The Most Average Season in NBA History?

Over the past year or so, the term 'Mid' has gained popularity and notoriety on the internet, and though it literally means 'middle' or 'average', this term has now been accepted as an insult or one with negative connotations associated with it. On the surface level, the 2022-23 Golden State Warriors, the defending NBA champions, might actually be what they call 'mid' this season.

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We might be witnessing the most bizarre season by a defending NBA Champion in NBA history, especially one with most of its core retained. Before last night's win against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Warriors sat perfectly at a .500 record 60 games into the season, good for the lower half of a play-in tournament berth. What's even stranger is the disparity between home and away games for the Dubs, as they sat at a 23-7 record at home, which is among the top 10 home records in the league this season, but their away record was perfectly flipped at 7-23, which is shockingly one of the top 5 worst away records this season, even starting the season with an 8-game away losing streak. This season, it felt like the Warriors have not had a real winning streak to leap on, trading wins and losses game after game, and even if there were to be a winning streak of any extent, they were all relatively short, and they would see themselves lose the same amount of games they won on the streak. We've heard a lot of mentions of 'wake-up calls' and 'not being worried' but the Warriors do indeed look different from their championship season, and though the West standings are currently skintight, should the Warriors be worried? And what exactly went wrong?

One factor would be the roster this season. While the starting five of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Kevon Looney, remain one of the best in the league, especially in terms of net rating, the bench has been changed drastically and the roster itself has been hampered with more and more injuries, contributing to less than perfect conditions for many of the players. Key bench players in their championship run: Otto Porter Jr, Nemanja Bjelica, and Gary Payton II (Though he has returned, he was first traded away to the Portland Trailblazers and has since suffered from several injuries preventing him to return to his stellar form), were all integral in the minutes that the starters were on the bench, and they have since left the team, replaced by players like Donte Divincenzo, JaMychal Green, Ty Jerome, Anthony Lamb, who have had fantastic moments but are clearly not the best bench unit. Injuries have also hit the starters tremendously, specifically Stephen Curry who has already missed 23 games as of the time of writing, and Andrew Wiggins who has missed 24 games and has seen a slight decline while he was on the court. The consistent absence of Curry has been a key contributor to this tumultuous season but even with Curry on the court performing at an even higher level at age 34 than his unanimous MVP season back in 2015-16, it has sometimes proven not enough, with the players around him not able to contribute to closing games properly, or not even performing well enough to lead to close games in the first place.

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This brings me to my next point - Fumbling games. Whether it is defensive errors or just straight-up turning ice cold at the end of games, there have probably been more instances where the Warriors failed to close games properly in the dying minutes of crunch time than I can count with my fingers. While this team no doubt has its clutch moments, there has also been an equal number, if not more moments that make you shake your head in disbelief from this season. Players like Klay Thompson has seen their resurgence in 2023 and Jordan Poole has steadily improved as he experiments more time with the starting lineup but both have had ill-advised moments, shooting the Warriors out of the game or turning the ball over in crucial situations. The defense has looked especially shaky too, which might be in part with the loss of Assistant Head Coach Mike Brown to the Sacramento Kings (who are having an impressive season, sitting at the 3rd seed at the time of writing).

We all know what this team is capable of accomplishing, but it has certainly been rough all year. Do the Golden State Warriors still have what it takes to string together a number of better performances in the final 20 games of the season to secure a playoff spot?