The Warriors Without Steph Curry Are Bad, But The Pelicans Are Still Worse

Steph Curry's mere presence can mask so much mediocrity. As long as he's on court, the Golden State Warriors' offense crackles with possibility. The threat of Curry getting the ball with a few inches of space keeps any defense in permanent panic, and he is masterful at using his teammates as screeners and passers to pry open what little space he needs. The threes splash, and the offense looks like a dream.

As soon as the greatest shooter ever walks to the bench, that illusion dissipates. It quickly becomes clear that the other Warriors on the floor have a collective vertical leap of 80 inches and 1.5 functional jump shots, and cannot actually pool together their skills to make the ball go into the hoop. Curry made magic with them, but without him, they are totally inert. They might as well be Easter Island statues plunked on the court for him to use as screens. It's a testament to Curry's singularity, and how far from contention the rest of Golden State's roster is. Perhaps there is no greater stylistic divergence in the NBA, depending on whether a given player is on or off the floor.

When Curry hurt his right quad during Wednesday's loss to the Houston Rockets, it guaranteed that we were going to see a lot more of that second, uglier Warriors team. The severity of the Curry on-off is borne out not just stylistically, but statistically. Before Saturday night's game against the New Orleans Pelicans, ESPN's Anthony Slater observed that the Warriors had an offensive rating of 118.2 with Curry on the floor, and 105.2 with him off the floor. That would be the difference between an offense ranked sixth or 30th in the NBA. Though Curry's injury was reportedly less severe than it initially seemed, he'll be sitting out at least a week. When asked in press how they'd cope in his absence, head coach Steve Kerr said that they'd have to play fast, get stops, and hunt easy buckets in transition.