Warriors at Hornets: Curry and Green out, McCaw too (concussion)

Warriors missing 72 minutes of their rotation; face Hornets and Kemba Walker with call-up rookie Quinn Cook as our starter

Woo-wee are we missing a lot of our rotation tonight!

Without Steph Curry, it was a given that this game would feel different. Well, hold Steve Kerr’s beer because he’s going in!

Okay, just kidding, Kerr isn’t suiting up. But with Patrick McCaw out as well as Curry, the Golden State Warriors have taken the unusual step of calling up Quinn Cook from the NBA Development league and giving him the start!

There’s a couple of reasons for this. First of all, Steve Kerr like to keep his bench rotation the same for key players like Livingston and Iguodala - so it’s not totally unheard of for Livingston to stay on the bench here. Secondly, the Hornets starting point guard is the ultra quick Kemba Walker so Kerr may just want to err on the side of foot speed for the matchup at the point.

First he was out, then he was in... now Draymond Green is out.

Zaza Pachulia is available so will slot in at Center, but no word as of about an hour prior to the game who will take Draymond Green’s starting position.

Also, Pat McCaw is listed as out with a nose contusion, but Anthony Slater tweeted just now that McCaw is actually in the NBA concussion protocol.

Thankfully, the Warriors schedule slows down a little bit over the next couple of weeks - but this sure has been a rough road trip for the Warriors!

Concerned yet? Don’t be

Yeah, yeah, the Warriors definitely want the #1 seed. But while the Rockets are indeed playing well, they’re essentially neck-and-neck with the Warriors who are only a half game back from 1st right now.

These next few weeks without Steph are going to provide some really good insight into how well this team really responds when needed. Yes, we have another All Star (or three) ready and waiting to increase their usage, but as Anthony Slater transcribed in his article, the Warriors are sorta defined by not being too overly star-driven:

“But what makes our team special is not having an MVP or having two MVPs,” Kerr continued. “It's having a team of playmakers. I want Shaun involved, Andre (Iguodala) involved, David West playing on the block. KD and Klay can foster all that by moving the ball and cutting and screening and everything will come out in the wash. But we can't get in iso situations and just think that because we have a lot of talent, iso stuff will bail us out. We got to work.”