Despite finishing with their best record in 22 years, the Golden State Warriors fired third year head coach Mark Jackson and quickly replaced him with Steve Kerr. Led by Stephen Curry, the Warriors have the pieces in place to be a contender in the Western Conference. Management doesn’t seem content though and there have been rampant rumors about the franchise making a run at Kevin Love or trying to shop sharpshooter Klay Thompson.
Golden State Warriors (51-31 last year)
2014-15 Projected Depth Chart:
C: Andrew Bogut/Marreese Speights/Festus Ezeli/Ognjen Kuzmic
PF: David Lee/Draymond Green
SF: Andre Iguodala/Harrison Barnes
SG: Klay Thompson/*Jordan Crawford
PG: Stephen Curry/Nemanja Nedovic
NBA Free Agents:
*G-Jordan Crawford (RFA)
C-Jermaine O’Neal (UFA)
PG-Steve Blake (UFA)
C-Hilton Armstrong (TO)
2014-15 Team Salary: Approximately $65.1 million
Team Needs:
1. Be Aggressive, but How Aggressive?:
The Warriors could hold pat with their current roster and like this past season, be a solid playoff team in the West. Kevin Love trade talks reportedly got very serious but have recently cooled off. He would obviously be a tremendous addition alongside Stephen Curry but is Love worth bringing in when there is no guarantee that he will be in the Bay for more than one year? And is Thompson worth trading at this point? Or maybe shopping Harrison Barnes?
2. Guard Depth:
Jordan Crawford is a restricted free agent so Nemanja Nedovic is the only reserve guard guaranteed to be under contract for next season. Nedovic played sparingly during his rookie season so the Warriors cannot count on him to be ready for a significant increase in minutes. Even if Crawford does return, the Warriors should look to add a veteran guard who can play 12-15 minutes per night.
3. Healthy Frontcourt:
Can we talk about the Andrew Bogut contract extension for a second? I didn’t get it and still don’t think he’s the worth the three-year, $36 million the Warriors gave him this season. Why were they so quick to give him that money? Okay, quick tangent over.
With Jermaine O’Neal a free agent, the Warriors need to get Festus Ezeli back healthy to sure up their inside. Ezeli missed all of last season with a knee injury and with Bogut’s past health history, the Warriors would be smart to add another big man as insurance in case O’Neal does not return.
OTHER NBA OFF-SEASON TEAM NEEDS PAGES:
ATLANTA HAWKS
David Kay is a senior feature NBA Draft, NBA, and college basketball writer for the Sports Bank. He also heads up the NBA and college basketball material at Walter Football.com and is a former contributor at The Washington Times Communities. David has appeared on numerous national radio programs spanning from Cleveland to New Orleans to Milwaukee to Honolulu. He also had the most accurate 2011 NBA Mock Draft and the most accurate 2012 NBA Mock Draft on the internet (Yup, repeat champ… #humblebrag), and finished with the second most accurate 2013 NBA Mock Draft (nearly a three-peat.) You can follow him on Twitter at David_Kmiecik.