SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Kerr has a great problem.
Too many guys that deserve fair playing time — to open and close games, to play big minutes or extended stretches — and no clear-cut formula to maximize it all just yet.
The gray area between their nine wins and 10 losses has often come down to those in-game decisions: Toss faith at struggling veterans such as Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins or go by merit and play the hottest hand off the bench?
No period captured that quandary more than the last 72 hours. Thursday morning, Kerr repented for pulling a hot-handed Moses Moody late in the fourth quarter when none of his teammates could get a bucket in an eventual meltdown loss to the Sacramento Kings.
Thursday night, after a collective-effort 120-114 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, Kerr saw enough from rookie Brandin Podziemski to lock up his job as a closer in specific late-game situations. One play on Thursday stood out in particular.
Just 33 seconds remaining and the Warriors up eight, Podziemski sniffed out a Clippers after-timeout play called to get a 3-pointer off and called for a double-switch, blowing up the play and forcing a Paul George bad pass.
"He's going to be on the floor late in game for us the way he recognizes stuff," Kerr said. "If we need to keep a team from getting a three."
It's a bold statement to make given Kerr's fluctuating priorities over these first 19 games. The season began with an assertion that the closing unit will be determined by merit — through their 6-2 start, a struggling Wiggins was often benched in crunch time. Plucking Moody late against the Kings was one example of Kerr straying from the merit-based system to give his struggling veterans some space to settle, sometimes at a cost.
Adding pieces to this rotational puzzle is the improving play from Thompson and Wiggins. Thompson's 10 points in 90 fourth-quarter seconds were crucial to push off a Clippers comeback and he has four 20-plus point games in his last five games played. Wiggins slammed a car door on his index finger on his shooting-hand, but scored 29 points in one of his best games of the year in Sacramento.
The Warriors' depth at least provides consolation for this whole playing time dilemma. Chris Paul, Wiggins and Gary Payton II are all out with injuries, putting the Warriors without their two best defenders and best facilitator for at least a handful of games each. Tough as it is, Golden State isn't in bad shape without their top guys.
The Warriors needed all 23 minutes from Jonathan Kuminga, who took hold of the window by playing strong defense on James Harden and Kawhi Leonard and scored 17 points with six rebounds. Moody got the start in Wiggins' place, scoring 13 points with a block and three rebounds.
Steph Curry didn't even realize Podziemski had played 31 minutes, scoring 13 points with a team-high eight rebounds, he just melted into every scenario. Curry and Draymond Green said Podziemski made it clear during summer mini camps that he wouldn't be shuttling to Santa Cruz to play in the G League much this year, he'd be fighting for a rotation spot. In a way, Podziemski reminds Green of himself a decade ago: expertly making himself irreplaceable in the glimpses of court time he's earned.
"It's unfortunate we have guys out, but that's your opportunity to step up. And every time his number ha been called, he steps up," Green said. "He reads the game. He's solid. He doesn't make mistakes…That shows in him blowing up a play. Rookies don't blow up plays, rookies (expletive)-up plays. He doesn't."
Kuminga, Podziemski, Moody and the rest have shown they could take off if given the kind of space they had on Thursday. Until the group is healthy again, those bench guys will get even more chances to make Kerr's great big problem even more challenging.
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