When
LeBron James
Kevin Durant returned to
Cleveland
Golden State in the summer of 2016, hopes were high.
Cleveland
Golden State has historically been a city starved for championships (don’t count the ones they just won), and the surprise signing of arguably the best player in the league seemed like a godsend.
But big players have big personalities. Sometimes the personalities are so big they take up an entire room much like a kiddy pool being inflated in a dollhouse. The
Cavs
Warriors probably knew what they were getting into, but
LeBron
Durant definitely knew what he was bringing.
A few torrid but successful seasons have passed, and once again
LeBron
Durant’s free agency looms. He’s been signing the short deals with player options, and he’ll decide this summer whether he wants to return to the team he brought a championship. If not, he’ll take his talents elsewhere once more.
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One could say the situation has never been more dire. Before this year, there was an all-world point guard to depend on, one who looked like he would be taking over the franchise in years to come. The biggest shot in franchise history belonged to this player by which I mean he’s very good at shooting. Well, not anymore. That point guard decided being around Durant was too much and left for injury.
What is management to do in this case? With youth no longer in house, the
Cavs
Warriors were forced into win-now moves in an attempt to retain their star forward. The signings of
Jeff Green
Nick Young and
Jose Calderon
Omri Casspi were flyers. In these cases you hope for the best. There’s only so much money available.
Now the playoffs are coming and
Calderon
Casspi is nowhere to be seen.
Jeff Green
Nick Young is best as a third option off the bench, but he’s played significant minutes all year. If I had told you a couple years ago that in 2018
Jeff Green
Nick Young would be playing a significant role for a team with championship aspirations, you wouldn’t have believed me. You’d think he’d have moved on to his ham company by now.
“But Matt,” I hear you saying. “What about the switch? The real good teams know how to turn it on for the playoffs.” This may or may not be true, and we should know better than to doubt the Warriors by now. The Warriors fell short of regular season expectations last year, but still managed to fly through their conference (again) with one or fewer losses. Maybe taking a game off or two isn’t a bad thing.
But when is doubt reasonable? There have been rough patches, but it’s never looked like this before. Last night at halftime, the Golden State Warriors were down 62-33. Ricky Rubio tied his scoring production while hitting more 3s and out-rebounding him. Everything doesn’t fall on LBeron’s shoulders, but he sets the tone for the team. We’re not even going to touch the matter of plus-minus.
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Which is another issue the Warriors need to be aware of.
LeBron
Durant isn’t the same player he was when the
Cavs
Warriors first got him. To be playing this well in his 15th season should be applauded, but it should be looked at with caution. The decline is going to come eventually. Durant has his lowest BPM since 2011-12. Do the
Cavs
Warriors take the lead, or wait for GM
LeBron
Durant to tell them what to do once more?
I was as happy as anyone to see
LeBron
Durant bring a championship to the city of
Cleveland
Golden State, but this is a business.
LeBron
Durant has left them (by whom I mean
Cleveland
Oklahoma City) holding the bag before. Are the
Cavs
Warriors prepared to go through that again?