SAN FRANCISCO – Puzzle making should have a spot on Steve Kerr’s long list of interests, maybe even near the top.
The Warriors coach has to be a manager of egos and personalities. He has to get the very best out of his talent. But the pieces have to fit. All of them.
"We have a lot of decisions to make. I love our depth. We've got a lot of guys who can play, but the combinations are everything," Kerr said Monday after the Warriors' final practice before Tuesday's regular-season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Kerr used 38 starting lineups last season, a number he'd like to lower this season. It's also a number that might have to increase because of the ages of the Warriors' core and preserving them for the most important parts of the season. The starting five is just one aspect to Kerr's math problem.
Al Horford is a center the Warriors always wanted for his smarts, defense and especially the way he shoots the ball from deep at his size. But Horford now is 39 years old and won't play both sides of a back-to-back. Kerr would love to pair Horford and Jonathan Kuminga together because of the spacing it would provide offensively, but the Warriors automatically will be without Horford on certain nights and have to manage his minutes when he does play. That's only one example.
Another is the uniqueness of Gary Payton II. The 6-foot-2 Transformer of a basketball player who doesn't have a traditional position plays best next to Steph Curry, setting screens and diving. His skill set is needed most against certain teams and specific players compared to others, and Payton has an injury history the Warriors also have to consider.
The task Kerr and his coaching staff have to tackle isn't staring at a roster on paper and plucking out the best talent. They also already have been dealt their first obstacle with Moses Moody missing the regular season opener because of a calf injury.
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"Some teams, some years, you spend five minutes on the rotation," Kerr said. "You see it, it's clear as day and you move on to the next subject. We just talked for an hour and a half today on all the different five-man combinations. So, this is not a clean look right now, especially without Moses. That adds another part of the equation."
Most teams use nine or 10 players on any given night. Kerr at the start of last season pushed the boundaries to 12, 13 and sometimes even 14 players in his rotation. The Warriors started off scorching hot with a 12-3 record through their first 15 games, but the model wasn't sustainable, as Kerr knew, and the team soon after was searching for their identity falling down the standings.
"The one thing I know is I feel very comfortable playing 12, 13 guys. I don't think you'll see 12 guys. I do think you can see 11," Kerr said. "There may be a handful of guys, maybe because of these combinations that I'm talking about, you may get three guys who play eight minutes apiece. That's in play. … Early on in the season, we have to figure out those combinations. The possibilities are endless, but it's not perfectly clean either."
Whether it’s the beginning of the season or a bit later, one player Kerr loves to highlight is Gui Santos. Stats aren’t going to catch a lot of attention for Santos. Impact is.
Santos has the ability that always will get you on the court for Kerr: Knowing how to play with Curry. He and Curry had a 12.8 net rating last season, the best for any one player next to the Warriors’ superstar. On a per-game basis, Santos had the best plus/minus out of any Warriors.
“The guys who can really feel how to get Steph open, how to utilize the leverage that Steph provides by slipping to the rim or setting a screen, whatever it is, we've always thrived with high IQ guys and the switchability,” Kerr said. “The length, defensive two-way stuff. Those rosters we had from 2015 to 2019 had all of that. And that's why those teams hung up those banners."
Playing outside of himself isn’t an option for Santos. He knows who he is, and he knows what he’s going to get out of Curry, making the two so successful next to each other.
"I feel good when I play with somebody and you already know what they're going to do,” Santos explained.
“That's the best feeling. For example, I know when Steph passes the ball, I know that he's going to run somewhere else. If I see him running to my direction, usually if it's a normal player you just go through and give him space. But when I see Steph running in my direction, I know that I'm going to pin for him – set a screen – and everybody's going to be worried about him. That's when we get slips. That's just one example.”
Curry and Jimmy Butler are stars in such different ways. But how Santos treats them on the floor is similar.
"With Jimmy, it's the same stuff. Last year he told me, 'Stay in the corner!' in the game, so I learned that,” Santos remembers. “Now I know with Jimmy, I'm a guy that likes to cut, but when I'm playing with Jimmy it's different. I gotta be more spaced and give him the space to work in the paint.”
Before the Warriors acquired Butler last season, the puzzle was a mess. Some pieces were in the wrong spots, others fell all the way off the board. And then Butler arrived.
As four pieces went out the door and one walked through, the rest of the picture morphed into how it always was supposed to look, which is why the Warriors have such high expectations in bucking historical norms this season.
"Look, I was blessed my first five years coaching here with two-way combinations and coming off the bench. It didn't take very long to figure that out,” Kerr said. “The best teams generally have a clear-cut top seven or eight and the coach doesn't have a ton of decisions to make. You saw that last year with us. We were 25-26 when we got Jimmy, had a million different starting lineups, nothing was clear. We had a lot of one-way lineups at either end.
“Once we got Jimmy, we settled in. We go 23-7. We had the same starting lineup when we were healthy over and over again. And it worked. There's still factors, though, right?”
Starting with the season opener in LA, those factors will begin coming to light. Kerr won’t be able to use the same starting lineup that was so successful at the end of last season because of Moody’s injury. With three games in four nights to open the season, including their first back-to-back, the Warriors might even use three different starting lineups right away.
Who Kerr chooses as his starting five is one piece. The right combinations throughout a game and the duration of a season, as Kerr says, is everything.