The Golden State Warriors are in sad shape right now. They are 17-19 and are in 12th place in the Western Conference. If the season ended now, they would miss the playoffs, which is pretty hard to do since the NBA expanded to 10 playoff teams to paper over the league’s poor product and weak brand; the league has to sell the fans that at least 10 teams are successful. When the warrior were winning – they have won four chips under Kerr, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson Draymond Green (“Dirty Dray”) – it was all good. They let really good players go like Andrew Bogut, Marreese Speights, DeMarcus Cousins and others. Then, Klay and Steph were shooting the lights out and everything else fell in place.
Now, the warriors have been exposed. Poor coaching, poor management decisions and the fact that some players like Dirty Dray are being carried by Steph is now apparent. Steve Kerr now laments Steph has to play with Dirty Dray:
Interviewer: Steve, we’ve seen a couple of rough nights from Steph … What do you think it is. Is it fatigue or how the defense is guarding him, what do you think is going on?
Kerr: I think it is a combination of the above. I think it’s little fatigue. It’s a long season. Usually every year he has a couple of spells where he’s not on his game … we’ve thrown a ton on his shoulders. The burden that Steph has on him for this franchise is unfair. The Draymond suspension … Draymond is the vocal leader of this team obviously … He and Steph have been co-captaining the team for a decade. Without Draymond here that adds a lot more to Steph’s plate.
It wasn’t a burden a few years ago when Steph and Klay were pulling up from the hash mark. The warriors have been spoiled with having two of the greatest shooters in league history on the same team. There is no way Steph and Klay could have kept that pace up. The question remains, “Why is it a burden all of a sudden when the warriors are losing?” During the 2019-2020 season when Steph missed the entire year, Dirty Dray averaged 7 points and 7 rebounds. His numbers actually went down when Steph was out. Dirty Dray gets way too much attention for a player averaging 7 points and 7 rebounds. Now that Steph and Klay can no longer perform miracles, Kerr wants to throw Dirty Dray under the bus.
