The Golden State Warriors have been in hot form lately, with an excellent record of 8-2 in their last 10 games, and apart from the Warriors, only the third-ranked Utah Jazz in the West in the league has achieved the same excellent record during this time, and it is clear that the depth of the team's lineup has helped them achieve such success.
In the past week, although the team's core Stephen Curry and Draymond Green have been involved in the whole process, and players like Otto Porter Jr. and Gary Payton II have also performed well, the Warriors have missed several key rotation players in addition to them, but Lakers superstar LeBron James is not aware of this.
Asked in an interview after losing to the Nets in the Christmas game, James said that the Lakers' current predicament is caused by the team's personnel disharmony, and the Warriors and Suns are successful mainly because they are all healthy: "No one will feel sorry for you, no one will feel sorry for your record, no one will feel sorry for the players who are missing, because every team, except for the Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns, has players who are missing." ”
Of course, although Green will miss at least the next few games yesterday because of the rules that triggered the league's safety agreement, he and Curry are not absent for this time, but James has forgotten that the Warriors' other three key players have been absent in the past few games.
The Warriors' third-est scorer, Jordan Poole, has missed the last five games, and the team's number two scorer, Andrew Wiggins, has missed the Warriors' last four games, but the Warriors have used Porter Jr. and Payton II well to fill the gap left by the absence of these two players. In addition to this, veteran Andre Iguodala has also missed the past few weeks of games with a knee injury, so it doesn't have to be an easy journey for the Warriors. And even the Suns have key players sidelined, with their All-Star guard Devin Booker missing out on recent games.
The difference is that the Warriors' philosophy is different from other teams, and their criteria for signing free agents is to see if these players fit the team's basketball philosophy and culture. In the case of Porter Jr., since he joined the Warriors, his three-point shooting rate has exceeded 40%, and he has a fourth or even fifth position in the Warriors' small lineup, and it is easy to see why he can integrate into the team through his performance on the court. The same is true of Damian Lee and Payton II, two fringe players who have been in the development league for a long time, and the trajectory of their careers has been reversed because of the addition of the Warriors.
However, what James said is not entirely wrong, most of the team's injury situation is indeed not as serious as the Lakers, but the Lakers can not simply blame all the problems on the team's personnel disharmony, because even in the case of Anthony Davis and James at the same time, the Lakers' performance is not much better, and all this began with their use of key role players to trade Russell Westbrook, if someone has to carry the pot, it can only be the Lakers' management cocooning themselves.