Kurtenbach: What we learned in the Warriors’ preseason loss to the Lakers
SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors opened Chase Center with a dud on Saturday.
Their 123-101 loss to the Lakers featured a few moments of solid basketball, but on the whole, it was an unimpressive performance in a game that doesn’t matter.
And while we’re not interested in turning molehills into mountains — unlike the Lakers — there were still lessons to be learned from the first contest of the year.
Here’s what we learned in the Warriors’ loss:
This team has wing problems
Alfonzo McKinnie might be playing for his job.
That, in and of itself, is not a ridiculous development for the Warriors. McKinnie might have played well last year, but he’s not exactly an established NBA entity — he could absolutely lose his spot in the Warriors’ theoretical rotation this preseason.
The problem is that McKinnie is a starter on this team.
There were positives to be gleaned from Saturday night’s game — D’Angelo Russell is a dude, the rookies looked good (more on that in a moment), the Chase Center has the chance to be pretty darn loud (but not as loud as the last place) — but it’s hard not to exit the contest without noting that the team’s wing depth is seriously lacking.
The most important thing you can have in the NBA these days is shooting. The second most important thing you can have — and this shows up in a big way in the postseason — is perimeter defense.
The Warriors’ wings seem incapable of doing either one of those things.
Not. Good.
McKinnie did not impress Saturday. One game, yes, but considering the state of this roster, one would hope that he stands out compared to the rest in the next one.
I also saw up-and-down play from Glenn Robinson III. Maybe there’s something there — I like him more than most, it seems — but he’s not a guy that a good team should be counting on for major contributions.
The best wing Saturday was rookie Eric Paschall — but he didn’t exactly light the new arena on fire.
Add in Alec Burks’ injury — he injured his ankle in practice this week — and the wing situation, which was already a serious question mark heading into Saturday’s preseason debut, looks extremely harrowing.
They’re going to be playing smallball (but not in a good way)
It’s been suggested to me that the center position will soon be a relic of the past. No more 7-footers. No more post play. No dominating rim protection. Just five-out, positionless basketball. Some people around the NBA think that this future is not just coming, but imminent.
Given how the Warriors looked Saturday, they better hope that future starts this month. They looked small against the Lakers.
To be fair, Lakers coach Frank Vogel stacked his starting lineup as if it was Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals — they had JaVale McGee, Anthony Davis, and LeBron James all on the court at the same time — but even against a smaller team, the Warriors would have looked diminutive.
A big part of this is injuries — the Warriors’ top two centers, Kevon Looney and Willie Cauley-Stein are injured — but only one of those guys is a true, prototypical center, and their chief backup — Omari Spellman — is tradesman who was overmatched, even in a preseason game.
It should be noted that there were some positive spells from Marquese Chriss, who was signed this month as an emergency option. Moving forward in the preseason, it might be worth considering if he’s a better option than Spellman for the regular season. Long way to go, there, though — albeit this is a conversation no one expected to be having.
But the larger lesson is that the Warriors — even at full health — are going to be a “finesse” team this year.
(That’s the nice way of saying small.)
Normally, that wouldn’t be that big of a problem (pardon the pun) because Draymond Green almost reinvented the center position over the last few years, but something stood out to me Saturday: without a viable 3 or 4, Green isn’t a viable 5.
I never thought I’d say this, but the Warriors miss Harrison Barnes.
The kids can play
The Warriors will be a-ok at guard, though. Russell is impressive. Curry is an all-time great. Damion Lee is a nice, solid, NBA-caliber player. Jacob Evans looked damn good in 18 minutes.
And Jordan Poole looks like he can do something at the NBA level, too.
We’re not going to extrapolate a preseason game too far — much less the first one — but Poole was both unafraid to shoot the 3 and tenacious with trying to create his own shot.
With Klay Thompson out, the Warriors need more than a little of that for the next few months. Poole — for better or for worse — appears to be up to the challenge.
Paschall looked the part of a pro right away, too. There’s nothing downright special about the Villanova product, but his smarts and versatility were evident against the Lakers and his championship pedigree from college had to play a positive role, too.
Is it good that the Warriors are likely going to rely on two rookies — especially ones that were not lottery picks — to make significant impacts this season? No sir. But the early returns on the rooks were solid. Take that as a win.
The Lakers — get this — are good
You don’t need to be Doris Burke to understand that any team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis is going to be pretty good.
But it was still impressive to see those two playing together on Saturday, even in limited (relative to regular season) minutes.
I don’t think the rest of the Lakers’ roster is all that good, but those two are the truth, and them, paired with the always solid Danny Green and the pesky Avery Bradley, ensures that the Lakers are going to be in the playoffs this year.
Hell, they might be the No. 1 overall seed (though I think in the West this year, the difference between the 1 and 8 seed could be four games).
There’s no reason not to treat the Lakers as the bar the Warriors must overcome.
One game — one preseason game — into the 2019-2020 campaign, it’s clear that the Warriors have a long way to go.