Mailbag Q&A: open practice, new resting policy, buyouts and the new third two-way contract
Mailbag Q&A: open practice, new resting policy, buyouts and the new third two-way contract
Perks and Apricot answer your questions
Some of these answers appeared in old comment sections, and I’m collecting them here where they’re more visible. - Apricot
Perks is known as GSWCBA on Threads and Twitter, and also is a moderator on the Warriors subreddit, in addition to being a contributor at DNHQ.
Is there an Open Practice this year?
Apricot: People were asking about Open Practice. Here's the info:
Tickets for this year’s Open Practice on October 19 6:00pm at Chase are now on sale! All tickets are just $5, with proceeds benefiting the Warriors Community Foundation, so secure your seats now. Open Practice begins at 5:30PM with a special Q&A with Bob Fitzgerald and General Manager Mike Dunleavy, followed by a short workout, new player introductions and more! https://www.ticketmaster.com/golden-state-warriors-open-practice-san-francisco-california-10-19-2023/event/1C005F3DDCAC5172
I also note that they don't really reveal anything tactically, but usually they make the rookies sing or rap, sometimes while wearing something ridiculous.
How will the new NBA resting policy affect the Warriors?
Apricot says:The NBA recently approved new rules about resting players.
The fundamental issue, of course, is that there are an unhealthy number of games played in a too short a period of time. Neither players nor owners want to reduce the number of games, since that would reduce shared profit, and players don’t want to extend the season dates, since that would reduce their off-season.
So while we have this standoff, the NBA is addressing player resting, which is disliked by fans and the players themselves.
ESPN reported the new rules include:
No more than one star player is unavailable for the same game. A star player is someone who has made the All-Star or All-NBA teams in any of the three previous seasons.
GSW “stars”: Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins, Chris Paul
Star players are available for nationally televised and in-season tournament games.
Teams must refrain from any long-term shutdown -- or near shutdown -- when a star player stops participating in games or plays in a materially reduced role in circumstances affecting the integrity of the game.
Balance between the number of one-game absences for a star player in home games and road games
Teams must ensure that healthy players resting for a game are present and visible to fans.
Allowed are preapproved designated back-to-back allowances for star players who are 35 years old on opening night or have career workloads of 34,000 regular-season minutes or 1,000 regular-season and playoff games combined.
The GSW star players who fall under this category include Chris Paul and Stephen Curry.
This looks likely to not affect reasonable rest patterns for the players, especially since Steph and CP3 can have pre-approved rests.
It *will* stop Steve Kerr from his occasional full game schedule protests where he rested every single starter for a tough road back to backs. Those were bad for road fans who paid a lot of money to see Steph and for competitiveness (though GSW actually won a couple of those) and for the team’s win-loss record. But they were pretty fun to watch as hardcore GSW fans, as we got to see Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody really strut their stuff.
Buyouts for Second Apron Teams
DubsNerd: Had a question I hope someone can answer regarding the buy out limitation for second apron teams. Is it correct that anyone that gets bought out, regardless of their contact value above a minimum, could be signed by the Dubs up to the first day of the season, but after that, they are all off limits, even if they were bought out in September? Or, anyone that is bought out before the first day of the season can be signed by the Dubs any time during the year, and they are only blocked from signing someone that gets bought out during the season? Not sure it really matters, but I was curious for that 15th spot in March, and how much of a handcuff the new CBA is.
Perks: Any player who is bought out during the offseason (any time before the first day of the regular season which this year is Oct. 24) can be signed at any point during the season regardless of their pre-buyout contract amount.
Any player who is bought out after the regular season begins who's salary is greater than $12.4M cannot be signed by a team above the first apron like the Warriors during that season.
Hope that helps explain it. Also I originally had it written as pertaining to only second apron teams, but I just checked it in the CBA and it actually applies to first apron teams as well.
Is that 3rd two-way only for full rosters?
Dilly: I read somewhere when the 3rd two-way player option was first announced for the upcoming season, that the only way a team could sign a player to that spot was if the team had all 15 roster positions signed to contracts. Is this true or not?
Perks: No, a team is allowed to have 3 two-way players rostered and only 14 standard contracts on their 15-man roster.
However, the caveat is during the time the team is under 15 standard contracts, their three two-ways can only be active for a combined 90 games the whole season. Warriors ran into this issue last year leaving the 15th open and playing Jerome/Lamb so much.
Fantom: I was under the impression they could only carry two two ways after a two year period where they averaged less than 14.5. Not sure if the average starts from the new Cba or goes back a year. And also is this 90 an additional wrinkle ?
Perks: Yeah so basically with adding a third two-way, the NBA wanted to make sure that teams weren't taking advantage of that to save money by not adding a 15th standard contract. So they created a stipulaton in the CBA where if the league average roster size falls below 14.5 players for 2 consecutive seasons starting this year it eliminates the third two-way for the rest of the agreement.
No, the 90 'Under-Fifteen Game" limit has been around since the COVID years in the temporarily amended CBA starting in 20/21, but it's officially in there now.
Where is the 90 game limit documented?
DubsNerd: I thought I had heard that there is a 90 game limit total if you leave open the fifteenth roster slot, so there was some incentive to fill that, but I can't find that documented, and haven't read the whole CBA. If so, then you don't really have enough games to play a lot of three 2-way players.
Apricot: The new Collective Bargaining Agreement can be found here.
The 90 game limit is documented at CBA 2023 II.11.b.iii. Any Regular Season game for which a Team has fewer than fifteen (15) players signed to Standard NBA Contracts shall be an “Under-Fifteen Game.” No Team shall be permitted to have a Two-Way Player on its Active List for more than ninety (90) Under-Fifteen Games during a Regular Season.
Hollinger Western Conference predictions: https://theathletic.com/4965360/2023/10/18/nba-win-totals-predictions-lakers-warriors-grizzlies-western-conference/?amp=1
As much as The Kuminga Show has been fun to watch so far, I'm hoping our remaining preseason games show the non-starters putting some of that high-IQ passing game into practice.
Too often, the motion offense on the second team goes, dribble hand-off, another DHO, hesitate, no advantage, repeat, clock's running out, go iso or dribble into trouble. I'm not entirely sure why it works that way; my best guess is that without a pull-up threat teams can just switch stuff safely or even go under the screens.
So, to unlock the motion offense, we need someone who's a pull up threat going around a screen or getting the ball off quick off a screen; Moody has promise, but isn't there yet. Poole was good at it; Paul, maybe can make it work in the midrange, but that might be hard. Better screens also help with this since the advantage they create lasts just a little longer, which might be the difference between guys getting a shot up or not; I'm looking to TJD to help in that regard.
Alternatively, we can run more Saric pick and pops, Kuminga isolation, stuff that's not the typical motion offense. That may be the quickest path to an effective offense, but it's not as beautiful.