The Great Warriors Reshuffling

***EDIT: James Michael Mcadoo has re-signed with the Warriors on a minimum contract, leaving 2 open roster spots left. Also, Marreese Speights has signed a free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. Everyone pour out a little liquor for Mo Buckets, please.***

The Warriors are overwhelming favorites to win the NBA title after the free agent coup of landing Kevin Durant, and with good reason. Durant joining the established core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green gives them 4 members of Team USA, and Andre Iguodala is a former team USA member himself. The amount of collective talent assembled is unprecedented.

However, in creating the cap space necessary to offer Kevin Durant a max salary, they handcuffed themselves with regards to options to finish the roster, and because of this the bench will look vastly different from last year’s crew.

Before we get to who might have the unenviable task of going against the starting 5 in practice everyday, let’s recap who’s gone and who’s still around

	2015-2016 Warriors
Under Contract (16-17)	Free Agent	Signed Elsewhere
Stephen Curry	Anderson Varajao	Harrison Barnes (DAL)
Klay Thompson	Marreese Speights	Andrew Bogut (DAL)
Draymond Green	James Michael Mcadoo	Leandro Barbosa (PHX)
Andre Iguodala		Brandon Rush (MIN)
Shaun Livingston		Festus Ezeli (POR)
Kevon Looney
Ian Clark

Barnes signed a four year-deal worth $94 million with the Dallas Mavericks (fun fact, Harrison Barnes will only make five million less than Kevin Durant next season) where he will continue to play with his good friend (seriously) Andrew Bogut, who was traded to Dallas with a 2nd round pick in 2019 to help free up the necessary cap space to sign Kevin Durant. Leandro Barbosa is heading back to Phoenix to relive his glory days, signing a two year deal worth eight million, while Brandon Rush is going to babysit all the young talent in Minnesota next year for 3.5 million dollars. Festus Ezeli's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad NBA Finals cratered his market, and he will now be moving to Portland on a 2-year deal for only $15 million total.

Which means the number of returning Warriors from last year’s squad is seven: Curry, Thompson, Green, Iguodala, backup Point Guards Shaun Livingston and Ian Clark, and 2015 1st round pick Kevon Looney, who sat out most of last season with hip surgery, and is currently rehabbing from surgery on the other hip. Clearly the squad is going to look different from last year’s team  and there are quite a few roster spots that need to be accounted for. However, some reinforcements have already arrived.

The New Guys

The Warriors were generally considered in the “winners” group of last month’s NBA Draft, getting what most experts believed to be excellent value with both of their selections.

Their first draft choice was Damion Jones, a Center from Vanderbilt University who slipped to the Warriors at the 30th and last pick in the first round due to a torn pectoral muscle he suffered during a pre-draft workout. He will be missing the upcoming Las Vegas Summer League while rehabbing and is not expected to be ready for the start of the season, but projects as a Festus Ezeli replacement with a more polished offensive game.

Patrick McCaw, a 6’7” Shooting Guard out of UNLV was the Warriors second choice, was taken after they bought the 38th pick overall from the Milwaukee Bucks for 2.4 million dollars. Unlike Jones, Mccaw is perfectly healthy and slipped for no readily apparent reason. Golden State ends up falling ass-backwards into a very long, athletic, defensive dynamo who is good in the open court and shot 36.7% from the college three-point line. Usually 2nd rounders aren’t guaranteed roster spots, but the Warriors signed McCaw to a 2-year, fully guaranteed deal, showing they believe that McCaw can make an impact fairly quickly.

After agreeing to terms with Kevin Durant, the Warriors had no remaining cap space, so the only avenues the Warriors could use to fill out the roster were signing players to minimum contracts, of which they are allowed as many as they want even without cap space, and something called the “Room Exception” which is like a three million dollar emergency fund a team can use when they run out of cap room.

