Golden State Warriors, NBA

The history and evolution of the Golden State Warrior’s “Death Lineup”

With generational superstar in Steph Curry leading the way, the three-time NBA champions Golden State Warriors have changed the way the NBA plays by making the three point shot a prerequisite to being a successful NBA team.

That typically means employing a “small ball” strategy; one that has been put forth by forward-thinking coaches such as Don Nelson and Mike D’Antoni. Small ball usually means putting five players on the floor to supercharge their offense, but the other side of that was the defensive disadvantage on the other side.

Golden State masters “small ball”

That may have been true with the past small ball teams, but what makes the Golden State Warrior’s version of small ball is it’s matched up with a team that has been one of the best defensive teams in every year that Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala have suited up together. When these four players, along with Harrison Barnes, were on the floor in 2014-15 and 2015-16- they were dubbed the Death Lineup for their ability to move, pass, and space the floor on offense, but mostly-neutralizing any size disadvantage on the defensive side of the ball.

Winning a championship with that version of the “DL”  in 2015, the Warriors ended up losing in the 2016 NBA Finals. In that offseason, the Warriors signed Kevin Durant which all but forced restricted free agent Barnes off the team. The signing of one of the league’s greatest scorers ever made the favored Warriors a shoo-in for the NBA championship by NBA talking heads, experts and oddsmakers like  w88 mobile. A Death Lineup with Kevin Durant in place of Harrison Barnes? That made this new and improved Death Lineup an “absurdity” in terms of how lopsided when those five were on the floor.

And those Kevin Durant Golden State Warrior teams ended up winning back-to-back NBA championships in 2017 and 2018 before losing the 2019 Finals when both Durant and Thompson were lost to injury. Durant would leave the Warriors that summer to sign with the Brooklyn Nets.

A couple down years to get to Death Lineup 3.0

For a couple years after, the Warriors were decimated by season-ending injuries to Curry and Thompson that took them off the NBA Championship radar. If there was a silver lining, that time off allowed the Warriors to acclimate newly-acquired Andrew Wiggins, bring back Iguodala (who spent time the 2019-20 and 2020-21 season with the Miami Heat) and allow draftee Jordan Poole to develop.

With Thompson coming back after 2+ seasons away, Draymond and Steph dealing with moderate in-season injuries, the promising play of Wiggins and Poole all coming together – the Warriors have been salivating to unleash Death Lineup 3.0 featuring Curry, Thompson, Green, Poole and either Wiggins or Iguodala. Without much time together during the regular season, the Warriors finally got a good look at what that composition looked like in their game one win over the Denver Nuggets in the 2022 NBA Playoffs.

From NBA Sports Bay Area:

The biggest difference is this version has two dual-threat guards, Curry and Poole, creative passers and dynamic scorers on or off the ball. Thompson might be the best catch-and-shoot guard of all time. Wiggins can shoot the 3-ball but also slash his way to the rim. Green’s primary role is to ensure the defense holds up and use his orchestration skills to lubricate the offense. 

Wiggins isn’t yet the capable distributor nor experienced defender that Iguodala is, so this Death Lineup has a sixth man. Depending on the need and the match up, the Warriors have options. But as for the current Death Lineup, it looked great for the 10-12 minutes that they played together with Poole continuing his spectacular ascent with a NBA super stars and former all-stars surrounding him.
“Seeing (Poole) be able to make plays in the pick-and-roll with me and Klay spaced and Draymond setting and Wiggs slashing,” Curry said, “it checks a lot of boxes on the list of what would you want for a potent offensive lineup.”
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