The Warriors in the shadow of LaMelo Ball

Golden State is 4-0. Some people are still talking about LaMelo Ball. Is it fair?

Oct 27

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Portrait de Mme Morisot et de sa fille Mme Pontillon ou La lecture, Berthe Morisot, 1869-70

The Golden State Warriors are 4-0: two teams over the Los Angeles teams and victories over the slightly less imposing Kings and Thunder. Those latter two teams did good work taking Stephen Curry out of action late, but the Warriors did a better job finding ways to win through it before Klay Thompson returns to action sometime in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, James Wiseman is still dealing with an injury and hasn’t played. Meanwhile meanwhile, LaMelo Ball is over in Charlotte doing stuff like this.

LaMelo fed his buddy Miles Bridges enough for Bridges to eat the Eastern Conference Player of the Week award in the NBA season’s debut offering. It’s real early, but LaMelo is averaging 23/7/5 on great shooting, and the Hornets are 3-1 with the sole loss coming in overtime. LaMelo looks even better than he did last season … when he won Rookie of the Year by acclamation.

The Warriors are good. The question is how much better they could be had the team just taken LaMelo in 2020 at No. 2 instead of Wiseman.

This strikes me as a question that is both relevant in assessing the performance of the Warriors front office — their logic, their scouting, their theory of modern NBA basketball — and wholly irrelevant in the near-term assessment of the actual Warriors team.

LaMelo’s gone. Players like him aren’t flitting about. For better or worse, the Warriors guards going forward will be Steph Curry (a top-20 all-time player still performing at an MVP level), Klay Thompson (the second greatest shooter ever, coming off two devastating leg injuries) and whoever else the team can capture via smart drafting or fortuitous player movement. Right now that’s Jordan Poole, Damion Lee and Andrew Wiggins, though Wiggins is playing forward almost exclusively while Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga get healthy. Poole’s scoring well but his shooting is off early on. Lee is a known quantity in Golden State and, in Steve Kerr’s paradise, unlikely to be tabbed for duty as heavy as he is currently allotted. Talking about LaMelo in the context of assessing the Warriors’ near-term is wholly useless. “Would the Warriors be a bigger title threat with another plus guard?” Well, yes. Of course. But it doesn’t matter because LaMelo’s gone.

This does matter in assessing the decision-making of the Warriors front office in 2020 and going forward. But it’s also entirely premature to really make that assessment about their assessment right now! It’s fair to question the logic that went into picking a totally unproven, mostly unknowable big man over a totally unproven but rather definable guard. The logic seems to be that the Warriors were skeptical Ball could play with Steph and Klay in maximal harmony. That assessment appears to be wrong under the theory that All-Star caliber players can almost always figure out how to play together. And even in the rare case they can’t, players like LaMelo draw nice premiums on the trade market. Something tells me the Warriors would have Ben Simmons if they wanted him and had picked LaMelo over Wiseman. (This is also not useful in assessing the current state of the Warriors. It is easy to be distracted down the path of theoreticals.)

Wiseman over LaMelo and the Warriors braintrust’s continued attempts to justify it stick in the craws of many smart Golden State fans, and for good reason. The Warriors braintrust has earned mountains of deference and reverence for building the dynasty. But deference and reverence is but a grace period in modern sports, and the Warriors haven’t won anything since 2018.

So long as the Warriors are winning now, it’s going to be tough to find room to critique Bob Myers and company like you can critique the deposed Kings braintrust that went for Marvin Bagley over Luka Doncic. But even if you find room to do it, you have to be careful. After all, we haven’t seen what Wiseman can do yet. Just remember the bloodbath we thought the Luka-Trae Young trade was before last postseason. I mean, it’s still a bloodbath. The Hawks got hosed … despite picking up a major NBA star and an intriguing young player in the swap, because they gave up Luka freaking Doncic, a generational superstar. Trae isn’t at that level, not yet. And neither is LaMelo.

