do something special.”
Last year’s team entered the playoffs as the six-seed and beat the Kings in the first round before falling to the Lakers in the Western Conference semis. The stacked West this year will pit Golden State somewhere in the play-in round, depending on how the last pair of games shake up.
The Warriors (45-35) end the regular season with two home games: tonight against the New Orleans Pelicans and Sunday afternoon against the Utah Jazz.
Ultimately, every season in the shiny Chase Center is defined by a championship run. The Warriors have earned that standard by creating the NBA’s modern dynasty. Joe Lacob is paying a historic luxury tax bill for the most expensive roster in league history. Simply improving year-over-year doesn’t make this season a success.
But the Warriors certainly made serious progress and have a stronger foundation to build on in the future — and that’s not nothing. They’re deeper, younger and have more options.
“Absolutely,” Klay Thompson said when asked if this year’s group is better than 2022-23.
The reflective Thompson noted that this team needs to actually advance further in the playoffs than last year’s group before being truly considered superior. For the Warriors, winning is everything. That’s what four championships in a decade does for perspective.
But the Warriors, Thompson said, are playing the best brand of basketball they’ve played all season in April. It’s also been probably their best sustained stretch of classic Warriors style and substance since their 2021-22 championship run.
Last season got derailed before it began, when Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole in preseason. The incident scabbed over, and never quite healed.
This season, the Warriors have had a strong enough locker room to overcome continued self-inflicted wounds from Green. His on-court outbursts early in the season cost him over 20 games. Some around the team felt that his career was in jeopardy when the league handed him an indefinite suspension.
Green hasn’t picked up a flagrant foul since returning. Sage point guard and locker room presence Chris Paul replaced Poole, who is languishing in Washington.
Paul and Green, longtime foes, turned out to be somewhat basketball kindred spirits. Paul’s ability to run the second unit has allowed Golden State to win the minutes while Steph Curry sits more frequently than any Warriors team that didn’t have Kevin Durant.
Paul has also brought another valuable voice into the locker room. He’s a counterbalance to Curry’s leadership style and represents a 180 from the Poole experience.
In Dallas, after losing to the Mavericks — the Warriors’ only loss in their past 10 games — heads weren’t hanging in the postgame locker room. The mood wasn’t bitter. Conversation revolved around how great it’ll be to return home to the Bay after a tough stretch of traveling and the upcoming Wrestlemania.
This year’s team ranks fifth in offensive rating compared to eighth in 2022-23. Golden State’s defense is rated slightly worse, but has been elite since Trayce Jackson-Davis joined Green in the starting lineup (fourth in the last nine games).
Jackson-Davis and Brandin Podziemski went on ESPN this week to say they’re the NBA’s best rookie duo, and they have a real case. Each — Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s first class — has a real shot at landing on an All-Rookie team.
Podziemski leads the league in charges drawn and has been a connector who fits any Warriors lineup all year. Jackson-Davis’ pressure on both rims have made him the steal of the draft and a legitimate option as the team’s starting center going forward.
In addition to the rookies, Jonathan Kuminga has broken out as a consistent secondary scorer in his third year. He’s not perfect; Kuminga still struggles against bigger, more athletic defenders and it’s noteworthy that the Warriors didn’t miss a beat when he was sidelined for six straight games with knee tendinitis. But Kuminga made a real leap and has been Golden State’s most consistent wing for much of the season.
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Many of Kuminga, Jackson-Davis and Podziemski’s minutes were soaked up last year by Anthony Lamb, Ty Jerome and JaMychal Green. They’re either out of the league or trending that way.
This season, Kerr has said, has been about developing the team’s young group of players so they can take some of the burden off their veterans while still competing. Kuminga, Podziemski and Jackson-Davis blooming into — at the very least — reliable contributors is a major accomplishment in that sense. They’ve given the team more levers to pull, including moving Klay Thompson in and out of the starting lineup.
They’re also on cheap contracts that should make it easier for the organization to build around, a significant fact for a franchise at the doors of second apron hell.
The path for the Warriors to extend their season longer than they did last year is rough. They’ll have to win at least one play-in game and possibly face the title-favorites Nuggets in the first round. Even getting that opportunity is no guarantee.
But the Warriors are better, and they’re better positioned to improve more. It won’t hang a banner, but that’s a win.