How To Watch
Players To Watch
Warriors
Jonathan Kuminga. Electrifying unharnessed talent. His passing improved a lot between Game 2 and 3. But will his jumper continue to be a menace to bystanders?
Moses Moody. Subtle, smart and in the middle of winning plays. His shot creation and driving improved a lot between Game 2 and 3. He really put the clamps guarding Jalen Suggs last game.
Justinian Jessup. Can he adjust to the speed and strength of NBA players? Can he get open, hit shots and stay with drivers? He started to hit some shots last game. Can he get his confidence back? It seems he’ll definitely need at least another year in Australia, maybe more.
Gary Payton II. Can this defensive dynamo play himself onto the roster with some gutsy driving and kicking without a jumper? He threw down some enormous dunks last game and memorably got hung up on two more.
Ryan Taylor. Sharpshooter toiling in the G-League who may get a two-way this year. Didn’t pop out in Sacramento and didn’t play in Game 3.
Jaquori McLaughlin, a huge favorite of Perks, who wrote an in-depth piece about him. Some good flashes.
Kyle Guy. He hit 7 threes and a game-winner last preseason against GSW. He hit some threes and made some great passes in Game 3, but also couldn’t create anything off the dribble against the ORL A-team in crunch time and overtime.
Toronto
Scottie Barnes. The man TOR grabbed instead of Jonathan Kuminga. The man Dub Nation prayed would drop to them. Whose jumper will look worse, Barnes’s Kuminga’s or Payton’s? Barnes Tourney scouting report.
David Johnson. TOR 2nd round pick this year whom I know nothing about.
Yuta Watanabe, Malachi Flynn, Precious Achiuwa. Experienced Raptors, they should be dominating.
Warriors Las Vegas Roster
This is slightly different from the Sacramento California Classic roster. Schakel went to the Kings team, and Dowtin went to the Magic team.
Toronto Roster
With Green coming out of Tokyo, Klay and Wiseman still mending, I expect to see heavy minutes from Lee, JTA, Loon, Andre, OPJ & Belly at the outset. This should get the 2 new vets acclimated pretty fast. Because of this, I think Kerr will limit rookie minutes at the outset, "chase wins" early in order to avoid a repeat of last year's mistakes. And once team is cohesive, start letting the leash out on the rooks. I think they think you can win and develop at the same time, but I think internally, they believe they can do a much better job of it.
It appears Atkinson is going to be a real player on the staff. What GSW has done with staff reminds me of current Giants. A lot of really smart and involved guys around to coach up players. We have had a few wall-flowers on the staff and I think this is a great sign of things to come.