In order to land Durant, the Warriors had to pay a price: they dismantled their center rotation by trading away Bogut and renouncing both Speights and Ezeli. Trying to make up for that, they signed Zaza Pachulia with their remaining 2.9 million. Today we´ll be taking a look at those moves and how they could affect their ring chase. 

Bogut, Speights and Ezeli

Bogut will be missed. He logged 20 minutes per night, all of them at center. He was better than average in most metrics, and very good in some, such as defensive rebounding and... rim protection.
Losing Speights will be a net gain for the Warriors. They will be losing 12 minutes a night of scoring... of scoring on their own basket, that is. Speights defensive ratings were really bad, and his offense didn´t really make up for it. Another coach´s problem, now.
Ezeli was a bit player in regular season because of injuries, and while he had good potential, GSW already knew how to play without him, so they will miss him in the long run, because you never can have too many nice, young bigs... unless you´re the Kings, of course. 

Zaur Pachulia goes lucky and finds himself a ring 

Pachulia has been around since 2003, 13 seasons of bruising, rebounding and screening for others to take the bright spot. He reportedly was on the verge of a 20 million, 2 years deal with the Wizards when he received Warriors´ call. He had a decent year with Dallas, starting hot (for his own standards) and cooling off as the season advanced. In a similar fashion to David West, it´s uncertain wether this means his age has caught up with him. Anyway, we know what GSW is getting here: and that´s abyssal rim protection. We´re talking Andrea Bargnani level here. Not Bargnani effort level, not Bargnani talent level. But certainly Bargnani level rim protection. 

Has anybody said ring chaser? 

The Dubs signed David West as well, and he played both inside spots for the Spurs in his previous ring chasing tenure. Despite what you might have heard, West was pretty good for the Spurs: he was above average, specially on the defensive side, in practically every metric you want to take into consideration... except rim protection (hint: very important metric at center). Of course, father time can catch up with him any minute, but for the minimum, you can make much worst than that.
 

Risk and reward: The Hassan Whiteside Theory 

For a front office claiming to be light years ahead of the game, GSW approach on this issue was pretty subpar. There were rumors they might be looking for the next diamond in the rough for the center position, the next Hassan Whiteside, so to speak. Of course, Hassan Whiteside´s story is hard to duplicate, but there were some candidates: Dewayne Dedmon and Willie Reed, mainly. None of them had the kind of defensive stats Whiteside does, but neither Hassan himself had them before he was put in a position to succeed. 

Everybody loves Draymond

All of the above reasons make Draymond Green the de facto center of the Warriors. He was already logging 15 to 20 minutes a night there, depending on matchups, fouls, opponent and other factors. For the next season, expect those minutes to steadily increase through the season. In deed, expect them to grow as much as big of a problem the Dubs have with the center position, just like fever is a symptom of how big an infection is. 

And so the question remains: can you win it all in the association nowadays without rim protection?
 

Feel free to give your insights below... 

#nba #basketball #warriors #gsw #draymond #pachulia #bogut #bargnani