With the “Room Exception” the Warriors snagged Zaza Pachulia, the starting center in Dallas last year. Considering the Los Angeles Lakers gave a clearly worse center in Timofey Mozgov a 4-year deal worth $65 million, Pachulia for the room exception is a robbery on the scale of something like this:

and apparently the rest of the league isn't too happy (Really, Pachulia is what you guys are mad about?)

Joining Zaza in giving the Warriors hilariously below market value deals is David West, a Power Forward/Center who played for the San Antonio Spurs last year. West gave up a 10 million dollar contract in Indiana last year to sign with the Spurs for the minimum in an attempt to win a championship, which clearly didn’t work. I can’t remember who exactly won the NBA Finals this year, but I know it wasn’t the Spurs. Anyway, instead of trying to make back some of that money he gave up for nothing, West is doubling down by chasing that ring again. Good for him.

Filling in the Gaps

So, here’s how the Warriors roster stands as of now.

	2016-2017 Warriors (As of 7/7/16)
Starters	Backup Guards	Backup Wings	Backup Bigs
Stephen Curry	Shaun Livingston	Patrick McCaw	Zaza Pachulia
Klay Thompson	Ian Clark		Damian Jones
Andre Iguodala			David West
Kevin Durant			Kevon Looney
Draymond Green
Open Spots: 3	Still Need: 0/1	Still Need: 1	Still Need: 1/2

The Warriors have three empty roster spots and only minimum contracts left to offer. Even though they have 4 backup “Bigs” signed already, with Looney and Jones’ availability in question due to injury, the Warriors will probably seek out an additional Center and Power Forward, although the right wing player could fill in at Forward, as Harrison Barnes did the last two seasons.

An interesting potential option for the last Center spot is Robert Carter, an undrafted free agent from the University of Maryland who is playing on the Warriors summer league team. Carter is a little short for Center at only 6’9”, but he has very long arms to compensate. He is a skilled offensive player in the post and around the basket, and started to try to extend his range to the 3-point line last season. He only shot 32% from the college line last season, so it’s still a work in progress but promising nonetheless. All-around skilled, Carter showed the ability to grab a rebound and lead the break himself in college in a very Draymond Green like way. Odds are the Warriors try to find a more defensive and/or more experienced player for the last center spot, but Robert Carter is a fun potential alternative.

Other than Iguodala, the only backup wing the Warriors employed last year was the since departed Brandon Rush, so it’s entirely possible the Warriors don’t sign another wing and just let McCaw slide into Rush’s role. In all likelihood though, Steve Kerr and the rest of the Warriors braintrust probably wont feel comfortable with a rookie 2nd round pick being the only backup to Iguodala, so another wing player being added seems a pretty safe bet.

None of the potential wing options are all that fun to ponder, although there are two summer league players who are at least mildly intriguing to me in Xavier Henry and Landry Fields. Henry is a former lottery pick who played sparingly with the Lakers before spending last year in the NBA Developmental League. He’s been disappointing as a pro, but he’s got good size at 6’6” 220 with that lottery pedigree and he is still only 25 years old. There are worse potential lottery tickets. Fields is former New York Knick and Toronto Raptor who was out of the league last season with a hip injury. Fields was a starter and solid performer with the Knicks, but ran into massive injury trouble in Toronto was a disappointment and afterthought in Toronto, only playing in 56 total games his final 2 years there. If Fields shows he’s healthy during the summer league and even slightly resembles the guy who was a positive contributor in New York, getting him on a minimum deal would be the prudent move.

With the Warriors bringing back Ian Clark to go with Shaun Livingston, there's a chance the Warriors don't add any more guards to the roster. However, the Warriors are always interested in more shooting and the rumblings about Ray Allen possibly coming back to play for the Warriors, while highly unlikely, show that the Warriors aren't opposed to adding another guard if he brings elite shooting with him.

Regardless of who exactly the Warriors get to complete this roster, this is going to be a fun, dynamic team that is going to look quite a bit different than last year’s group. Buckle up, everyone.

You can follow Andy on Twitter at @AMOhoop34