After an opening night loss to the Suns, the Golden State Warriors rattled off five straight wins to seemingly assert themselves as a team to beat in the Western Conference. However, since then, the Warriors are 5-12 and find themselves 11th in the West, 2.5 games back of the Pelicans as we enter the second quarter of the 2023-24 season.
What’s most concerning about the Warriors struggles is that it has been their starting lineup that has been lifeless this year. Stephen Curry is having another spectacular year, averaging 29.1 points per game on 46.8/42.2/93.6 shooting splits, but that’s not been enough to keep the starting unit afloat. With the struggles of Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson offensively and an all-around dropoff defensively with Draymond Green and Kevon Looney on the back line, the Warriors starting lineup has a -9.8 net rating in 133 minutes this season — for comparison’s sake, the Pistons starting lineup (losers of 20 straight) has a -10.1 net rating.
That starting lineup is supposed to be the stabilizer for this Warriors team, but instead they are the group dragging them down. They have been inefficient as a whole in spite of Curry’s brilliance, continue to be turnover prone, have had a startling amount of defensive breakdowns, and have just generally be unreliable. The bench units for the Warriors have been a bright spot, with Steve Kerr highlighting that on Tuesday night after getting 80 bench points against the Suns in another failed come from behind loss. The idea that Chris Paul could bring more out of the younger bench has proved mostly correct, as Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, Brandin Podziemski have all had solid starts to the season. The problem is the bench can only take you so far in the NBA, and the Warriors core group has been incapable of closing out games this season.
Typically, veteran teams with championship cores thrive in close games, but the Warriors have been oddly awful in those situations this year. They are 3-10 in games that meet “clutch” criteria for the NBA — within five points in the last five minutes — and are shooting 42.6 percent from the field and 34.7 percent from three in the clutch. When you break it down further they only get worse. Inside three minutes of a five-point game, they are 2-10 and shooting 41.3 percent from the floor and 30.3 percent from three. Inside one minute, that drops to 37.5 percent from the field and 22.7 percent from three.
If you want to be optimistic, this is a team that constantly finds itself in close games, indicating they are not that far away from a winning streak. However, they are digging themselves a pretty large hole to have to climb out of later if they’re going to get into the playoffs in the West, and are likely going to face another stretch without Draymond as he stares down another likely suspension for his latest ejection against the Suns.
If the Warriors are still below .500 when the calendar flips to 2024, their front office will have some very difficult decisions to make. They decided to ride with their veteran core once again with their moves this summer, but only Curry has held up his end of the bargain. Thompson has struggled in a contract year and Green, fresh off getting a $100 million deal, has been ejected from 20 percent of the games he’s appeared in. They can’t afford to waste great seasons from Steph, which means there will be ample pressure to make moves to get this right, but there aren’t any easy answers, especially when a lot of their guys are operating at very low value right now.
Where do the sliding Warriors find themselves in this week’s DIME Power Rankings? Let’s find out…
Tier I: The Contenders
As we’ve completed the first quarter of the season, the teams have begun to sort themselves into tiers. At the top we have the contenders that look to be real threats for a deep playoff run. What’s fascinating about this group this year is we have a lot of unproven rosters when it comes to postseason success. Only the Bucks and Nuggets have a core that’s won a championship together (and even then, Milwaukee has a lot of new pieces), and the Celtics are the only other team in this group with multiple conference finals appearances. For me, it’s exciting to see this many teams taking a leap into the contender realm, but it raises some natural skepticism about some of these young teams and whether they can maintain this level of play. The Magic and Thunder haven’t even made the playoffs with their current cores, while the Mavs, Sixers, and Wolves have some playoff demons to exorcise. For now, though, they’re all playing terrific basketball — with Dallas the most mercurial of this bunch — and have separated themselves from the pack a bit.
