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NEW ORLEANS — Surely you remember Coach Steve Kerr’s facetious (and humorous) plan that he revealed shortly after the Golden State Warriors were beaten in the 2019 N.B.A. finals.
Kerr responded to that Game 6 defeat to the Toronto Raptors by jokingly asking Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, to allow his team to secede from the league for one season. That way, Kerr reasoned, he and all of his weariest Warriors could go away to Italy to “ride bikes and sip wine” and finally recharge after five consecutive trips to the finals.
What made it so funny, as they say, was the truth that inspired such an outlandish request: No team in the sport’s modern history needed that fantasy of a break more than these Warriors.
They weren’t merely the first team to make five consecutive trips to the championship round since Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics of the 1960s. They also did it in the unrelenting glare of the social media age, which is something that the Russell-era Celtics — and even the Michael Jordan-led Bulls, who won six titles in 1990s — never faced.
No such break, mind you, was ever coming. The Warriors knew it then and really felt it after their first two games of the new season, in which they were shredded at home by the Los Angeles Clippers and routed even more convincingly on the road by the Oklahoma City Thunder — without leading for a single second in either game.
Yet it was clear on Monday night, while watching Golden State rebound with a 134-123 triumph over the reeling New Orleans Pelicans in a game it led by as many as 29 points and never trailed, that the Warriors are not in crisis. Far from it. As noted in last week’s newsletter, via prediction No. 7 specifically, this is a reset season for them.
It’s the closest thing they could get to the sabbatical season of Kerr’s dreams. The playoffs are truly optional — great if they happen; life goes on if they don’t — whether they are willing to frame it this way or not.
“That’s not my mind-set,” Draymond Green said when I relayed that premise to him after he posted 16 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists in Golden State’s victory. And I wasn’t surprised.
As you would expect after winning three championships in those five finals trips, Green and Curry believe that nothing less than a playoff berth is acceptable for this group, even after it lost Kevin Durant in free agency — and even if Klay Thompson winds up missing the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in that fateful Game 6.
The reality, though, is that the Warriors will be just fine if they miss the 2020 postseason. Chase Center will be full and sparkly no matter what happens — and they will be back in the 2021 title mix regardless.
There would certainly be a mental toll for Green and Curry if this team sinks all the way into the lottery for the first time since 2012. Curry acknowledged late on Monday that he hasn’t been able to dodge the many “darts” tossed in Golden State’s direction in the wake of its uncompetitive 0-2 start.
“Say whatever you want to fill that 24-hour news cycle,” Curry said. “It’s cool with us.”
Yet I will continue to argue that no amount of darts or lumps can dampen the Warriors’ long-term outlook, even post-Durant. As painful as the short term might be, missing the postseason would mean adding a lottery pick next season to a presumably healed Thompson.
Then throw in the priceless experience that the Warriors’ rookies, Jordan Poole and Eric Paschall, are suddenly getting because Kerr is short on alternatives.
I remain suitably skeptical about D’Angelo Russell’s fit with this franchise, but he’ll do no harm in the short term helping Curry carry the Warriors’ offense. Maybe Russell will prove me wrong and find a niche alongside Curry and Thompson. If he doesn’t, Golden State should still be able to trade him in the future for players who fit more seamlessly — Minnesota’s interest presumably isn’t going anywhere.
Green remained in playoffs-or-bust mode no matter what I was babbling, but even he betrayed a hint of excitement when asked to look down the road a bit. Reason being: “We’re still in our primes,” Green said, “our top guys.”
Curry will be 32 when next season starts. Thompson will be 30. So will Green. “Primes,” perhaps, is stretching it, but the Warriors are certainly well positioned to return quickly to championship contention in 2020-21 when you think about what they will be adding, along with the growth of some of these names you’re presumably struggling to recognize.
“It’s a lot of expectations,” Paschall said of the life he has walked into with the Warriors as a second-round pick who played four years of college basketball at Fordham and Villanova.
“But at the same time, it’s a lot of fun.”
There will inevitably be more poundings in the near future that will fall well shy of fun for the likes of Green, Curry and Kerr. There will be no shortage of jokes about the team that was supposed to be “light-years” ahead of the other 29, and there will be outright revelry in some N.B.A. cities when the Warriors stumble. That’s what happens after a half-decade of rampant winning and occasional showboating, which made them so-called supervillains.
On this night, though, you left Smoothie King Center with many more questions about the home team than the visitors. Golden State’s early struggles become more understandable when you realize that three of the established N.B.A. veterans on a very green, thin roster (Kevon Looney, Willie Cauley-Stein and Alec Burks) are out injured. The Pelicans, by contrast, are 0-4 and weeks away from the true launch of the Zion Williamson era — with their star guard Jrue Holiday ailing, too.
I’m on record as saying this Warriors group won’t make the playoffs in the loaded West, but it’s shortsighted to focus there. Our advice: Treat this as a dynasty on hiatus rather than a dynasty expired.
“If you really study the league, what usually happens is that things reset every five years or so,” Green said. “We dominated for the last five years and now it’s resetting.”
The difference this time, as Green noted earlier, is that the Warriors’ core players are young enough to climb right back into the elite after this season’s reboot. Green started at center on Monday and promptly uncorked a triple-double. Curry casually launched and drained a 40-footer. And Thompson is as determined as ever to get back to his five-time All-Star form.
I won’t be betting against them.
The Scoop @TheSteinLine
Oct. 29
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Corner Three
You ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. (Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.)
