2016-17 Record: 67-15
Players Added: Nick Young (free agent), Jordan Bell (NBA Draft), Omri Casspi (free agent), Chris Boucher (free agent), Georges Niang (free agent), Michael Gbinjie (free agent)
Players Lost: Matt Barnes (free agent), James McAdoo (free agent), Ian Clark (free agent)
Projected Team MVP: Stephen Curry
I just grabbed a quarter, said “heads I write about Curry, tails I write about Durant,” flipped it, and it came up heads. So the projected MVP is going to be Curry.
That’s really how close it is between these two. Durant is the second-best basketball player on earth and the only person who has a legitimate claim to LeBron James’ throne. Curry isn’t too far behind, but the difference is he is the Warriors’ franchise. Durant’s greatness is transcendent, sure, but Curry’s own transcendent greatness allows the Warriors to be the unstoppable death machine they’ve largely been over the last three years.
So for the team MVP, let’s pick Curry. If Draymond Green is the heart and soul of the Warriors, Curry is the engine that makes the machine go. Everything is built around him — his ability to shoot, his ability to pass, his ability to make plays, whatever. Golden State goes as Curry goes. That makes him the team MVP.
Team X-Factor: Jordan Bell
There was a general consensus when the Warriors moved up to grab Bell: “Oh god, no.”
Ask anyone who watched Oregon basketball last season, Bell is awesome. He’s an insane defensive center — despite coming in at 6’9, his ability to block shots is so much fun. He’s also a very good rebounder who can score a little bit. Basically, he has the potential to be the best center on the Warriors — think Ben Wallace, only he can do more on offense than Wallace could.
Golden State doesn’t really need an x-factor, so let’s just say the biggest one is Bell, who boasts the upside to be the best center on the team. If he develops quicker than you’d expect a second-round rookie big man to develop, he might cut into Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee, and David West’s playing time. And if not? It’s the Warriors, they’ll be fine.
Best Case Scenario: I mean, this seems pretty cut-and-dry, no? Imagine everything that just happened last year. Then, uh, imagine they win 74 games and go undefeated in the postseason. Also, Curry wins the MVP. I think that’s it, right? It’s really hard to say Golden State’s best case scenario, because their best case scenario is to do something historic that kind of defies logic.
The thing with discussing the Warriors is that no team has a more defined best case scenario. We also know that they’re capable of achieving said scenario, because they have done it two of the last three years, and the year that they did not win a ring during that stretch, they were the greatest regular season team ever.
To have the best possible season, they would do both things — set the all-time regular season wins record and then mow through the postseason. I suppose we can take it a bit further and add “Curry is the MVP, he and Durant are first-team All-NBA selections, Steve Kerr is the Coach of the Year, Green is the Defensive Player of the Year, and Nick Young is the Sixth Man of the Year” if we want, but let’s face it, even that’s too absurd for the Warriors…right?
Worst Case Scenario: The rest of the west got better with the hopes of knocking them off this year. Houston added Chris Paul. Oklahoma City added Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. The Spurs … well, they’re still the San Antonio Spurs, so they didn’t need to do much of anything.
So the worst case scenario for the Warriors is that one of those teams knock them off. The standard for Golden State at this point is a title. Nothing matters other than a ring. If the team does not meet that standard, the season is a failure. There are three teams in the west that can keep the Warriors from getting there.
And of course, if they lost to Cleveland in the Finals, that’d make some people mad, too. Hell, that might be the worst case scenario of them all. But if that happens, oh well. Who else is excited for Dubs-Cavs V in 2019?
