1 advantage the Warriors have over each Pacific Division team

1 advantage the Warriors have over the Suns: Depth

Since last year's trade deadline, the Suns have gambled everything on star power, sacrificing most of their depth to acquire Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal and pair them with Devin Booker. They now boast one of the most potent array of perimeter scorers in the NBA but things quickly get shaky once you move beyond them.

Deandre Ayton has become a solid two-way option at center and will play plenty of minutes with that star trio. But after that, the Suns may be choosing between aging veterans (Eric Gordon), one-dimensional shooters (Yuta Watanabe, Damion Lee), one-dimensional defenders (Josh Okogie) or complete wildcards (Bol Bol) to fill out a five-man rotation.

Any injuries to their core and even a shortened eight- or nine-man rotation is going to have to include someone like Keita Bates-Diop or Drew Eubanks. The point is, that the Suns' rotation is elite at the top and gets thin in a hurry.

The Warriors, on the other hand, have an utterly reliable six-man core with Paul joining Curry, Thompson, Green, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney. Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody took steps back next season but are extremely talented and could still be ready to break out. They have Gary Payton II to throw at perimeter challenges. And they added to savvy and versatile veterans in Cory Joseph and Dario Saric. With another layer of intriguing young players below that — Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis — the Warriors have an absolutely enormous depth advantage.

At full strength, these teams may be fairly evenly matched and a playoff series could be epic. But at anything less than full strength, the needle starts moving towards the Warriors quickly and definitively.

Ed. Note — An earlier version of this article incorrectly included Patrick Baldwin as a member of the Warriors' current roster. He was sent to the Wizards as part of the Chris Paul — Jordan Poole trade.