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Kendra Andrews, ESPNSep 26, 2024, 06:33 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO — As the Golden State Warriors prepare to travel to Hawaii for training camp, there is a consensus about their group going on the trip: They are a better team than last season.
“We feel great about the team in the sense that we improved the team,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy said at a news conference Thursday. “At its core, we’ve got a good team [but] we’re probably as impatient of a franchise as you can be right now given our timeline and all that.”
That timeline, of course, is “unequivocally” centered around Stephen Curry, who signed a two-year, $62.2 million extension keeping him with the Warriors through the 2026-27 season.
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But Dunleavy feels confident they can make the most of those remaining years.
“There’s a fine line between impatience and undisciplined,” he said. “I think I feel good about the discipline that we held this summer and the roster we built and the growth from within that we’re going to have.”
According to coach Steve Kerr, he feels he has 12 to 13 players on his roster who could be in the rotation — a problem he has said he’s had in the past. Over the past two years, that’s led to more confusion and inconsistencies than lethal depth. This year is different, though, because of the players they brought in, Kerr said.
And, more importantly, because of the internal growth he expects to see.
“I’m expecting a big year from [Andrew Wiggins],” Kerr said. Wiggins missed two months during the 2022-23 season, and another week last season to tend to his father, who died in July. But before that, Wiggins was a crucial element to the Warriors’ title in 2022.
“He looks physically really fit,” Kerr said. “Just speaking with him, he sounds very motivated. He’s very much at peace. I think he’s in a place where he knows the last couple of years have been tough for a lot of reasons, and I think he’s primed to get back to where he was a couple of years ago.”
Kerr named Wiggins as a possible player to pick up some of the scoring slack left by Klay Thompson‘s departure, and also expressed the need for him to play the same level of defense he did two seasons ago.
One of the biggest areas Kerr wants to see his team improve is on the defensive end, especially in transition.
“Our transition defense fell off the map last year. A huge emphasis in camp will be to shore that up,” Kerr said. “We do have, I think, better personnel this year to become a better defensive team, barring injury and that kind of stuff. … Traditionally we’ve been a top 10 defense. I just want to get back to being really good at that end knowing we can count on our ability to get stops, whatever the ranking is.”
Transition offense will also be a focus. With how different the roster looks from when it won it most recent title, Kerr said he doesn’t plan to deemphasize playing with a quick pace and lots of ball movement.
But he did admit that with such different personnel, he will look at ways to adjust his system to fit his players best.
“It opens up an opportunity to maybe play a little bit differently,” Kerr said.
He continued: “I think where I can do better is simplifying some of the actions that we run so that the players know exactly what they’re doing and not have too many options for them. So, finding that balance where we can maintain our identity but simplify things and make it a little cleaner, that’s the challenge.”
After winning 46 games last season but failing to make the playoffs, Kerr and Dunleavy aren’t tacking on a win total they want to achieve to reflect a successful year. Nor are they ready to define what the floor or ceiling is with the group they have.
But what they are certain on is the urgency they have to operate with to maximize Curry.
“You’re always looking to get better, improve your team,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of good basketball players, and then on top of it, we’ve got most of our assets,” he added. “We’ve got ways to improve. We’ll be aggressive. Does that mean we’re definitely going to do something? No. We were super aggressive last year around the deadline. Didn’t do a whole lot. You’ve got to have a partner. … But the effort and the urgency will always be there.”
