What to watch for in the preseason opener

Here’s what to keep your eye on.

Another season of Golden State Warriors basketball is about to get underway. But before we get to the regular season, we first have to overreact to some preseason games. The Dubs have six preseason games this year, and the first takes place on Saturday in Honolulu, when the Warriors face off against the LA Clippers at 4:00 p.m. PT in a game televised locally on NBC Sports Bay Area and nationally on NBA TV.

There’s only so much that we can learn from one lone preseason contest. But there’s still a lot to keep an eye one. Here’s what to watch for on Saturday.

The starting lineup

For the second year in a row, Golden State’s starting five is a big topic heading into training camp. But while last year it centered on whether or not Hall of Fame-bound point guard Chris Paul would knock someone out of a proven-elite starting five, this year it’s a much more vague question. We know that Steph Curry and Draymond Green will start, but after that it’s a gigantic mystery. Who starts at shooting guard? Who starts at small forward? Is Green the starting power forward or the starting center, and who starts alongside him?

We won’t get the answers on Saturday. Not only is it too early for a lineup to be set in stone, but Andrew Wiggins won’t play due to an illness. Still, we can get an early look at what Steve Kerr is thinking based on who starts.

Threes

The Warriors have made it clear that they want to fire away from deep this year. They wasted no time bringing in Buddy Hield after losing Klay Thompson, and in the early days of camp we’ve already heard Wiggins and Brandin Podziemski talk about how they want to dramatically increase their volume of shots from deep. Kevon Looney is hard at work adding a three to his repertoire, and Kyle Anderson has remade his jump shot.

From the outside looking in, the hope is that the Warriors will be shooting a bunch of threes this year. But will they actually do that?

Offensive tweaks

Similarly, you can expect the Warriors offense to look quite a bit different this year. We knew there would be changes to the offense after it underperformed last year. That was made even more clear when Paul and Thompson left, shaking up the personnel. And it was made crystal clear when offensive juggernaut Terry Stotts was hired to join Kerr’s coaching staff — and proceeded to talk about how he could help tweak the motion-based offensive scheme.

It will probably be a while before we see the offense functioning effortlessly and efficiently, but we should be able to see what sort of tweaks Kerr and Stotts have made.

Steph and Dray’s condition

Curry and Green are two of the best athletes in the NBA, in their own unique ways. But Curry is 36, entering his 16th NBA season, and had a long summer caring for a newborn and torching opponents in the Olympics. Green is 34, entering his 12th NBA season, and had a long summer hearing critiques about his behavior.

On the one hand, these two are the least of the Warriors’ concerns. On the other hand, it’s hard to envision this roster contending if those two aren’t at the very top of their games. They’re at a point in their career where the decline isn’t tremendously far off. It’s always worth watching to see if there are signs of it arriving.

Defensive cohesion

If the Warriors want to return to the NBA’s elite, they’re going to need to re-establish themselves as a great defensive team. They have the personnel to do that, after adding Anderson and De’Anthony Melton, keeping Kevon Looney, and anticipating growth out of Podziemski, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, and Trayce Jackson-Davis.

But much of it will come from chemistry and cohesion. A poor defensive game shouldn’t be alarming or concerning — half of the point of preseason is it gives the team time to develop that chemistry and cohesion. But we don’t know if they ever will ... so it’s time to start looking for it.

Center rotation

It’s clear that the Warriors have some exciting options at center. Green, Looney, and Jackson-Davis can all play center in thriving lineups, and they would all do it in dramatically different ways. It’s entirely unclear which direction the Warriors will lean into ... not just for the starting lineup, but for their rotations over the course of 48 minutes. Seeing how the center rotation plays out in the preseason will be fascinating.

What are you looking for in the preseason opener?