1. Boston Celtics (17-5, Last week: 2)
2. Minnesota Timberwolves (17-5, Last week: 1)
3. Orlando Magic (16-7, Last week: 3)
4. Milwaukee Bucks (16-7, Last week: 4)
5. Oklahoma City Thunder (15-7, Last week: 5)
6. Philadelphia 76ers (15-7, Last week: 8)
7. Denver Nuggets (16-9, Last week: 6)
8. Dallas Mavericks (15-8, Last week: 16)
Tier II: The Middle
There should be no shortage of drama in the playoff and Play-In races this season in either conference, as the middle of both conferences is an absolute logjam. There’s a lot of talent in this group of teams, but consistency has been severely lacking for all of these teams for various reasons. Most of the teams in this group believe they should be contenders, but have too much width between their floor and ceiling right now to make anyone particularly confident in them putting it together across multiple playoff series. There’s still time to raise that floor, but more than a quarter of the way through the season, none of these teams have been able to tap their full potential on anything approaching a nightly basis.
The good news for all of them is they’re each on the precipice of crashing the contenders tier with a hot streak. Right now it’s the Pacers and Clippers are playing particularly well, riding four-game winning streaks each, and the Lakers obviously showed what they’re capable of in the In-Season Tournament. Still, there’s a bit too many questions associated with each of these to have total confidence in them as a playoff squad.
9. Los Angeles Lakers (14-10, Last week: 9)
10. Indiana Pacers (13-8, Last week: 13)
11. New York Knicks (13-9, Last week: 7)
12. Phoenix Suns (13-10, Last week: 10)
13. Los Angeles Clippers (13-10, Last week: 18)
14. Sacramento Kings (13-9, Last week: 11)
15. Miami Heat (13-10, Last week: 15)
16. Cleveland Cavaliers (13-11, Last week: 12)
17. New Orleans Pelicans (13-11, Last week: 14)
18. Houston Rockets (11-9, Last week: 20)
19. Brooklyn Nets (12-10, Last week: 17)
Tier III: In The Mud
All four of these teams figure to be very active in trade rumors over the next two months, as they all are supposed to be better than they are and could feel the pressure to take some swings at the deadline. Zach LaVine’s trade request and subsequent absence has seemingly brought a little life to Chicago, but they still have a long way to go to be taken seriously in the Play-In race. Atlanta and Toronto play twice this week in a fascinating mid-off in the East, with the chance that those two could become trade partners in the not too distant future. Golden State, of course, has Curry playing at an All-NBA level with little in the way of consistent help.
20. Golden State Warriors (10-13, Last week: 22)
21. Chicago Bulls (9-16, Last week: 23)
22. Atlanta Hawks (9-13, Last week: 19)
23. Toronto Raptors (9-14, Last week: 20)
Tier IV: Lotto Bound
While they’re all only a few games back of the previous tier, it feels like there’s some decent separation to this group. Memphis is three more games away from getting Ja Morant back, at which point they hope to start chipping away at the West Play-In race. The rest of this group figures to continue along this path, but at least in Utah and Portland this is all part of the plan of a rebuild. Charlotte, meanwhile, could be a bit more active in reshuffling the roster at the deadline if this continues.
24. Utah Jazz (7-16, Last week: 24)
25. Memphis Grizzlies (6-16, Last week: 26)
26. Charlotte Hornets (7-14, Last week: 27)
27. Portland Trail Blazers (6-16, Last week: 25)
Tier V: Tank Generals
It’s a bit funny to me that it’s the year where there isn’t a generational prospect that we have one of our strongest tank battles. The Wizards, Spurs, and Pistons are on pace for some historic losing, with Detroit leading the way with an active 20-game losing streak that shows no sign of slowing down. Still, they might be doing better with their fans than the Wizards, who just announced a plan to leave D.C. for Virginia in the middle of a horrible season.
28. Washington Wizards (3-19, Last week: 28)
29. San Antonio Spurs (3-19, Last week: 29)
30. Detroit Pistons (2-21, Last week: 30)
