The Golden State Warriors, given the extensive time that their star veterans have missed this season already, have found a sort of deliverance in the elevated play of two-way player Pat Spencer, who has now averaged 17.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists while shooting 75% from 3-point range over his last three games.
Yet, if Spencer is now set to crack the rotation after playing much of the season in a limited role, someone’s minutes must be cut into out of necessity, and this creates an agonizing scenario for two of the team’s veterans: Gary Payton II and Buddy Hield.
Neither player has truly played well this season outside of isolated performances, and Spencer’s intensity on a night-to-night basis could prove to be a major boon for the Warriors as the season wears on. Therefore, his ascension begs a serious question. What does the rotation look like if his minutes are increased?
Pat Spencer’s ascension would represent a serious re-shuffling of the Warriors’ rotation
Beyond all else, the primary issue that has plagued Golden State this season has been the inconsistent play of their role players, creating a lack of certainty when players such as Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler have needed to miss time.
Now, with the team having found a spark in Spencer’s recent performances, it appears as though the right move would be to convert him to a standard contract this season, granting him a bona-fide rotational role in an attempt to solve some of these issues.
For two of the team’s most inconsistent players, however, this development could be disastrous.
Payton, so far this season, has performed exactly the role that the Warriors likely envisioned when they brought him back this past offseason, giving the team energetic minutes with relatively limited offensive production.
Hield, however, has been supremely disappointing. Through his first 24 games, he’s averaging just eight points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.7 assists while shooting 31% from beyond the arc. The team, moreover, has a -8.1 net rating in his minutes on the court.
With the surplus of pieces that Golden State has in their backcourt, it was already going to be a challenge to distribute minutes among all of their rotation players (especially with De’Anthony Melton and Seth Curry joining the team recently). Yet, if Spencer continues to take on a larger role, Hield and Payton will certainly be the first candidates to have their minutes cut into.
As deep as Steve Kerr typically likes to run his rotations, there comes a point of unsustainability. You can only play so many guards on a night-to-night basis, even if most of the team’s players fall firmly into the category of shooting guard.
While it remains to be seen if Spencer’s recent performances will be sustainable, they do, therefore, create a serious question that Golden State must answer as the season continues.