[Observation] Is Kumingga a better player than Butler?

When Curry confirmed that he could not play in the series G5, the Warriors' journey this season was already over. There was no surprise in the final result. The Warriors lost to the Timberwolves 110-121 and stopped in the second round. Standing at the finish line and looking back at the Warriors' journey this season, the road is ups and downs. From the starting point to the halfway, no one could have predicted the ups and downs of the Warriors' fate.

At the beginning of the season, the Hilder effect was hit, and the Warriors won 12 wins and 3 losses in the first 15 regular season games. The honeymoon period passed in a flash, and the Warriors scored 13 wins and 23 losses in the next game, and their record fell to 11th in the Western Conference. In despair, Butler's arrival reversed the plot again. In the last 30 games, the Warriors scored 23 wins and 7 losses and broke through the siege. They eliminated the Rockets in the tiebreak and entered the second round. Curry's injury shattered his dream of the Western Conference Finals again. In the four games where Curry was injured and missed, the Warriors did not win a single game. The last time the team suffered a four-game losing streak in a single-round series dates back to the distant 1972. The Warriors, who were still in Philadelphia at that time, won the first game of the Eastern Conference semi-finals and then suffered a four-game losing streak. After the Warriors lost at home in G3, this result has begun to appear.

Space Issues

Every historical superstar should have the ability to gilt the role players around him. Curry is particularly evident. Porter and Payton in 2022 are both distinct examples. Once they leave the Warriors, these NBA fringe players who were once on the Warriors Taobao will reveal their original appearance. Simply put, this is that the library has gravity.

in the seven-game series with the Rockets, Curry attended the event. The following data are the main outside opportunity points of the Warriors, with large open shots (the recent defensive distance is 1.8 meters away) accounting for the total shots: Podjemsky - 38.4%; Hilde - 41.0%; Post - 42.5%; Payton - 50.0%; Moody - 25.8%.

Looking at the second round of the playoffs that Curry missed for most of the time, the proportion of three-pointers in these players' open space has changed significantly: Podjemsky - 25%; Hilde - 32.7%; Post - 25.0%; Payton Jr. - 46.7%; Moody - 16.7%.

The proportion of three-pointers with large open space dropped by more than 10 percentage points on average, and Curry's influence was clear at a glance. And when these players cannot get enough quality mobile phones, everything appears. In the 22 games after the All-Star Game, Podjemski averaged 6.2 three-pointers per game, with a three-point shooting percentage of up to 43.8%. In the first four games of the Timberwolves series, Podjemsky made 9 of 40 shots and shot only 22.5%, the worst NBA single-round series in the past 10 years (at least 35 shots).

Podjemsky is just one of them. Except for Hilde, who is a master of three-pointers, among the players who have made 10 three-point shots in this round of the series, only Kumingga has a shooting percentage of more than 31%. It is said that Kuming's three-pointers are bad, but with Curry's absence, he is the most stable one, with a 42.1% three-point shooting percentage approaching Hilde. In the last seven quarters of the

series, the Warriors made 15 of 55 shots from outside the three-point line, with a shooting percentage of 27.3%; the Timberwolves made 28 of 58 shots from outside, with a shooting percentage of 48.3%. When the three-point shooting gap between the two teams reached 21%, no effort obviously could fill such a huge gap.

In pre-season training camp in October last year, Cole set two clear season goals for the Warriors, one was to improve the retreat defense and the other was to increase three-point shooting. In the regular season, the Warriors averaged three-point shots per game to 42.4 from 38.9 last season, ranking second in the league after the Celtics. In the first round of the series, the Warriors still firmly implemented this offensive idea, and this data further rose to 43.1 times. After Curry was injured, his three-point shooting rights averaged about 12 times per game were vacant, but other Warriors players did not have the ability to take the ball without Curry creating opportunities for them. The Warriors averaged three-point shootings in the second round plummeted to 32.6 times. Poor efficiency and few moves, the Warriors' offense is unsustainable. The foundation of the Warriors' upper limit is the pass-cut system around the first ball-holder in history. When Curry is hit, Butler, Payton and Green can quickly walk to the center of the stage and make decisions in the two options of rushing the basket and finding an outside pitcher. To a certain extent, the role of Payton and Green on the offensive end is more like a parasitic relationship with Curry. Curry, who is being taken care of, needs the two of them to transform and realize part of their influence, and the two of them need to rely on Curry for their lives. Once Curry is on the verge, Payton and Green's role on the offensive end will be almost zero, and the Warriors' system will collapse.

The transmission is in name only, and Kumingga, who does not rely on the system, is undoubtedly the most comfortable one. With one-on-one challenge, misplacement, hard-to-pull, Kumingga's presence is already stronger than the 36-year-old Butler, and he is also the only player in the Warriors who can create opportunities in the Timberwolves' defense. But he was helpless, passing was still Kumingga's biggest weakness. Kumingga can attack but cannot pass, while Butler can pass but cannot attack. The Warriors' puzzle players cannot combine with the core players, just like stragglers swimming.

holds the maximum salary, as the Warriors' last hope, Butler's aggressiveness is disappointing. G3 scored 33 points 26 shots, but was invisible in the last two games. In the battle of life and death, Butler only completed 20 shots in total, which does not match the identity of the leading player.

In fact, instead of questioning Butler's aggressiveness, he thought about it, perhaps Butler himself knew in his heart that he no longer had the ability to break through the Timberwolves' defense. When joining the team in the mid-regional season, the biggest change Butler brought to the team was the damage to the opponent's inside. The Warriors' free throw average has also risen from the bottom of the league to the top level of the league.

Looking back at the regular season, Butler averaged 12.8 ball breakthroughs per game, creating 3.3 free throws through ball breakthroughs, and creating an average of 1 free throw opportunity for every 3.8 breakthroughs. In the series against the Timberwolves, Butler's average breakthrough number has increased to 19.5 times, and the number of free throws created by breaking the ball has dropped to 3.0 times. It can only create one free throw per 6.5 breakthroughs on average, which is almost doubled compared to the regular season. It is also far away by Kumingga and even Pojemsky. The two of them can get one free throw every 2.5 times. In the two rounds of playoff games, the Warriors ranked last in the playoff teams per game in the paint area. The problems exposed in the 2023 series with the Lakers seem to have not been properly resolved. Perhaps it was the Warriors' space problem that made Butler need to bear more defensive pressure, or perhaps it was Butler's lack of personal influence, which led to the Warriors' shooters not being able to get enough opportunities. The answer to the question needs to be found by the Warriors coaching staff themselves, but these two factors have dragged the Warriors' offense and entered a negative cycle.

Is the role player's ability is too poor to create enough space for Butler? Or is Butler no longer able to lead this lineup? There may be no clear answer, but which question is better solved is clearly visible.