For a stretch in November, the Golden State Warriors were trotting out only eight healthy players, although it didn’t show in the standings, the thin lineup seemed to work. Head coach Steve Kerr was able to find a competitive rotation with only three players off his bench.
The Dubs weren’t racking up wins, but they battled against favored teams down to the wire night-in-and-night-out. Now, four games into the Warriors five-game road trip, Golden State is one of the healthiest it’s been all season. Draymond Green, D’Angelo Russell and Kevon Looney all have returned from injury stints and are back at Kerr’s disposal— good news, right? Not so fast.
In back-to-back games, both Looney and Russell have returned, but each contest the Warriors have been blown out by fellow struggling teams. Golden State looked like a different team, the effort and grit from the weeks prior now absent. The moral victories have turned into lackluster losses.
Kerr hasn’t been happy with his squad’s recent performance, and his struggles could be due to the arrival of familiar, yet new faces to his team’s rotation.
“Tonight we had a lot of guys which was good, but we didn’t have much continuity, we didn’t have much rhythm,” Kerr said to reporters after the 106-91 loss in Charlotte. “The upside of eight guys is everyone’s going to play—you know then you get everyone healthy, now guys are not going to getting as much playing time—maybe you have to juggle positions around a little bit.”
The Warriors guard depth is still fairly slim, even with Russell. However, their frontcourt is logjammed with Green and Looney available. Instead of making the most out of eight players, Kerr’s now tasked deploying a healthy, yet unaccustomed lineup that can compete.
“We need to find whatever rotation allows us to compete at a high level and win a game, that’s the main thing—the last two games I was not happy at all with the energy and the execution on both ends,” said Kerr. “Our job as a staff is to find the combinations that give us that chance.”
Golden State only has one game left on its five-game road trip to salvage a victory before heading back to Chase Center. The 8-14 Chicago Bulls provide a good opportunity for Kerr to get a good look at what rotation could get his team back on track.