Golden State Warriors: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season

2. Too many centers

If we had to find a fault with the Warriors this season, we have to nitpick a little. However, there is a curious situation with their roster construction: They have too many centers. This issue needs to be addressed going into next season.

Okay, so 27 is a slight exaggeration, but it is true that for a team whose identity is small-ball, the Warriors have a surprising amount of centers playing very sparse minutes. Here is the full list of their centers this season:

• Jordan Bell
• Damian Jones
• JaVale McGee
• Kevon Looney
• Zaza Pachulia
• David West

That’s six, and that doesn’t even count Draymond Green, who plays his best minutes at center. The Warriors could have gone with half of these guys and used the remaining roster spots to make sure they had enough depth at other positions.

The strangest part about about all this is that the Warriors are a small team. They don’t use a lot of size. They usually start games with a traditional center, and then switch to their Hampton’s Five lineup, or Death Lineup, or whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t make sense for a team that doesn’t use centers to be stockpiling them.

Over the summer, the Warriors should consider letting go of some of their redundant centers.  With Jordan Bell looking so promising, there is no need have such depth at the position. Keeping Bell, McGee and Looney seems sensible. Everyone else is getting too old or not getting minutes anyway. Plus, we can’t let Zaza get as many rings as LeBron….