Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Andy Liu's avatar

fwiw, engelman is an advanced stats guy and had a similar take to you and your friends. i'm personally v worried about the spacing thing, but i'm also open to the idea that butler is a major upgrade over wiggins, beneath the counting stats.

+++

Warriors improve by addition and subtraction

Golden State lost no player of significance in the deal to acquire Big Face Coffee proprietor Jimmy Butler — between Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schröder, Kyle Anderson, and Lindy Waters, not one of them rates as positive in xRAPM.

Schröder, in fact, was an unmitigated disaster for Golden State. Acquired in mid-December, he recorded a total plus-minus of -130 in his short time there, almost twice as negative as the next-worst Warriors player.

Simply removing Schröder from the lineup will probably get the Warriors back to above .500 ball.

Butler, at least according to my xRAPM numbers, is still a top-15 player in the NBA. When fully motivated — which seems likely, thanks to a new contract extension — he might be even better.

Said contract extension, for two years at around $56 million per season, is a little hefty for a 35-year-old, but I understand the Warriors simply want to make the best out of Steph Curry's remaining years in the league, costs be damned.

There are spacing concerns — the Warriors don't have a stretch big, and Butler doesn’t stretch the floor either. But the collective basketball IQ, especially in lineups that include Curry and Draymond Green, should mitigate those issues.

Currently outside the play-in, the Warriors will have to find some traction, fast, if they want to make the playoffs and avoid Oklahoma City in the first round.

Whether this deal was enough to get them there depends, to some degree, on their own injury luck, and that of teams above them in the standings.

But I would say they did significantly improve their chances.

Expand full comment
Grant Cragun's avatar

I love Nate and Danny, but they are failing to capture just how awful the Warriors’ predicament was. They are both too high on Andrew Wiggins’ value. They give too much credit for him being on a “good deal” and providing what all NBA teams need.

But Wiggins simply wasn’t a good enough player to be a legit number two option on a team that wants to compete in the playoffs. The only guy out there who had that pedigree was Jimmy Butler. The Warriors don’t need a good value contract: they need another star. All Warriors fans know this, both “casuals“ and “experts“ alike.

The more analytical/expert crowd often fails to relate to the plight of the fan. I frequently hear critiques and observations that fail to realize that fans want to be (1) entertained by their team and (2) competitive with the best teams in the league. Those same experts would like for the Warriors to “blow it up“ and trade Steph Curry and just start from scratch like that is some magical formula to success. Long time Warriors fans know just how bad a team can be for a very long time. I’ll take the home run swing of Jimmy Butler (which to Nate’s credit he acknowledges as a home run swing) then an analysis of how the Warriors can create better future value for some theoretical championship contender down the line, all at the expensive Steph Curry.

Expand full comment
27 more comments...

No posts