Getty Golden State Warriors president Bob Myers and owner Joe Lacob look on during a game against the Denver Nuggets.
The Golden State Warriors will finally be back at Chase Center on Monday for a home bout with Mike Brown’s Sacramento Kings. Their big return to the friendly confines is well-timed, too, after the team just stumbled and bumbled its way through an 0-5 road trip.
Changing location alone probably won’t be enough to right the ship, though. To that end, head coach Steve Kerr has promised a series of rotational changes in an effort to give his team some much-needed juice.
Alas, there’s a chance that simply tweaking substitution patterns won’t be enough to get the Dubs back to the top of the standings. If that proves to be true, team president Bob Myers and his brain trust may just have to look outside the current roster for help.
With that being the case, one analyst believes that Golden State should, at the very least, be open to dealing one of their blue-chip prospects. Namely, former No. 2 pick James Wiseman.
B/R: The Warriors Need to Take Calls on Wiseman
Bleacher Report‘s Greg Swartz just put out his list of what every team in the NBA would (or should) be doing if the trade deadline was tomorrow. That prompted a particularly grim assessment of Wiseman’s impact on the court, which has fallen well short of matching up with his eye-popping physical talent.
Wiseman “has an athletic seven-foot frame and tons of potential on both ends of the ball,” wrote Swartz. At the same time, though, the analyst opined that “none of that is translating to winning basketball” for the scuffling Warriors.
Clearly, the team’s 3-7 record would indicate that some things have gone really, really wrong in the early going. However, Wiseman’s on/off numbers are an indictment on him specifically. As of this writing, the Warriors are minus-24.6 points per 100 possessions with the big man on the floor and plus-3.6/100 poss. when he’s off.
Consequently, Swartz is pitching the following strategy: “Golden State shouldn’t necessarily shop Wiseman at the deadline, but needs to be open to calls from rebuilding teams who can offer more win-now help.”
Moving On Would Be Hard to Do
Although Swartz believes that the Warriors should be open to moving Wiseman, he’s not necessarily advocating for it. And even if the team ultimately decides that a trade is in its best interest, the break-up would still be a difficult one.
When the Warriors drafted Wiseman second overall, there was real hope within the franchise that he could be a star. For his part, owner Joe Lacob went so far as to refer to the youngster as a “once-in-a-decade” talent. Fast-forward to now and, even as he has struggled on the floor, Kerr has maintained his belief in the baller.
“…I’m a believer,” Kerr said of Wiseman after a recent loss. “I love his talent, his attitude, but there’s no shortcut for all this. You’ve got to go through your lumps as an extremely young player with little to no experience. It takes time.”
It’s probably worth putting in that time, too, when you’re talking about an uber-athletic, left-handed seven-footer with a 7-foot-6 wingspan, range on his shot and finishing ability. But if the Warriors are trying to maximize their title chances while the Steph-Klay-Dray core is still around, time is of the essence, too.