And the bench organization evolved again a little bit with the arrival of Jimmy Butler, a new personality and centrifugal force.
“Sit his a— on the floor!” Hield yelled over while I was talking to somebody else about the bench order.
Actually, Butler, not shockingly, measured the existing polarities of the Warriors’ bench and plopped himself in the middle. He’s usually situated a little nearer to Curry and the coaches than to Draymond (even though they’re almost never all on the bench at the same time, the reserved positions are always important), but Butler is also linked to the rank-and-file group of Hield, Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and Quentin Post.
“You’re kinda coming into a structure — where Jimmy, he’s not overbearing,” Draymond said. “He’s smart. So he just watches. Kinda took his space. More to the front.”
As Curry pointed out, another quirk is that his pal Payton rarely sits on the bench at all. GP2 will be in the tunnel or even on the floor, then, during timeouts slips behind the bench behind Curry to listen to or participate in all the highest-level conversations.
It can look random. But as Curry says, they’re all creatures of habit — in this and in almost all areas. The gravity of their personalities and their relationships organize things pretty clearly.
“It’s kind of split up, you have Steph and now you kinda have Jimmy towards the beginning and middle, you’ve got me and Loon on the end,” Draymond said. “So you just kinda have those veteran leaders stationed throughout. And then there’s a bunch of young guys in between.”
There are patterns within patterns. When the foundational figures are all in the game, the other players move into some of those spots — kind of like bench-area understudies. For instance, if he’s not in the game, Podziemski usually slides up to the top seat.
“There’s rarely a time when both me and Steph are out together, so I’m usually in that first seat when he’s out on the floor,” Podziemski said. “I like to be up front, too, to hear what the coaches are thinking, in terms of game plan, strategy, stuff like that.”