After losing Klay Thompson in free agency, a hot topic quickly arose for the Golden State Warriors: who would start next to Steph Curry in the backcourt? There was no shortage of proven two-guards to slide into Thompson’s spot. There was 2023 first-round pick Brandin Podziemski, who started 28 games as a rookie, and was so highly thought of that the team reportedly refused to include him in Lauri Markkanen trade talks. There was do-everything fourth-year wing Moses Moody, valued enough that the Dubs signed him to a three-year extension on Sunday. There was defensive ace De’Anthony Melton, one of the smartest and most respected veterans in the league. And there was arguably their biggest acquisition of the offseason, sharpshooter Buddy Hield.
Options galore.
At the end of the day, though, the Warriors settled on what a few months ago would have been a very surprising option: none of the above. Shortly after The Athletic’s Anthony Slater reported it, coach Steve Kerr revealed that the Warriors will open the season against the Portland Trail Blazers with Andrew Wiggins starting at shooting guard next to Curry, with Jonathan Kuminga taking Wiggins normal spot at the three, alongside a frontcourt of Draymond Green and second-year center Trayce Jackson-Davis.
While this would have been shocking in the summer, it was the expected lineup by the time opening day rolled around. It was the starting five that the Warriors opted for when Wiggins returned from illness and made his preseason debut, and it looked very good. Even when Curry had to miss the preseason finale, Kerr stuck with the oversized lineup, replacing Curry with Melton. It also looked good.
It’s a huge change from last year, when Wiggins and Kuminga were essentially unplayable together. And it’s certainly a change of heart from the start of training camp, when Kerr disagreed with Green and Kuminga’s assessment of Kuminga’s position, saying that the fourth-year pro was a power forward, not yet a small forward.
But Kuminga played brilliantly in the preseason in Wiggins’ absence, and it was impossible to remove him from the starting five when Wiggins returned. So Kerr gave them a shot together, and liked what he saw. And so they get the chance to prove it can work in the regular season, with success probably dependent on Kuminga continuing to attack in transition and make threes, and both he and Wiggins being aggressive and active without the ball.
It’s still not clear how the rest of the rotational minutes will shake out. But we’re about to find out.