By: Niki Lonberg

Follow Niki on Twitter: @nlonberg13

The Golden State Warriors have been nearly perfect through 16 games. The current nine-game winning streak, the perfect 5-0 road trip, and the 14-2 record that has them second in the NBA to the 15-2 Memphis Grizzlies all speak for themselves.

This time last year the Warriors were 9-7.

So what’s changed? New coach, new offense, new starting lineup, elevated play from Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and even Stephen Curry, and a sixth man of the year campaign from Marreese Speights. When you look what changes Golden State made to their roster over the offseason, not much stands out. They exchanged Steve Blake and Jordan Crawford for Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa. Depth was an issue for the Warriors last season and provided some cringeworthy moments, as Harrison Barnes tried and failed to carry the second unit’s offense and Mo Speights bricked top-of-the-key jumpers. With Iguodala now coming off the bench to bolster their defense; Mo going absolutely off; and the prospect of David Lee returning to the bench, instead of the starting lineup, the Warriors community is throwing around the word deep.

Are the Warriors finally deep?

A handful of games this year have final scores that do not reflect the blowout that really occurred. Garbage time has been plentiful and resulted in skewed 4th quarters. Ognjen Kuzmic, Justin Holiday, and Brandon Rush have been atrocious. Shaun Livingston and Festus Ezeli have been rough as well and are clearly rusty since returning from injuries. So when I sit and watch the Utah Jazz bench outscore the Warriors 31-16 in the fourth quarter, I wonder if we really are deep.

However, the counter-argument is Speights. He boasts a staggering +27 Player Efficiency Rating (6th in the NBA) and has saved the Warriors from embarrassing losses, most recently in Charlotte. Andre Iguodala has been a stout defender, as always, but has not been involved offensively, averaging a career low 5.8 field goal attempts per game. Golden State may be better than last year, on account of some lineup changes, smarter substitutions, and Mo Speights, but the bench really is not all that great.

Currently the bench ranks 22nd in the NBA in efficiency differential. Unsurprisingly, our starters rank first. Golden State is no stranger to a wide gap between the first and second unit, and it would be misleading to attribute the Warriors’ success this year to depth. While the bench has a poor “efficiency differential”, the Warriors are still winning. A strong bench often reflects the durability of a team as the season progresses and people go down with injuries. Right now, the starters are buying themselves rest with their outstanding play. A championship team has to have a bench that buys its starters rest. Numbers may not lie, but they don’t mean much without context.

So here are some numbers, in context: nine out of the last eleven NBA champions had a bench with top ten efficiency differential. The Warriors are 22nd.

How does acknowledging the Warriors’ overhyped bench help us moving forward?

First, it is important to recognize that the bench’s largest issue is defense. They rank 25th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, while the starters rank first. David Lee’s imminent return to the lineup has us asking questions about where he will fit in. Many argue that the Warriors should bring him off the bench as a scoring spark. The saying: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a strong enough reason to keep the starting lineup together. However, Lee is a notoriously poor defender and a front court pairing with Marreese Speights would bring trouble protecting the rim and holding the score, which is why if it were up to me, I would bring Draymond Green’s defensive energy off the bench and slide Lee in with Bogut.

Should Steve Kerr decide to make a change to the starting lineup, we would likely see Lee gradually phased in for Green. Considering that the Warriors owe David Lee $30 million over the next two years, are out of cap space after inking Thompson’s new deal, and have proven to be elite without Lee, there is a strong possibility that the Warriors trade him in the near future in order to make room to extend Green and Barnes. Bob Myers and Joe Lacob should be looking for a cheap, defensive role player in return, and they should be willing to give up a future pick with Lee to get someone who could be of actual value to the team.

The current 16-game sample size that I am drawing these statistics from is not large enough to provoke any drastic actions. However, as the season progresses, pay attention to bench production, both statistically and qualitatively. One cannot assume that Marreese Speights will maintain his current level of production, but neither can one assume that Shaun Livingston and Festus Ezeli won’t shake off their rust. As of now, though, it would be a stretch to call this Warriors’ team deep. Even so, at 14-2 it is hard to complain, and the starters have been phenomenal plus team chemistry is at an all time high.

Stats via NBA.com, ESPN, Basketball-Reference.com, and HoopsStats.com.

Plus/Minus Chart via SportingCharts.com

Cover/Body Image: By Lpdrew (Own Work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons