The Warriors might be the reigning NBA champions, but the organization’s “two timelines” plan is still a work in progress.
And it’s going to take some serious progression on that front if the Warriors are to repeat as champions.
It’s the early days of the season, but the Warriors have a glaring issue out of the gate: Their second unit stinks.
The talent is there. The second unit passes the eye test. This should be a strong wave.
But the numbers are damning.
The Warriors’ starting lineup — comprised of the established veterans of the team — has been the NBA’s best so far this year, outscoring teams by 36 points per 100 possessions.
But when the Warriors go to Jordan Poole and James Wiseman — the point guard and center anchors of the second unit — production has fallen off a cliff.
Together, the duo has played 57 minutes and is averaging an abysmal 0.89 points per offensive possession while allowing 1.22 points per defensive possession, per NBA.com.
And while the Warriors have tried out a number of wing combinations around the Poole-Wiseman combination in the early portion of the season, not one has mitigated either the scoring or defense issue. I doubt that will change.
The issue is pretty easy to spot:
It’s Wiseman.
There was never any question that a Poole-Wiseman combination was going to have defensive problems to start the season. Poole can’t defend the perimeter and Wiseman hasn’t proven capable of defending at any level of the court.
Obviously that one-two punch is problematic.
The idea, though, was that a Poole-Wiseman 1-5 pick-and-roll would be a strong offensive foundation that could hold the Warriors over until one of the two young pieces of the Dubs’ future figured out how to get a stop.
So why is this specifically a Wiseman issue?
Because while Poole can’t defend, he has still shown the ability to score. He just can’t seem to do it when Wiseman is on the court.
Meanwhile, when Wiseman is on the court without Poole, the Warriors’ offense is downright abysmal, while the defense remains terrible.
Yes, we’ve isolated the problem.
Wiseman can be an aesthetically pleasing player, but the grace he shows in the open court doesn’t provide him or the Warriors much value in the close-quarters combat.
The young center has heavy hands, and little feel for the NBA game on either side of the floor right now. He has heavy feet, too, but is somehow consistently knocked out of position by opposing big men.
Combine it all and the Warriors’ turnover rate doubles with him on the floor while their defensive rebounding percentage at the rim goes down nearly 20 percent.
Here’s how bad it is: Wiseman has so far turned Steph Curry into a negative player when they have played together this season.
In Wiseman’s 26 minutes on the floor with Curry this season, the Warriors have been outscored by 20 points per 100 possessions. That’s a 38-point negative swing from Curry’s minutes without Wiseman.
So what’s the solution?
Time.
Wiseman, the former No. 2 overall pick, has the talent to play in the NBA. He shows in all-too-infrequent flashes.
But his poor feel can be attributed to the fact that he’s played less than 1,000 NBA minutes at the start of this, his third year in the league.
The issue here is that centers typically take a long time to develop, particularly on the defensive side of the court. Wiseman is just starting out.
So he has to play. Perhaps we can have a different conversation in 2023, but a four-game sample isn’t big enough to write Wiseman off — no matter how tempting that might be right now.
Perhaps by the time the Warriors are in the playoffs, Wiseman will be the kind of player that can help win a title.
Perhaps not. It’s altogether possible that Wiseman might never develop.
But with little experience and a team option for his fourth year worth a hardly insignificant $12.1 million for next season, the Warriors need to see him on the floor — a lot — this regular season.
And that means there’s a lot more pain coming for the Dubs in the games to come.
