Just hours before the NBA draft the Golden State Warriors shocked the basketball world trading for the 38 year old long time rival Chris Paul in exchange for Jordan Poole and draft capital. The move comes as a shock to many due to it being such a non fit. The Warriors for so long have been a pace and space team, with their players playing fast, free, and often times random. Chris Paul especially at this stage of his career is none of that. Chris Paul is your traditional point guard who needs the ball in his hands to be effective and thrives off of pick and roll action, something the Warriors have been notorious for avoiding to do. However the idea of adding Chris Paul is not completely far fetched, this is a core that has began to show it’s age this playoffs; noticeably in the Kings series where they made a concerted effort to slow down the pace and not to get into a track meet. Chris Paul can provide that and bench stability in the non curry minutes, which was a fatal weakness of the team last year.
This leaves the question did the Warriors actually get better, and personally I can’t say so. The Warriors main problems last year stemmed from the defense in the aspects of rim protection, fouling, and point of attack defense. They were not a particularly “big” team either and struggled defending bigger players, most noticeably the Lakers series. You can bring up the point of getting rid of Jordan Poole who was turnover machine and obvious locker room distraction but your replacing him with a guy known for injury and who according to Marcus J Spears, will be in the starting lineup for the Warriors come Opening Night. Everything you thought you were getting in bench stability and low turnover numbers for your 2nd unit your no longer getting along with none of the problems from last year getting addressed.
The Warriors core of Curry, Thompson, and Green are not getting any younger and the one highlight young player we had from the championship run 2 years ago they ran out of town for reason we can speculate about another time. This move did not make the Warriors better and they arguably got worst. They need to round out the roster with size, athleticism, and defense to be in serious title contention discussions.