I don’t usually pay much attention to the futures market. But as a degenerate, I have to find something to pass the time until football comes back. Just 67 more days… However, the NBA just released their win totals for next season and I have a play I absolutely love. The Golden State Warriors under 47.5.
Why do I love this Under? Three reasons.
1. Injuries
As we all saw, the Warriors run to 5 consecutive NBA finals took quite the physical tole on a few of their players. Kevon Looney, Demarcus Cousins, and Andre Iguodala were all less than 100 percent for the NBA finals. And oh yeah, Kevin Durant ruptured his achilles and Klay Thompson blew out his knee too. With the team healthy for majority of the season, the Warriors won 57 games. To me, looking at the long-term effects of their injuries, the loss of Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson is much greater than 10 games. Durant and Thompson accounted for 47.5 points per game. That’s just over 40% of the Warriors point total for the season. Luckily for them they have arguably the best shooter of all time in Steph Curry who averaged 38 ppg on 49% shooting when they were both out. But it’s not gonna be that easy for him. Putting my coach hat on, I think it’s fair to say it’ll be tougher for Curry to explode like were used to seeing without the spacing Durant and Thompson create. I believe he’ll feel a lot or pressure to start the season and we saw this postseason he doesn’t like pressure all too much. It doesn’t hurt my case that the Warriors are 3-6 without both Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant in recent years. Although a small sample size, not a good one for over backers.
2. Roster Uncertainty
Not only are the Warriors without Kevin Durant for the year (maybe forever) and Klay Thompson for at least 9 months, but they have a ton of free agents they could lose. Jordan Bell, Jonas Jerebko, Quinn Cook and Kevon Looney are all free agents. I know these guys aren’t world beaters or anything, but with 40% of the offense missing like I talked about earlier, somebody is gonna have to step up. It also goes without saying that Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston are no longer bucket getters like they used to be. They might retire leaving even more holes in the lineup. So with free agent and retirement questions looming, where do the Warriors go from here? Well for starters, the word is the Warriors plan to offer both Durant (also can opt in) and Thompson max deals. If they both sign, that’s huge… for the 2020-21 season. But a disaster for the 2019-2020 season. All that money sitting on the bench would put the Warriors in limbo during free agency this upcoming season. With minimal cash to spend, they would have to bank on primarily small/veteran type deals. I don’t think the budget flexibility is enough to maneuver around and build an ultra-competitive lineup for the upcoming season. You hate to have money sitting on your bench, but in this case you can’t complain if it’s Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson.
3. Conference Strength
An Eastern Conference team won the NBA Finals. But I don’t think anybody would say that the West isn’t the dominate conference. With a lot of free agent questions, a ton of teams could have a different identity this year. However, looking at the way the Western Conference stacks up, the Warriors might have some trouble. The win total is 47.5. Obviously going under that means they need win no more than 47 games. If they were to fall on that number, it would’ve been good enough for the 8th spot in the Western Conference. So I guess I’m banking on the dynasty to crumble and barely make the playoffs. Seems idiotic when you put it that way. But hear me out. Just behind the Warriors this year were the Nuggets, Blazers Rockets, and Thunder. I expect them to remain consistent and challenge for the 1 seed this season. The Nuggets are young and will finally insert Michael Porter Jr. into the lineup. The Trail Blazers have a very underrated 3-headed monster in Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Jursuf Nurkic. The Rockets have been a game or two away from knocking off the Warriors in previous seasons and If they figure of the issues with Harden and Paul, they’ll be back. And the Thunder should return to from with a healthy Paul George who looked like an MVP threat for the better half of the season. So that’s the top 4. The last 4 spots would then be between the Jazz, Spurs, Clippers, Warriors, Lakers and Kings. Th big news this week was the Lakers trading for Anthony Davis. I don’t care if they sign Me and Ben to fill out the roster, this is absolutely a playoff team that will steal more wins away from the Warriors. The Clippers are the sneaky team. They bought into what Doc was selling this year and fought all season. It seems as if they’re in the driver seat to get Kawhi Leonard. With 48 wins already, that’d be another bump up. Then we got the Spurs. Nobody did more with less last year than Pop. He just gets coaching and seems to be competitive every year. I could see a drop-off for them, but I wouldn’t bet against this man. Then I guess you have the Warriors 8th. But before I make this into a rant, let me just get to the point. What I’m getting at is the West is going to be SUPER competitive this year. The Kings won nearly 40 games last year and will be tough with another year of development. The Mavericks will have Porzingis and Doncic. The Pelicans will have Zion, another top 4 draft pick and bunch of other guys that play hard. Every game the Warriors play against a Western opponent is going to be tough this year and I think it’s going to show in their record.
Those are three very simple reason why I envision the Warriors struggle to win over 47 games this year. The last time I bet a future? Ya that was under 7 wins for the UCF Golden Knights two years ago. They just went on to win 20 straight games the next two seasons. So yikes. But with that said, I don’t see this Warriors team scrounging up enough wins with all the question marks they have this offseason. Could see a lot of load management for superstar Steph Curry this year punting for the 2020 season. WARRIORS UNDER 47.5!!!
Comments