We haven’t even reached February yet and the Golden State Warriors have already proven everything there is to prove in the regular season. Whatever records they wind up breaking or fall just short of, it’ll ultimately be trivial minutiae and bookkeeping, a historical footnote, but not relevant to the question of what happened that postseason.
The real goal — and coach Steve Kerr will say as much — is to build and improve step-by-step to April and peak in the playoffs, when ostensibly, despite the evidence on hand from the previous week, the competition will be the stiffest. What that means for the present is for Kerr to go full-on Gregg Popovich, to experiment and tinker with lineups and combinations as much as possible, to rest his star players whenever prudent and then some, and to always aim for improvement both in the micro and macro sense, even if it just means tweaking the periphery of the rotation.
Actually, if their aim is to fully emulate the way the Spurs have gone about their business, if the Warriors really want to go Jedi master on us, they’ll find a way to juggle dominating the present while at the same planning for the future.
And that means playing Kevon Looney a whole bunch these next few months and finding out what they have in him.
Looney, a week shy of his 20th birthday, was the Warriors’ first-round pick out of UCLA this past June and has missed virtually the whole season rehabbing from surgery to repair a torn labrum. An inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than Harrison Barnes, Looney is a combo-forward who shot 41.5 percent from three and averaged 9.2 rebounds per game in his one season with the Bruins.
He was impressive in both those respects in the Summer League as well, before electing to go under the knife. He shot poorly in five games for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the D-League, but worked the glass like Moses Malone reincarnated, averaging 10 per game in just 18.2 minutes, with over half of those coming on the offensive end. Looney was recently called up to the big club — he’s been practicing with them off and on — and got his first game action against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night, logging six minutes and scoring a bucket in garbage time.
For all of the Warriors’ dominance this season, their one bugaboo has been the backup forward spot, where everyone they’ve tried has been disappointing to various degrees. Marreese Speights has shot 37 percent and been just as crummy in his own end. Jason Thompson, the long-time Sacramento King, has been completely unplayable, a glaring minus whenever he’s gotten a chance to play. James Michael McAdoo hasn’t developed as the team’s hoped after showing some potential last year and then over the summer, and he’s been dealing with a toe injury. Given those unappealing options, interim coach Luke Walton has pared the rotation down to nine at times in tight games, or used smaller types such as Ian Clark or Brandon Rush to fill minutes.
There’s a definite hole there for Looney to fill, assuming he gets an opportunity to. It’s both unfair and unrealistic to expect much of him given how young and inexperienced he is and how the rest of the league has had a three-month head start on him, but really what’s the harm when the rotation is so ridiculously good and the other candidates are so not? Throw Looney out there, let him run up and down the floor, get used to his teammates and they to him, and find out if he’s afraid or if he’s willing to compete and fight for his place.
Furthermore, as you’re likely aware, Barnes is a restricted free agent. Connected people throughout the league believe there will be a bidding war for his services, with several teams flush with cap space ready to throw max-level offers at him as a Plan B or C in case Kevin Durant doesn’t choo-choo-choose them.
Or maybe teams just want to put the Dubs in a tough spot, the way the Portland Trail Blazers did with the Oklahoma City Thunder when they signed Enes Kanter to an offer sheet at obscene money and forced Oklahoma City to match to save face with Durant. Maybe the prevailing wisdom around the league is that it’s understood that Barnes really isn’t worth $20 million a year, but somebody should offer it to him anyway just to force the Warriors’ hand and tie up their cap. That’s a dangerous bluff to try, obviously.
Barnes is what he is. A nice complementary player, a building block, but certainly no difference-making star. He hasn’t played particularly well since returning from a sprained ankle that kept him out for 16 games. At this point one would think that Kerr, general manager Bob Myers and the other big shots in the front office must feel they have a pretty good handle on his strengths and weaknesses.
Yes, he’s just 23, but this is his fourth season and his game will only blossom so much from here, especially with three stars ahead of him. Maybe the Warriors are more open than ever about the idea of letting Barnes walk, especially since he rebuffed their perfectly reasonable offer of $64 million over four years. Maybe they understand the implications and complications of him being paid more than Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.
Or maybe they just want to have some cap room to work with on the off chance that Durant gives them a meeting over the summer. (And if he signs there the league should just disband.)
Barnes’s situation is all the more reason to get Looney up to speed and on the court, just to answer some internal questions and ask some new ones. There really is no downside here, and we desperately need some intrigue until the next time they play someone worth a damn.
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Ross Jamal Pusey