Warriors Architect Gets Real on Two-Way Ballers Besting Blue-Chippers

Getty Anthony Lamb defends De'Aaron Fox during a bout between the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings.

Following their championship victory over Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics, the Golden State Warriors were showered with praise for their dual-timeline approach to roster construction, and rightfully so. Hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of the year is the goal of every NBA team, after all.

That said, the truth of the matter is that Steve Kerr leaned on what he has referred to as the team’s “foundational six” — with additional contributions from Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr. and Nemanja Bjelica — to get the job done during the postseason play. Meanwhile, the young Dubs were largely relegated to the bench.

Conventional wisdom suggested that Golden State’s blue-chippers — James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody — would get their first real bite at the apple in 2022-23. Through the first 11 games of the new season, though, the former lotto guys have largely been MIA.

Against the Sacramento Kings on Monday, for example, two-way ballers Ty Jerome and Anthony Lamb combined to log 28 minutes, while Kuminga and Moody played nine apiece and Wiseman was DNP-CDd.

If Warriors president Bob Myers is to be believed, though, any reports about the club’s top prospects being overtaken are wildly premature.

Bob Myers Gets Real on Lottery Trio Ceding Minutes

Tim Kawakami of The Athletic checked in with Myers on Tuesday morning, mere hours after Golden State struggled its way to a narrow win over the perpetually-rebuilding Sacramento Kings. Asked about Jerome and Lamb momentarily getting more minutes than the lottery trio, the team’s chief decision-maker advised that the brakes ought to be applied.

“I think what you said was appropriate: at the moment,” Myers said. “I’ve learned watching our teams over the years, the ebb and flow of rotations and how it starts is not always how it ends. Clearly, Donte [DiVincenzo] will be back and Andre [Iguodala] at some point, and what will that do to the rotations?

“We’ve got a lot of youth. It’s hard for Steve to find ways to insert those guys.”

Eye-raising though it was to see the Warriors’ future riding the pine, Myers pushed back on the notion that Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody have been usurped from the fringes.

“I’m not concerned, talking about last night, the two-way guys ahead of [the lottery picks]… Again, it’s a really long season. We just have to be patient. I think it’ll be interesting to see how it looks at the end of the season. But no matter what, it’ll look different than it did last night, in my opinion.”

We Saw This Last Season, Too

While their expectations were different in 2021-22, the way the season played out for Kuminga and Moody (Wiseman missed the campaign due to injury) exemplifies the “ebb and flow” that Myers is talking about.

Entering the year, the Dubs were lauded for drafting not one, but two players with such incredible upside. And yet, neither player was consistently seeing the court through the first several weeks of the season.

As Klay Thompson’s ramp-up period extended, however, and Iguoadala and Draymond Green fell prey to injuries that cost them a significant number of games, both ballers received opportunities to play heavy minutes and strut their stuff on the hardwood. Kuminga, in particular, became a steady contributor, earning himself additional run in the process.

After logging a combined 225 minutes in October, November and December, the former No. 7 pick saw 244 total minutes in January and, for the most part, his work load went up from there.