The Golden State Warriors had to scrape tooth and nail to win against an awful Chicago Bulls squad on Sunday. Here are 7 takeaways from their start so far.
Somehow it seems like longer than a year and a half since the Golden State Warriors were at the pinnacle of the sport of basketball. Since facing off against the Toronto Raptors in the 2018-19 NBA Finals, they lost Kevin Durant in free agency, Draymond Green to some combination of injury, age and indifference, Stephen Curry for most of last season and Klay Thompson for what is going to end up being two seasons.
It’s been a precipitous fall for a squad that had to fight for their lives in order to pull off a one-point win over a bad Chicago Bulls team on Sunday night. In spite of it being a win, some of the issues facing the Warriors crystallized.
We’ll take a look at seven early takeaways from their three games so far.
1. The Golden State Warriors offense isn’t working
The Warriors have the second-worst offense in the NBA this season with an offensive rating of 97.6 through three games (they’ll face the worst offense on Tuesday in the Detroit Pistons). Stephen Curry’s shot is struggling, Andrew Wiggins can’t make a layup and Kelly Oubre Jr. can’t make anything (more on that later), but head coach Steve Kerr is hesitant to make big changes to their offensive approach.
For example, they’re running more pick-and-roll this season than last, but only slightly, increasing from 17.4 percent of their possessions to 19.7 percent. This isn’t the same great talented squad of years past so Kerr is going to have to catch up and make some changes.