The Golden State Warriors already tried shoehorning a traditional center and shooting-challenged forward next to Draymond Green in the starting lineup. It didn't work.
“I don't want to start next season with Draymond as our starting 5,” Steve Kerr said at his end-of-season media availability less than 48 hours after the Stephen Curry-less Dubs fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Semifinals. “I think it's doable for the last 30 games like we did this year, but you see the toll it takes on him. He's talked about it too.
“That's why we started out this past season starting Trayce [Jackson-Davis] and Draymond, and we started out the first three or four games with JK at the 3 with those guys,” he continued. “To me, that was instantly not doable given everything I just talked about with shot creation and spacing, trying to survive in the modern NBA.”
Warriors' stars present team-building challenges
Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) celebrates with forward Jimmy Butler III (10) after a play against the Houston Rockets during the fourth quarter of game four of the 2025 NBA Playoffs first round at Chase Center.
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Golden State's “peak” starting five of Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga, Green, and Trayce Jackson-Davis never reached those hypothetical heights, shelved for good in late October upon Curry suffering a minor foot injury that cost him three games.
Green took the floor with Jackson-Davis and Kuminga for just nine more minutes over the regular season's remainder, according to lineup data compiled by ClutchPoints.
Unsurprisingly, early takeaways from slotting Green next to a pair of non-spacers up front loomed large to the Warriors' lineup configurations once Jimmy Butler arrived at the trade deadline.
Green and Butler played 338 minutes together over the last 30 games of the regular season. All but six of those minutes came without Jackson-Davis or Kevon Looney alongside them at center, per pbpstats.com.
Conveniently absent from that sample size? Quinten Post, whose severe limitations as a defender, rebounder, and finisher were summarily exposed under the postseason microscope.
That trio posted a stellar +13.8 net rating in the regular season but was outscored by eight in just 36 minutes across the first two rounds of the playoffs, its viability versus quality competition beset by much more than Post's inability to do what he does best.
The sweet-shooting 7-footer is a stellar draft find for the Warriors in the late second round and figures to begin his sophomore season as a nightly member of Kerr's rotation. Rightfully so, too. Post is already one of the most prolific long-range shooters at center in the league, his rough 31.3% accuracy from deep in the playoffs on exclusively open looks notwithstanding.
Physical deficiencies may prevent him from ever becoming the “16-game player” Golden State has long been searching for up front next to Green, though.
It'd be wildly naive to assume Post will be ready for a significant role in the playoffs a year from now considering the extent of his struggles against the Timberwolves and Houston Rockets, two teams primed to compete toward the top of the West for years to come.
Post so utterly failing his first playoff test should be instructive for Mike Dunleavy Jr. and the front office as summer approaches.
Size for size's sake alone is meaningless in the postseason. A full-time five who does next to nothing but stretch the court isn't enough for the Warriors. They need a big who can protect the paint, make a difference on the glass, and finish around the rim via ball-screen dives and dump-offs from the dunker spot.
“I think the biggest things are you've got to look at both sides of the ball,” Dunleavy said of the attributes the Dubs are looking for in a center. “How does a player of that position complement the guys we have? That's specifically in the frontcourt [with] Jimmy and Draymond…
“We need, with the way Draymond and Jimmy can create and generally play near the rim, having somebody that they can finish near the rim or make a shot, it's going to be important in that situation,” he continued. “Defensively, what do they bring to the table, whether it's rim protection, whether it's switchability, those types of things?”
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A perfect fit isn't realistic for the Warriors
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr and guard Stephen Curry (30) look on against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second half at Target Center.
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A floor-spacing center is obviously still the dream for Golden State. They couldn't just sorely use the additional space that archetype provides in the halfcourt but also simply more quality three-point volume in a starting and closing five bound to feature at least two questionable shooters—and maybe three depending on Kuminga’s future.
The problem? A ‘perfect' fit is hard enough to come by for the Dubs in a vacuum amid the mitigating effects of Green and Butler's skill and physical limitations as their late-30s near.
Golden State's cap constraints and lack of sensible matching salaries in a trade make finding that floor-spacing traditional five very difficult. The steadily increasing league-wide value of those unicorns, still extremely rare, make it virtually impossible.
Go ahead and forget about Myles Turner as the Indiana Pacers eye the NBA Finals. Kristaps Porzingis could be a cap casualty of the Boston Celtics’ suddenly uncertain circumstances, but the Warriors don't have the salary ballast to even enter a bidding war they'd have no chance at winning.
A lower-level option like teammate Luke Kornet, coming off the best season of his career, would be a fascinating addition, though the fan favorite seems set to return to Boston barring Golden State breaking the bank to sign him.
Why would the ascending Detroit Pistons be interested in parting with Isiah Stewart—who, following Kornet's lead, has pretty much stopped taking threes altogether?
Bottom line: Golden State's search for a center won't be ending with a hand-in-glove fit. No star big man will be playing in the Bay next season as long as Green and Butler are wearing blue and gold.
But it's not just Dub Nation that believes this team was merely one victory without Curry away from potentially hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy come mid-June. The Warriors' future Hall of Famers hold that confidence in more measured terms, too, ample reason for anyone to think the right role-playing five could help them vault toward top-tier contention in 2025-26.
“What we do at the position, I'm not sure. That's not really my role,” Green said. “But what I will say is I think you always have to be looking to get better. If you're not looking to get better in this league, you're either getting better or you're getting worse because everyone else is doing the same.”
The challenge for now is identifying that impact player soon and bringing him in via free agency or trade without leaving Golden State completely bereft of its spare spending and team-building assets.