Before I talk about Cole and Moody, I want to tell you a little story.
A few days ago, Tim Kawakami, the editor-in-chief of The Athletic's Bay Area, asked Clay a question in an interview: Steve Cole has said that he has patience with his core rotation, what do you think about that?
Kawakami is a 57-year-old veteran journalist who is quite popular in the industry. He was already covering the Warriors before Kerr came to Golden State, before Klay came to Golden State, before Lacob bought the Warriors, and even before Curry came to Golden State. Before the Warriors became one of the league's powerhouses, he won the California Sports Journalist of the Year award in 2013. During his years of covering the Warriors, he was widely respected by Warriors players.
Because of this, Clay didn't just say "next question" in a simple and crude way—which he said in the end, of course—but did some foreshadowing: "What, you want me to sit on the bench?"Or let Wiggins sit on the bench?I mean, you can make suggestions, which is great, but thanks to Steve (Cole), he still trusts us. It gave us enough patience and time to find ourselves again. We have earned all these things ourselves, and history is on our side. I don't care what people say. Hah!Next question!”
With the story over, the next question was thrown directly to Cole. And Cole apparently realized that he had answered very badly yesterday.
I didn't get a good night's sleep last night......I deserved all the blame I took today and I made a bad decision as a coach. I should have kept Moody on the field. I rewatched the footage and it was a bad decision. ”
No one would deny that the Golden State Warriors are a different team in today's NBA. Because of this, Kerr is considered a manager with a different kind of aura.
While everyone is chiseling inside, the Warriors are shooting threes;While everyone is playing pick-and-roll, the Warriors are playing passing;While everyone is piling up talent, the Warriors are emphasizing ball quotient;While everyone is talking about looting and grabbing, the Warriors are talking about sharing and sacrificing. They believe that God will reward those who are devout to the god of basketball, if at all. That's the core reason they've had so much success over the past decade, and from Kerr to Curry, they really believe in their slogans, including "play the right way," "be honest about the game," and "strength in numbers."
But the day before yesterday, Cole did make a mistake. To explain this, we can start by recalling what happened in the fourth quarter of the game.
With his first touch of the ball in the fourth quarter, Moses Moody broke through Monk along the baseline and dunked with both hands to score his first point of the game. On the next offense, he hit an open three-pointer in the bottom left corner. But the goal was erased by an early foul by the opponent.
After more than three minutes, the Warriors' lead was reduced to two points, and Moody had the same chance in the same corner, which he hit again. The three-pointer completely opened up his second line, and he immediately threw two more three-pointers, one against Vezinkov's defensive dribble, and the other on the cover of chasing dreams.
Seven minutes into the fourth quarter, Moody had already scored 11 points on 4-of-4 shooting, and in the next round, he hit again with Klay's screen, but the referee blew Klay's moving screen. Kerr replaced Moody with Wiggins, and he trotted, high-fived his assistant coaches and teammates before returning to the bench and never got back up again. The Warriors were eventually beaten by Monk's cricket play and missed out on a chance to play in the knockout rounds of the mid-season tournament.
There is no doubt that this substitution is a desecration of the Warriors' long-standing basketball philosophy and belief in the game.
According to the Warriors' own basketball philosophy, Moody should stay on the court. If it's true that everyone can sacrifice for the sake of victory, then Kerr should undoubtedly leave the hottest guy on the court. That's what he did when he coached the Warriors in 2015. If the team needs Barnes to play the starting line-up, Iguodala has to play on the bench. If Bogut doesn't work well in the Finals, bring Iguodala again. If Curry doesn't play well, then finish with Barbossa. If Green starts properly, David Lee will be marginalized.
Finally, what about Cole's explanation?
We needed Wiggins to defend Fox on the court, and we decided to finish with Klay and our veterans. We thought about keeping him [Moody] on the field. But we made that decision anyway, and we want to believe in the people who led us to win the championship a year and a half ago. That's Curry, Dream, Wiggins, Looney and Klay. ”
He chose to trust his past resume rather than the performance of this game. This is neither a warrior nor a cole. In the end, all of a sudden, everything turned against them — whistles became more sensitive, mistakes were repeated, easy shots were not made – and the most trusted championship team lived up to Kerr's trust, with players who lifted the O'Brien Cup 17 months ago making repeated mistakes and watching wins slip through their fingers.
Perhaps, this is the punishment that the god of basketball punishes them.
To put it bluntly, the Warriors didn't lose the game because of that substitution with 4:26 left in the fourth quarter. Leave Moody's and they may still lose. Replacing Moody's, they also have every chance to win. But this substitution exposed Cole's naked double standard from the side, which is the most fatal.
The Warriors do need Wiggins to defend Fox and twin towers to protect rebounds. If Moody, Curry, Wiggins, and the Twin Towers were to be left at the same time, it would be Klay who would be sacrificed. But the last thing Cole dared to sacrifice was Clay. To be precise, the only thing he didn't dare to sacrifice was Clay - think of the story I mentioned at the beginning of the article, you know what he's afraid of.
