Klay is already the top scorer

Regardless of what happens to Draymond Green, Klay Thompson is still doing his part. The escort improves night after night and he plays better and better despite the fact that, in the last two years, he has had the two worst injuries in the sport: the cruciate and the Achilles tendon. Thanks to medical advances, the guard is back, and the management of minutes by Steve Kerr and the Golden State health team is doing him wonders. Against the Pistons and at the Chase Center there were 21 points in 22 minutes, a spectacular use of his time on the court for a great production that has allowed him, for the first time since his return, to be the top scorer in the game. A minor prize, but that does not stop demonstrating the progress of a historically good player, who is seen to be increasingly comfortable in defensive lateral movements and who has returned to the basketball courts as if he had never left them.

On the other side of the Warriors coin is Green. The power forward, an absolutely generational player, has not played since January 5 against the Mavericks. This if we ignore, of course, the few seconds that he was on the track in the return of Klay Thompson as a tribute. The Warriors are with a 3-5 record since Green was injured (counting the game in which he began to have discomfort, against the Mavs) and they have been able to with the Pistons, one of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference and in the NBA. They have done it with Stephen Curry, who took a break against the Timberwolves, but Green still does not return. And what at first was calf pain is now, as revealed by the San Francisco entity, a problem with a disc in the lower back.

The alarms have gone off: the secrecy with which the Warriors have dealt with the issue and the uncertainty surrounding the power forward is a symptom that something is not going well, and it gives the feeling that not even the player knows very well what is happening to him. Consultation with different specialists seems to be the star’s daily bread, totally essential in Steve Kerr’s scheme and without which they become an almost adrift defense. Beyond his averages (7.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 7.4 assists and more than 1 steal and 1 block per game), Green is the soul, the support of the Warriors, the total and absolute leader of the defense and one of the keys that has allowed the franchise to win three rings and play five Finals from 2015 to 2019. A true dynasty that wants to re-emerge, but will not be able to do so without the power forward.

Other than that, the game against the Pistons didn’t have much of a story. The little opposition from the visiting team, immersed in a reconstruction that has not just arrived and with many rumors surrounding its top figure, Jerami Grant (low since December 10), was the tone of the match. They barely shot with 35% in field goals and 36% in triples, his best player was Hamidou Diallo (16+13) and Cade Cunningham did not have his night (8 goals, but 3 of 10 shots and 5 turnovers). The Warriors, who had already sentenced to rest (66-38), had the aforementioned Klay (6 of 13 in shooting and the first game of 20 or more points since his return) and with good minutes from Curry (18 points and 8 assists), in addition to good work from Jonathan Kuminga (12 + 10), Andrew Wiggins (19) and Kevon Looney under the hoops (10 rebounds). But all this is useless if they do not have Draymond Green. A key player to win a new ring. The foundation of the dynasty. The mainstay of the project.