Warriors facing difficult decisions as a result of shortened season

The Golden State Warriors will be facing numerous difficult decisions in the coming months as a result of the shortened NBA season.

The Golden State Warriors were already preparing for a difficult offseason full of numerous tough choices. But now with the NBA season prematurely coming to a close, that offseason just got a bit more difficult.

Despite their league-worst 15-50 record, the final 17 games were expected to be crucial for the Warriors. Not because they would be fighting for their postseason chances — those went out the window a while ago.

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But because the plan was to use the final month or so of the season to properly evaluate many of the players on the roster.

With a number of young players seeing extended playing time, these final few weeks were significant in that those players would be given the opportunity to sink or swim. They’d be able to prove that they were good enough to fight for a roster spot next season.

Players like Ky Bowman, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and Mychal Mulder — three rookies on non-guaranteed contracts next season — could have used these final games to make a stronger case.

Now, that’s been stripped away.

But that isn’t the only thing that’s been affected. Essentially every part of the roster will feel the impact of this shortened season.

Marquese Chriss was supposed to use the final 17 games to build a case that he should be the team’s starting center next season. Eric Paschall, Jordan Poole, Damion Lee, and Alen Smailagic were expected to use those games to solidify themselves as trustworthy role players.

Now, they won’t be given that opportunity.

But perhaps most importantly, the Warriors virtually didn’t see Andrew Wiggins play together with Stephen Curry. The biggest argument for bringing Curry back this season was to see how he would fare alongside the newly-acquired Wiggins.

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The duo played just 27 minutes together and didn’t play a single minute alongside Draymond Green. That’s not exactly what the Warriors envisioned when they traded for Wiggins at the deadline.

The plan was to see how the trio played together before making a decision on Wiggins’ future in the offseason. After all, there has been plenty of discussion about the team pairing Wiggins with their first-round pick to land a superstar in the offseason.

There had even been rumors that the Warriors could look to move Green in the summer.

Now, the Warriors will have to make these decisions with limited knowledge about how their stars will play together. Any chance to develop chemistry has been taken away without warning.

The Warriors aren’t alone in this mess, but the suspension undoubtedly drastically alters their offseason plans.

It remains to be seen how the team will strategize this offseason. But the league stoppage has without a doubt made their decision much more difficult.