Golden State Warriors Ahead Of Schedule ... Way Ahead Of Schedule

The Golden State Warriors are far ahead of schedule early this season.

Most teams have reached the quarter mark of the season and for the Golden State Warriors, things couldn’t be going better. Typically teams experiencing large turnover are subject to an often-prolonged adjustment period.

While you could argue the Warriors had theirs with a 4-2 start, the team has been dominant since then.

The Warriors success early on is a testament to the culture the organization has developed, the work of the coaching staff, as well as the personality of it’s roster. Historically, the integration of three top 20-30 players has not been an easy thing to accomplish.

The growing pains were evident with the Miami Heat for their first season together. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade would take turns offensively, while Chris Bosh struggled to find his role.

For the Cavaliers, the first half of the 2014-15 season resulted in a .500 record, until David Griffin made the moves to get his star trio a supporting cast that fit. The Warriors have managed to maintaining winning basketball, while systematically addressing issues on the fly.

"I feel kind of disrespected that people keep using the term ‘sacrifice’ to describe me and describe us… We all want to see each other do well. But I’m not sacrificing [expletive], because my game isn’t changing. – Klay Thompson to The Vertical in August"

Thompson’s comments this summer were thrown under the microscope. Everything we’ve seen historically told us that the offensive third banana is often the one to sacrifice the most.

Stephen Curry was coming off arguably the greatest offensive season in league history and the team added one of the greatest scorers since James Naismith cut a hole in a peach basket. But that hasn’t been the case to start this year.

Thompson is averaging a career-high 22.6 points per games. Despite an early shooting slump, his effective field goal percentage is a career-high 57 percent. Even his usage rate remains around the same figure (26.1).

He’s doing this while Durant and Curry compile 26.5 and 25.9 points per game respectively. It took the Cleveland Cavaliers two years and two head coaches to achieve this kind of offensive harmony.

The simplest explanation for this success is the absence of other mouths to feed. For the Cavaliers, the elite, albeit streaky, shooting of J.R. Smith would warrant attempts that would take away from the production of Kevin Love.

With the Warriors, the only player that has really sacrificed offensively has been Draymond Green. Green’s points per game are down from 14 to 10.7. Even then, Green is a player that relishes in team success and provides the Warriors with a Swiss army knife.

Green provides scoring when they need it, fuels their offense with his passing, and has been playing the best defense of his career.

Beyond that, the success can be attributed to the coaching staff. Unlike most other “superteams,” the Warriors had an established system in place.

The coaches have instilled confidence in their players that if they follow through with the system, move the ball and find the open man their opportunities will come. The sheer talent of the Warriors can mess with the ingrained instincts of a defender.

If your reflex is to help on any one of their weapons, the ball will be rotated to an open shooter.

The ability of Curry and Durant to break down the first line of defense, as well as the pick-your-poison nature that is a Draymond Green pick and roll creates an environment conducive to producing quality looks for everyone.

Curry may have suffered a dip in his scoring from last season, but he revels in being the maestro of a historically great offense while still maintaining his status as an elite scorer.

To this point, the roster has bought in and shown a willingness to do what it takes to make this work. This is perhaps most evident on the defensive side of the floor. One of the taxes of adding Durant was removing traditional “rim protectors.”

Last season Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli combined for 37.4 minutes per game. While Ezeli’s minutes are inflated by his 13 starts in Bogut’s absence, the point remains that the team often had an elite rim protector as a last line of defense.

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“Rim protection” has become a bit of a buzzword in today’s NBA. While it is important to have somebody alter shots at the rim, you can win without it. In the smaller lineups, Green provides the Warriors with rim protection in the traditional sense.

But where the Cavaliers had success last season and the Warriors are having success now is in limiting attempts at the rim. There is a team-wide commitment to maintaining a strong defensive perimeter and stopping the pick and roll.

The buy-in the Warriors have shown to team defense has elevated them into the top 10 in defensive efficiency. That buy-in combined with their historic offense has them in great shape early in this season.

The fact that the Warriors figured things out shouldn’t be surprising. They have a roster full of high IQ players with experience winning in the league. But the speed at which they’ve achieved this level of play deserves praise.

This is a historic collection of talent, playing at a historic level, in a historic amount of time. Their dismantling of the Clippers on the road showed that they are ready to take on the league’s elite. The game simply comes easy to them.

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With the Cavaliers better than ever, a third clash of the titans seems inevitable.

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