Of course, we're not saying that Clay is a team cancer. Clay has always been a stubborn person, but without stubbornness, he can't be great. If you succumb to a difficulty, you will not be able to overcome it. Cowardly people can't win championships, and gentle people may not have courage. If you don't have a strong will, you can't burst out with angry passion, and you can't get out of the trough. If Klay didn't have such a tough self-esteem and personality, he would not have become the second person to hit three-pointers in NBA playoff history, he would not have been a "G6 soup" in the playoffs, he would not have been able to score 60 points in a single game and 37 points in a single quarter, and he would not have returned from two injuries that could have ruined his career, and he would not have played well again in the playoffs to help the Warriors win the championship.
I'm just stating the fact that people always say that Klay is a great team player, but you may not notice how much Kerr really takes care of him. Durant joined in the summer of 2016, and the next season Durant and Curry both shot less, and only Klay's shooting count increased instead of decreasing. Under Kerr, Curry played off the bench and Dreamers also played off the bench, only Klay, who played 733 regular-season games and 158 playoff games with the Warriors, and after securing his position in the second half of his rookie season, he never played a game off the bench. After Curry's injury last March, Poole was on a hot starting lineup. Curry returned from injury at the start of the playoffs in April, and the team had three important guards, but only two starting positions, and guess who played off the bench
Curry, of course.
You could say that Curry's brother is a team man, willing to sacrifice, not interested in fame and fortune, and single-minded about winning. You can also interpret this as a kind of "pampering and pride". Curry knows that the Golden State Warriors are his team, and he knows that it doesn't hurt to let Poole play a few starts, and he is willing to play off the bench to find game form. But you can't move Klay's place because he was really shaky at the time, and playing him off the bench would be tantamount to telling him that the team is questioning his ability and no longer on his side, which could shake another piece of the Warriors' foundation. It's the same now, Klay has not made progress in contract extension talks with the Warriors, and he is not in good shape at the start of the new season, and if Kerr replaces him with Wiggins in the final stages of the game and keeps Moody, Klay's self-esteem could be hit by 10,000 points, triggering a new round of turmoil in the locker room.
Clearly, Cole had that in mind. "I was a player myself and I always wanted my coaches to show confidence in me when I was in a slump. So I know what it means to a player when the coach is on your side. ”
Sounds heartwarming, doesn't it?But has Kerr ever wondered what his words meant to Moody?
Here's how Cole called Moody: "A flanking version of Looney." ”
Moody, like Looney, is not a genius, believes in hard work, believes in sacrifice, believes in the Warriors' team philosophy, and follows everything the team's rules. When they were faced with a variety of choices in their careers, they showed the kind of professionalism that the Warriors team recognizes. The difference is that Looney is lucky, the Warriors have been lacking answers at the No. 5 position, and Moody is going to compete with Klay. It's a fight he probably won't win from the start. Not because he's not good enough, it's because the contest isn't fair.
At least, in the game the day before yesterday, Cole slapped himself in the face with his actions. He didn't give Moody and Klay a fair chance to play, which is at odds with the sacrifice that the Warriors have always preached. Maybe Moody will play another good game like this in the future, or maybe he won't have that chance again, but at least he's putting the problem on the table now. Now that Cole admitted yesterday that he made a mistake, he may have made a different choice in the future.
It's not easy to admit mistakes, and it's even harder to correct them. But at least one thing Kerr realizes now is that the players he once trusted are no longer as consistent as they once were. They can take over the game or they can mess it up, and he'll need to keep tweaking and contrasting in the rotation to keep this Warriors going further.
There are a lot of people who don't believe the Warriors can do this, and Charles Barkley sentenced the Warriors to death after this game with three reasons: "Klay is not the same Klay anymore." Dream chasing is not that dream chasing anymore. Wiggins never became that Wiggins. ”
December has just begun, and it's a bit early to say that. Klay and Wiggins have really played badly this season, but judging by recent games, they have shown signs of recovery. Wiggins scored 29 points against the Kings, including a key layup with 58 seconds left in the game. Klay has scored at least 20 points in three of his last four games. If you start giving up some key players when you've only played 18 games in the season, you're going to have a hard time sustaining your championship window. They have to be patient.
But now the Warriors' young players — Moody, Podzemski, and perhaps Kuminga — are showing some potential for contributing to the team, which is a far cry from what Wiseman and Poole had on the Warriors last season. At least in this game, we can say that Cole's dedication to past champions has cost him. He should and must recognize that the players he relies on are getting older, and if the Warriors are to have a chance to win another championship, this team must embrace the changes that young people bring.
It won't be the last time Kerr faces such a difficult decision this season. He should have known that he had to say hello to Clay in advance. Perhaps, it's time for the Warriors to have a player meeting.