One has to wonder what is currently going through the minds of management and players at the Golden State Warriors that have been the Gold standard for the past four seasons. The players must be thinking who our leader on this team is and how important is Kevin Durant really?
Fact: Steph Curry is the most important player on this team, Kevin Durant is the most talented player on this team and Draymond Green is supposed to be the glue.
So with Curry out injured with a groin problem and there was 5.6 seconds left on the clock in regulation time in a tie game against Clippers, Draymond’s Job was to get the ball to KD…that didn’t happen and Green turned the ball over… in the hurdle KD being himself called Draymond out and the rest of the night turned out to be a disaster game wise and team relationship wise. The biggest quote to come out of this whole shouting contest from a personal point of view is that Draymond allegedly said “we won without you” referring to the 2015 finals win and the fact that they were already a winning team before his (KD’s) arrival. There was already a case for Kevin Durant to go and get a massive contract where he deserves after this season. However, the Golden State Warriors have made their intentions clear that they will love to keep him, and a big piece is that Klay Thompson is going to be on the free agency block next summer.
This is the first real adversity Steve Kerr’s team will be facing in its four year dominance and it will be interesting how everything will shape out. His critics have remained unimpressed despite winning three NBA titles in four years. “Anyone can win championships when he has several of the world’s best players in their prime, right?”
Kerr knows that great leaders are judged not by how they handled prosperity, but rather how they navigated times of crisis. The coming weeks will provide us with more insight about the scholar coach who is facing some of the most daunting circumstances of his coaching career.
The circumstances surrounding the Warriors just show how much has to go right for a team to win a championship and how quickly things change in the NBA. This doesn’t mean this team won’t figure their way out of this conundrum and go on to challenge for the title, however, that cannot be done without returning to a Golden State of mind.
Steph Curry added his voice on the ongoing issue and he believes the rift will not doom their season. He said, “That’s not going to happen, I think the way we’ve handled it as a team, the way Draymond’s handled it, the way KD’s handled it, it’s been nothing but professionalism.” In all of this, Kerr has kept the focus on the game. During his three decades around NBA in various capacities, he has come to understand that the best cure for any internal turmoil is winning. Kerr is preaching positivity and patience as he tries to refocus his team to winning on the court.
With the coach’s golden state of mind in this chaos, the Warriors need to turn the corner when they host Oklahoma City Thunder at the Oracle Arena on Wednesday night.
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