Warriors Roster Turnover Shows Major Improvements

While the Golden State Warriors have always maintained a core surrounding Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala amongst a slew of other faces such as Kevin Durant and Shaun Livingston, the team looks drastically different than it did even last year. This is a common phrasing around the league used to discredit them: “Their chemistry is well-established, they’re playing with guys who were around last year”, usually in direct contrast to the Lakers.

This, however, is not the case. The popular NBA website StatMuse recently posted to Twitter with an important reminder that every player who was a net negative to the team last year statistically, is either not on the floor or not with the team anymore.

This list includes a few familiar faces to Warriors fans. Most notably is the top player on the list, Kelly Oubre Jr., who was a horrendous -189 with the team last season. In second is rookie James Wiseman, who has made steps to improve over the offseason and looks to be able to reverse that effect pretty quickly. Other notable names include Eric Paschall (-113), Nico Mannion (-76) and Brad Wanamaker (-10).

Oubre and Wanamaker are probably the two most notable names on the list outside of Wiseman, the only player of the negatives who is still rostered. Oubre opened up last season on a notoriously cold streak, missing his first 17 threes and barely recovering to a subpar 31% from downtown. He famously had some comments in the offseason about not wanting to play a bench role for the Dubs moving forward despite his inadequate play, ultimately leading him to sign with the Charlotte Hornets. Oubre was a bit of a headcase, as he was one of the team’s touted pick-ups before the 2020-2021 season and had some high expectations considering his growth track as a player.

Wanamaker is a lot more explainable. In his 4 years in the league, Wanamaker has averaged 5.6 points and 2.4 assists in 16-ish minutes per game. These don’t look bad until you see his 42% field goal shooting and 30% three-point shooting. While he should be a better shooter than these stats show (90% from the free throw line for his career), he was pretty bad for the Warriors considering the construction of their roster. He wasn’t expected to be one of the best additions, but he was still given benefit of the doubt and didn’t really follow up on it.

There are some obvious concerns about Wiseman just by looking at this list and his performance in a single season. It’s also obvious that it’s far too early to call him a bust or to say the Warriors should have drafted anyone else. New assistant coach Dejan Milojevic has been adding some dynamism to the Warriors big man rotation, including working with Draymond Green and Kevon Looney (both showing results) on their offensive games. Wiseman is still young, and still a raw talent, but if the progress with those two is any indication, along with placements of faith from his teammates, Wiseman will be more than fine.

Regardless, the Warriors have shown that they were able to turn things around by making some smart signings that are actually panning out. Their prior free agents just didn’t work within the system whether it was by their own error or a lack of fit, but this season and their 11-1 start shows Kerr knows what he’s doing and that, with an adequate supporting cast including a couple minimum-contract guys, the Warriors aren’t going away anytime soon.

(Photo credit: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)