{"id":848246,"date":"2026-10-01T09:51:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T09:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/848246\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T09:51:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T09:51:29","slug":"can-frank-vogel-provide-a-jolt-to-warriors-lackluster-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/848246\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Frank Vogel provide a jolt to Warriors\u2019 lackluster defense?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word on the street coming out of the islands is Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr spent the first day of camp in Laie, Hawaii, drilling transition defense. He called the live work controlled,<\/a> with possessions going up and back maybe three times max. Let\u2019s hope that live work translates because anybody who sat through last season watching this team give up layups like they were handing out free samples at Costco wants this defense to snap out of the funk it\u2019s been in over the past handful of seasons.<\/p>\n

Most of the optimism this fall belongs to a coach. Frank Vogel came over as associate head coach<\/a> and he will run the Warriors\u2019 defense. His pitch for why he took the job was simple. \u201cYou want your defense to have teeth,\u201d he told the SF Chronicle, and then he explained that Draymond Green used to scare the hell<\/a> out of him every time he played the Warriors:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how much I want to say about it publicly, but I have a lot of confidence in what\u2019s ahead of me, when the time comes,\u201d Vogel continued. \u201cBut it\u2019s very important to me that, your piece \u2014 that\u2019s for when it happens. I am not hunting it. I\u2019m excited about being in this role, for this team, and supporting Steve, and helping Steph and Draymond get another chance at a ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vogel will have to implement a new defensive system without two key wing defenders in Butler and Moody, who are both rehabbing knee injuries. Still, he sees a path. That starts with Green, the nine-time All-Defensive supercomputer who Vogel said was a \u201cbig reason\u201d he took the job.<\/p>\n

Bad defense was something I long associated with the Warriors of my youth, run and gun teams that would try to score 120 but give up 135. When Kerr got asked years ag<\/a>o how he turned the Warriors into a defensive team, he refused the credit. \u201cI didn\u2019t; Mark Jackson did,\u201d Kerr said, remembering how bad Golden State\u2019s defense looked from the broadcast booth before Jackson arrived.<\/p>\n

The last two Jackson seasons tell the story. In 2012-13 the Warriors allowed 105.5 points per 100 possessions, 14th in the league and basically average. One year later they were at 102.6 and 4th overall. Ten spots in one season is an astronomical jump. He drilled connectivity, grit, and consistency and had the personnel to make it happen. With Andrew Bogut patrolling the paint, Andre Iguodala locked in, and a young fireball named Draymond Green coming off the bench learning how to be a problem, the pieces were all there.<\/p>\n

Then Jackson got fired, Kerr walked in, and the 2014-15 Warriors posted a 101.4 defensive rating. That was No. 1 in the NBA and Kerr said he didn\u2019t change one thing defensively. I believed him, and kudos to him for letting another coach\u2019s ingrained philosophy continue on.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m sure everybody remembers the threes the Dubs rained down like hellfire during the dynasty. But I absolutely remember the stops that came right before them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the dynasty worked. Draymond would blow up a pick-and-roll, somebody would poke the ball loose, and four seconds later Steph was pulling up from 30 while the other team was still arguing about the switch. The defense lit the fuse on every fireworks show.<\/p>\n

The one that surprises people is 2022. After two years of lottery tickets and injury reports, the Warriors allowed 106.9 per 100, and returned to No. 1 overall. Relative to its era, the \u201cnobody believed in us\u201d team had the nastiest defense of all four champions. Kevon Looney was everywhere, Andrew Wiggins clamped on the opposing stars like a pitbull, and Draymond still lorded over the defense barking out rotations and stymieing opposing gameplans. That was the most maniacally dogged version of the whole thing, and I mean that as the highest compliment I can give a basketball team.<\/p>\n

Since then, the defense has been predominantly mid. After that last title, the Warriors have ranked 17th, 15th, 7th, and 17th in defensive rating. The only season with some bite was 2024-25, when Jimmy Butler showed up and the Warriors finished 2.8 points better than average and 7th overall. Average those four post-title finishes and you land on 14th, something Pastor Mark Jackson would have lost his mind over. For a franchise that built its identity on making opponents miserable, 17th feels like a team losing its identity and relying on offensive pyrotechnics to bail them out. Let\u2019s recap, courtesy of Basketball Reference:<\/p>\n

2012-13: 105.5 DRTG \u2014 14th
2013-14: 102.6 DRTG \u2014 4th<\/p>\n

Kerr dynasty defenses + 2022 title run<\/p>\n

2014-15: 101.4 DRTG \u2014 1st
2015-16: 103.8 DRTG \u2014 5th
2016-17: 104.0 DRTG \u2014 2nd
2017-18: 107.7 DRTG \u2014 11th
2021-22: 106.9 DRTG \u2014 1st<\/p>\n

2022-23: 114.4 DRTG \u2014 17th
2023-24: 115.2 DRTG \u2014 15th
2024-25: 111.7 DRTG \u2014 7th
2025-26: 115.6 DRTG \u2014 17th<\/p>\n

With Butler and Moses Moody unable to play as they nurse themselves back to health from injury, the team has lost their two primary wing defenders for the time being. Can the Dubs survive the early part of the season without them on the defensive end?<\/p>\n

Steph Curry and Draymond Green are the last two people in that gym who heard Coach Jackson preach defense in 2013. Everything Vogel is selling, they already bought once. What nobody in Laie can answer yet is whether a 38-year-old and a 36-year-old can sell it to Lendeborg, Melton and Brandin Podziemski fast enough for that old magic to come back in time for ring #5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The word on the street coming out of the islands is Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,64551,4025,4024,6,255],"class_list":["post-848246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golden-state-warriors","tag-basketball","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-golden-state-warriors-discussion","tag-goldenstate","tag-goldenstatewarriors","tag-nba","tag-warriors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117365039682760782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}