After five glorious seasons in Golden State, it appears as though the tides are starting to change in favor of the rest of the league. The Warriors don't seem to be as strong as they once were and will have to compete against juggernauts like the Lakers, Clippers, Rockets, and Trail Blazers. It's not going to be easy and for the first half of the season, the Warriors will be without shooter Klay Thompson who went down with an ACL injury in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
During an interview with Joe Vardon of The Athletic, head coach Steve Kerr spoke about Thompson's absence and how it will affect the roster moving forward. As you can imagine, the Warriors know they're going to be in tough.
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“Klay being out is really the big change,” Kerr said. “Losing Kevin, Andre, Shaun, obviously, those are huge losses. Losing Klay on top of all that really changes the way we’re going to have to play at both ends. Klay was always an integral part of everything. Movement on offense, but also the guarding of the ballhandler on defense, switching onto bigs. So until he gets back, we’ve got to re-imagine everything and adapt accordingly.”
It's impossible to say how the Warriors will play without Thompson especially since they have D'Angelo Russell in his place. Russell has some pretty large shoes to fill and he will have a lot to prove this season.
[Via]
