Warriors mailbag: Jonathan Kuminga, Al Horford, and more

Training camp is just a few days away. The Golden State Warriors will be practicing soon — and not just in an unofficial capacity. And just as importantly, with October 1’s Qualifying Offer deadline rapidly approaching, we should soon get a conclusion to the Jonathan Kuminga situation … and then a cascade of signings that will follow.

So it seemed like a good time for a pre-training came mailbag. There weren’t a lot of questions, but they were good ones.

I have absolutely no idea who starts, and I feel pretty confident saying that Steve Kerr doesn’t, either. Obviously Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler III, and Draymond Green will, but after that? Well, it’s anyone’s guess.

The most interesting choice will be center. Golden State’s best lineups have long had Green at the five, but he and Kerr have been pretty vocal about not wanting to wear out the Hall of Fame-bound defender by playing him up a position all season long. Dray isn’t getting any younger, so I don’t see any reason why that would change this year.

Of the traditional centers (and, as your question suggests, assuming all the rumored players sign), Al Horford is certainly the best option on paper. He’s a savvy veteran who will play exactly the way Kerr wants, and will fit in on defense while still spacing the floor on offense. The problem, however, is that Horford — who is 39 — has not played back-to-backs in a few years. Kerr has, historically, liked to keep rotations as constant as possible — remember when Damian Jones, glued to the back of the bench, started a playoff game just to play all of three minutes?

Golden State’s rotations well get disrupted if Horford doesn’t play back-to-backs, but part of me thinks that Kerr will want to keep the starting unit intact, which would mean Horford would come off the bench. That leaves a fight between Quentin Post and Trayce Jackson-Davis, and while training camp will sort out that pecking order, I certainly lean towards Post currently: the Warriors clearly trusted him more last year, and he grew a lot defensively while adding a huge element to the offense as a seven-footer with a dangerous three-point shot.

As for Curry’s backcourt mate, my money’s on De’Anthony Melton. A Curry-Brandin Podziemski backcourt is probably more undersized than the team wants, Seth Curry is too injury prone to commit to as a starter, and Buddy Hield is well cast as the catch-lightning bench scorer. The Warriors really liked when they saw when they paired Melton with Curry at the start of games, which of course happened right before he sustained a season-ending injury. I suspect they’ll go back to that.

So, if I had to predict, it’s a starting five of Curry, Melton, Butler, Green, and Post, with Horford and Kuminga both coming off the bench before the halfway mark of the first.

I don’t know if it’s fair to expect the Warriors to play as well as they did post-deadline last year, when they were legitimately one of the best teams in the NBA. But I also don’t think it’s out of the equation. If healthy, this is still a wildly talented team, and it can’t be understated how well Horford and Melton should fit the system, even if fans aren’t stoked about the teaming moving in an older and less-healthy direction.

I’m rosier on the Dubs than most, but I think they’re a top three — maybe top two — team in the West when healthy. But health questions, mixed with some rest, means finishing top three in the standings is a very tall task. I’ll put them in the fourth or fifth spot in the West, but looking more like the top teams than the play-in squads.

As long as we’re on the subject of Horford, this a great question. I certainly assume the Warriors will be on board with this strategy: it’s hard for me to imagine the (presumed) signing happening if they weren’t.

The Warriors know they’re old, and they know they have injury concerns. They saw what happened last year. They know they have enough talent to make the postseason, and their priority going into the season has to be to have the best team possible come April, not October. If only playing Horford 60-65 times in the regular season aids them in that goal, then so be it.

Off the top of my head, I can’t recall them doing this with a player in Horford’s position — an older player just trying to stay fresh — but they did rest Klay Thompson and Otto Porter Jr. on back-to-backs for a long time while they were recovering from injury, and they’ve done it with Curry as well. Certainly they’re a team that knows how to load manage, and they have plenty of depth at center for the days when Horford doesn’t play. Post and Jackson-Davis can play larger roles, and Green and Kuminga can play some small-bal center.

Probably not. The league certainly takes the situation seriously, but it’s not in their best interest to punish the team or the player too much and diminish the product. For better or for worse, I expect this all to blow over at some point, though if an investigation turns anything up, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Clippers were fined a huge amount of money and docked a draft pick or two.

Until then, prepare for another wildly talented Clippers team to fall massively short for a plethora of reasons.

Great question. It’s a few things. The biggest factor is that the Warriors want to maintain as much leverage and flexibility as possible. The more financial commitments they take on, the more of that they lose. Already having a lot more money on the books limits some of their sign-and-trade options, and boxes them in a little bit with first-year compensation in Kuminga’s dealings. And on top of that, it’s just easier to put the fiscal puzzle pieces together when you start with the biggest brick.

What it really comes down to is there’s no actual benefit to signing everyone else first, and a few marginal potential benefits to waiting, so why not wait?

Thanks for the questions, everyone. Next stop: training camp!