SAN FRANCISCO – Warriors coach Steve Kerr always has stressed the importance of on-court communication between his players. That has been an extra point of emphasis for Golden State as it prepares to begin the 2024-25 NBA season Wednesday in Portland.
Why so much talking? Because this version of the Warriors will look a lot different from what we’ve seen in the past. Klay Thompson is in Dallas, while newcomers including Kyle Anderson, Buddy Hield, and De’Anthony Melton now call Chase Center home.
Kerr also has woven in some of assistant coach Terry Stott’s ideas on offense and defense, adding more changes to the mix.
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With that amount of turnover, there’s sure to be some growing pains along the way, which is why Kerr and his assistants have been stressing the value of being more talkative.
So far, so good.
The Warriors made it through the preseason a perfect 6-0, the only NBA team to go undefeated during that time.
Backup center Kevon Looney said it’s because Golden State’s players are much more talkative. Looney also noted how Kerr kept mixing up different groups and lineups in training camp and the preseason so that the players would get more comfortable with one another.
Golden State Warriors
“The biggest thing is communicating,” Looney said Sunday. “Communicating what is new, what we’re used to. You got some new guys, and we kind of do some new schemes on defense and offense. Having communication that we’re all on the same page is important.
“We used to thrive on chaos in the past where it was more kind of random and we could do whatever. We just knew how to read off each other. It was kind of an unspoken thing that we had. But to start the season off with the new group, new faces, different lineups, we need to be on the same page. You got to talk it out.”
Thompson had been a big part of the Warriors’ core group that won four NBA championships over an eight-year span. During that time, he, Steph Curry and Draymond Green developed a brilliant and trusted chemistry on the court that enabled them, in a lot of ways, to know what each other would do on any specific play.
That kind of camaraderie and intuition is somewhat unique to basketball, but it’s something that the Warriors no longer can afford to count on.
“We can’t count on chaos anymore given the way the rest of the league is playing, the lineups that we see, the switching defenses, our roster now compared to where we were five, six years ago,” Kerr said. “We have had to make some changes, and we’re in the midst of that.
"I’m really proud of the guys, especially our vets, for embracing that. We’ve got to get more organized, and that requires a lot of work every day. I’m hoping it translates. I think it will, because I’m seeing a lot of good stuff in practice.”