Even if you don’t think the Warriors front office’s prior success is worth patience now — and that’s a fair position to take — Wiseman deserves some patience. And while I’m not in the business of policing fan sentiment, watching the Bagley experience unfold so shabbily has made me believe that any fans who are upset about what they perceive as a bad decision by the front office need to be explicit in their critiques and not simply make the name “Wiseman” or anything he does shorthand for their disappointment. Curse Myers, Kerr or the Lacobs, not Wiseman. He didn’t make the pick.

Beyond that, Warriors fans should know better than anyone to enjoy real, tangible success where it lives. The dynasty followed a long, brutal victory desert (minus the We Believe! oasis). The 2019-20 season was absolutely brutal, and last year frustratingly erratic. Jealously watching Charlotte out of one eye is perhaps natural, but fruitless. Enjoy the winner in front of you.

(Did I say I’m not in the business of policing fan behavior? Oh well.)

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Scores

Sixers 99, Knicks 112 — Hey hey Knickerbockers! What a win. Julius Randle and Kemba Walker and TEAM DEFENSE leading the way. Good recipe.

Warriors 106, Thunder 98 — Quick update on the Thunder, a legitimate threat to have the worst record of all-time this season, if they want it: Derrick Favors, age 30, missed this game for “rest” a week into the season. Rookie second rounder Jeremiah Robinson-Earl got the start.

Rockets 106, Mavericks 116 — Good win Dallas, but uh …

Tim MacMahon @espn_macmahon

Jason Kidd says Mavs played all 15 players vs. Rockets per request of Dallas’ three-man leadership council.

What now? The leadership council, for the record, is reported to be Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr. Frankly, I would have elected Boban Marjanovic and Dorian Finney-Smith.

Lakers 125, Spurs 121 (OT) — LeBron sat out with knee soreness. Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook combined for 68-27-12 and just five turnovers. Dejounte Murray has got it. I believe.

Sam Vecenie @Sam_Vecenie

Dejounte Murray's passing was great vs. LAL. Made a ton of smart plays in first 3 quarters out in early/transition offense to get easy 3s. Then took over w/ two-man game w/ Jakob Poeltl late. Had 15 assists vs. 2 TOs, and fed Poeltl w/ enough passes to get him career-high 27 pts

Nuggets 110, Jazz 122 — Nikola Jokic didn’t play in the second half due to a knee issue, but thankfully it seems precautionary. Rudy Gobert is averaging 19 points and 19 rebounds per game right now.

Schedule

Another busy night with some compelling matchups. Heat-Nets! Grizz-Blazers! Honestly, Cavs-Clips! All times Eastern. Games are on League Pass unless otherwise noted.

Hornets at Magic, 7
Wizards at Celtics, 7:30
Heat at Nets, 7:30
Pacers at Raptors, 7:30
Hawks at Pelicans, 7:30, ESPN
Wolves at Bucks, 8
Lakers at Thunder, 8
Kings at Suns, 10
Grizzlies at Blazers, 10, ESPN
Cavaliers at Clippers, 10:30

Links

Dan Devine on Ja Morant’s arrival.

Marc Stein’s first Power Rankings effort of the regular season. Marc’s power rankings were always an ESPN.com highlight back in the day. Glad to have them now.

Mirin Fader on the buzz about Immanuel Quickley in the Garden.

Todd Whitehead with a really interesting investigation into the players most likely to be impacted by new rules for non-basketball foul-drawing exploits, including a surprise candidate.

Seerat Sohi on the Lakers learning how to let Russ be Russ.

Enes Kanter is strongly calling out Chinese human rights violations in Xinjiang province and challenging Nike to acknowledge them.

Jamal Collier on why the Bucks believe they can be the next great NBA dynasty. Pretty cool stuff about how Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday grew closer at the Olympics.

And finally: Iman Shumpert pulled a perfect score on Dancing With the Stars, performing to a song sampling the greatest song in Bay Area rap history. A+.