Warriors Roll Out a Wild-Card Starting Five Against Minnesota
Underdog NBA reported the starting lineup change.
The Golden State Warriors are officially in their "throw things at the wall and see what sticks" era.
According to Underdog NBA, Steve Kerr is rolling out a starting five of Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Georges Niang, Yaxel Lendeborg, and Draymond Green for Wednesday night's matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
If you had that exact combination on your preseason bingo card, you are either a time traveler or you spend way too much time simulating MyNBA seasons. It is a fascinating mix of Hall of Fame pedigree and guys who sound like they were auto-generated to fill out a 2K roster.
The shakeup makes sense when you look at the early returns. Golden State stumbled out of the gates to an ugly 0-3 start, dropping games to the Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, and while giving up a mountain of points in the process.
They finally found a pulse earlier this week, hanging 134 points on the Denver Nuggets to get in the win column. Now, they are trying to bottle that momentum and carry it into Minnesota with a rotation that prioritizes spacing and sheer unpredictability.
From a betting perspective, this lineup introduces a ton of variance. You have Curry and Green doing their usual mind-meld routine, but surrounding them with Niang's spot-up shooting and Lendeborg's wild-card energy makes player props a complete guessing game until we see how the usage rates shake out.
We will see if this five-man unit has actual staying power or if it is just a one-night experiment. If they get run off the floor by the Timberwolves, expect the rotation to get shuffled again before the Lakers come to town on Halloween.