All year long, I’ve been more optimistic about the Golden State Warriors’ chances of success than most. At the start of the season, I believed they would be one of the top teams in the Western Conference. Even when they struggled, I thought they would pull through. When their struggles continued, I still held onto hope. When they caught fire in February, I believed that was their true form. Now, as they struggle again, I find myself agreeing with Steve Kerr that they have a big run ahead of them.
Despite my interest and optimism in this year’s team, I’ve also been fascinated by the upcoming offseason and next year’s team. Hall of Fame-bound guards Klay Thompson and Chris Paul will likely be free agents unless the team surprisingly picks up Paul’s $30 million option. Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody will be entering the final year of their rookie-scale deals, eligible for rookie extensions. Their play and their happiness with sporadic minutes from Kerr have been significant storylines, ebbing and flowing like a roller coaster.
There are even more storylines beyond these, and they’ve all been fascinating to watch unfold. They will continue to be intriguing as this season winds down, the offseason arrives and passes, and next year begins. While we shouldn’t look too far ahead, it’s always fun to speculate about the future. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about what next year’s starting five will look like. It’s a compelling question because the Warriors, 65 games into the season, haven’t really answered it for this year. Kerr has started 11 different players, with eight of those players having double-digit starts. Gary Payton II is the only rotation player who has yet to start this year, and most of the starting lineup changes have been due to performance rather than injury.
I have no clue who will start when the Dubs face the Los Angeles Lakers, which makes it all the more fun—and admittedly fruitless—to guess who will start in October. But let’s at least look at the candidates.
Point guard: The incumbent and favorite is Steph Curry. There’s no need to overthink this one. It’s Steph Curry through and through. I only added Chris Paul as a dark horse because if you squint enough, you can see a world where the team restructures Paul’s contract to keep him at a more modest price point next year and decides to take the defensive hit by playing two of the best point guards in NBA history together.
Shooting guard: The favorite is Brandin Podziemski, with Moses Moody and Klay Thompson as next options. If I were predicting the lineup two years out, I might put Gui Santos as the dark horse. But if Paul is the dark horse point guard, then Curry has to be the dark horse shooting guard, even if this is a supremely unlikely scenario. Shooting guard is a fascinating position, and it seems that every player given the opportunity fumbles it. Thompson had a rough first few months but took off when moved to the bench and has struggled since being re-inserted into the starting five. Podziemski earned the starting spot but has played better in a bench role. Moody has done well when starting, but the team seems to prefer him at the three rather than the two.
Small forward: The favorite is Andrew Wiggins, with Moses Moody as the next option and Jonathan Kuminga as the dark horse. I think there’s a decent chance Wiggins gets traded this offseason, but I’m still betting on him being a Warrior when the next opening night rolls around. If that’s the case, he’s the favorite to be the starter. Moody has been a better player this year, in my eyes. But the Warriors will likely continue to bet on the upside that Wiggins showed during the 2021-22 championship season. Continued struggles from Wiggins or a money-saving trade would open the door for Moody to get a full-time chance. If the Dubs decide to go big, Kuminga could slide down a position, though that’s dependent on his three-point shot improving.
Power forward: The favorite is Jonathan Kuminga, with Draymond Green as the dark horse. There are only three ways Kuminga is not the starting four next year: he gets traded (extremely unlikely), he gets injured (don’t even think about it), or the Warriors play bigger and slide him down to the three. Otherwise, he’s the starting power forward for the foreseeable future.
Center: The favorite is Draymond Green, with Trayce Jackson-Davis as the dark horse. I suspect that Jackson-Davis will be playing well enough to be the starting center by the start of next year; he might be that right now. But the roster logjam makes things difficult. As well as TJD is playing, it’s not well enough to displace Green or Kuminga from the starting five. His only chances of making it into the starting rotation are if someone is traded, someone is injured, or the team decides to play big. Jackson-Davis’ athleticism and explosiveness make the idea of playing big more enticing, though it’s still hard to imagine Golden State going that direction unless Kuminga dramatically improves his three-point shooting.
Either way, I suspect that TJD will get somewhere around 25 minutes a night next year, though they might be coming off the bench. For all the uncertainty I’ve discussed, it seems the most likely starting five next year is the one the team is currently entertaining: Curry, Podziemski, Wiggins, Kuminga, and Green. But it’s easy to see it looking dramatically different, especially by the end of the year.
Source: Various sources