Q: With Brandon Ingram not signing an extension last week with New Orleans, do you think a team like Memphis will pounce with an offer sheet to put pressure on the Pelicans to match? This would speed the Grizzlies’ rebuild because Ingram fits Memphis’s development timeline. — Bobby Adkins
Stein: It’s the smallest of sample sizes, so let’s not get too carried away. But the early flashes from Ingram (27.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.2 blocks a game with 50 percent shooting from 3-point range in his first four games) suggest he will be in the running to be ranked as next summer’s No. 1 free agent if he stays anywhere close to these levels.
Although it’s no surprise that the Pelicans and Ingram didn’t come to terms on an extension, given how briefly he has been in New Orleans and all the health woes he endured last season, team officials surely understand the risk they’re facing here. We saw the likes of Boston’s Jaylen Brown, Sacramento’s Buddy Hield and Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis all score major extension deals before last week deadline in part because their teams — cognizant of how weak the 2020 free-agent class is projected to be — did not want to let those players proceed to restricted free agency, putting the teams at risk of losing a top talent to a massive offer sheet.
Only the Grizzlies know how aggressive they’re prepared to be so early in the Ja Morant/Jaren Jackson Jr. era, but dismiss them at your own peril. Most of the other teams projected to have salary cap space next summer — Atlanta, Charlotte and Cleveland — likewise suffer from reputations that suggest they will be free-agent spectators, so I certainly won’t be surprised if the Grizzlies ignore the naysayers and try to pounce.
Of course, if things stay on their current track and Ingram keeps producing like this, one presumes both he and the Pelicans would have considerable mutual interest in continuing the relationship.
I’m as eager as you to see how aggressive those other teams get. Atlanta is a another great curiosity given the progress of Trae Young and Co., combined with the Hawks’ closer proximity to true contention. That’s just the reality for a team with the privilege of being in the Eastern Conference.
Q: Spurs fans never expect to get any sort of meaningful national coverage or recognition. That said, I see my guys finishing seventh in the West and contending for a berth into the Western Conference finals. Thoughts? — Steve Price (Austin, Texas)
Stein: The conference is so competitive that’s it’s hard to pick any top eight with certitude. While the Warriors looked even more vulnerable early than we anticipated in last week’s newsletter, two teams in the West not expected to make any noise (Phoenix and Memphis) proved to be more than mere tough outs in the opening week.
I have the Spurs down as a playoff team largely because I’m too afraid to pick against them after 22 consecutive playoff berths. It’s likewise true that they still have quality depth, two veterans who produce at a high level in LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan and, of course, Gregg Popovich’s coaching.
You’re on your own, though, with that Western Conference finals stuff.
That would require far more evidence than we have after a couple San Antonio wins over Eastern Conference teams (Washington and the Knicks) projected to miss the playoffs — and a narrow win over Portland with the Trail Blazers on the second night of a back to back. It would also likely require Dejounte Murray and Derrick White to coalesce into a fully functioning backcourt tandem. And there is realistically a third requirement: Murray and White, who have scarcely played together thus far, have to click while establishing a smooth coexistence offensively in the same lineup alongside Aldridge and DeRozan and their reliance on midrange scoring.
In other words: Check back in a couple months.
Q: About 6.3 percent of the words in this story are about the @bucks. Is this because none of the Bucks shoot left-handed? #analytics — @mmcmanus13 from Twitter
Stein: First it was a Spurs fan protesting to a guy who writes umpteen Spurs articles every season that his team isn’t getting enough coverage. Now it’s a Bucks fan who didn’t like the Rockets-heavy focus of my Milwaukee-Houston game story last week but apparently missed my Bucks-dominated preseason predictions.
No slight to the Eastern Conference favorites was intended, Matt. I promise.
The assignment that night simply called for an in-depth look at the Rockets given their return to the spotlight, not only for the team amid a tension-filled October but for Houston General Manager Daryl Morey, since it was Morey’s Oct. 4 tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong that led to the league’s ongoing conflict with China.
My fondness for lefties, undeniable as it is, had nothing to do with it.
.000
The two teams that traveled all the way to India to play two exhibition games earlier this month, Sacramento and Indiana, opened the season at a combined 0-7. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the Kings ranked as my biggest Week 1 disappointment after losing their first three games by an average of 23.7 points. The Pacers have sandwiched two losses to the Blake Griffin-less Detroit Pistons around a double-digit loss at lowly Cleveland.
1
Upon signing a new, four-year, $64 million deal with San Antonio, Dejounte Murray became the first player in league history to land a rookie-scale contract extension after playing in zero games the previous season. Murray is back in the Spurs’ starting lineup after missing all 82 games and the playoffs in 2018-19 because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.
52
More evidence, perhaps, to explain why basketball appears to be gaining on hockey in terms of popularity in Canada: Toronto’s Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup in 52 years — since the N.H.L. was a six-team league in 1967. The N.B.A.’s Raptors, who share Scotiabank Arena with the Leafs, delivered a championship in June in their 24th season to a generation of fans with no recollection of the Leafs’ glory days.
6
Of the 108 international players on opening-night rosters, 16 are from Canada. Australia is next in line with nine, followed by France (eight), Croatia (seven) and Serbia (six).
50
It didn’t prevent the Nets from suffering a disappointing home loss to Minnesota on opening night, but Kyrie Irving’s 50-point eruption in his debut as a Net was so remarkable that it must be recognized again. No player in league history had ever scored 50 points in his first game for a new team — not even Wilt Chamberlain.
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