Rob Gray-USA TODAY Sports
While the collective Warriors have virtually nothing to play for, the individual Warriors have everything to play for.
For a young player like Omari Spellman, he needs to show he deserves a role on a team that eventually will have Kevon Mooney and Draymond Green. For a player like Marquese Chriss, who doesn’t have a guaranteed contract, he could be a victim of Ky Bowman receiving a guaranteed deal when they have to put the point guard on the 15-man roster. For a player like Glenn Robinson III, a six-year veteran who wants to both survive in the league and attach himself to a winner, thriving would go a long way toward convincing the Warriors this one-year marriage could use an extension.
The Warriors only dressed eight players in Utah on Friday night, and even as they mounted a terrific fourth-quarter rally to turn it into a two-point game with 17 seconds left, it never felt as if Golden State was pulling the upset. A Bojan Bogdanovic 3 at 4:04 in the second quarter dug the Warriors a 15-point hole, and the lead wouldn’t shrink to single-digits until late. Alec Burks couldn’t make a tough layup in the closing seconds while down three, and the Jazz survived, 113-109, in a game that means little on the surface.
But if there was anything to glean from yet another defeat — the Warriors falling to 3-14 — it was more jostling for next season’s Golden State roster. There are some playing as if they want more, and some playing as if they don’t have any more.
For much of the game, Robinson was the best player on the court for the Warriors. In the midst of a career year in which he’s asked to do more than ever — he entered having averaged 31 minutes per game, compared with his previous high of 20.7 in 2016-17 — the 25-year-old on a one-year deal has shown he can score. And he’s had to for a team that again did not have Green, who sat with a sore heel.
Robinson played efficiently and within the offense, scoring 17 on 7-of-12 shooting while adding four assists and five rebounds. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be successful, but he can be successful with the ball in his hands.
If Robinson was the Warriors’ rock for three quarters, Spellman adopted the role in the fourth. The second-year power forward did damage, going 4-for-4 from deep in the frame, his first two turning a 95-74 blowout into the beginnings of a 95-80 ballgame. The explosion left him with a team-high 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting. If a beefy, 6-foot-8 grinder who entered shooting a tick below 30 percent from 3 develops that shot, he’s a keeper.
Chriss, on a non-guaranteed deal, is probably playing for the most, each Bowman moment creating a roster crunch. But Chriss contributed a few moments of his own in scoring 10 on 5-of-8 shooting, the most impressive of which came in the second quarter, when he backed down his man and spun into the ’70s:
Marquese Chriss clearly is the next Tim Duncan pic.twitter.com/Xy1ygET2Ka
— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) November 23, 2019
Of course, he also earned a technical two quarters later, when his slash to the hoop finished with Joe Ingles on the ground — and Chriss then stepped over him after the shot fell.
As some take a step forward, others can’t get their feet on solid ground. Willie Cauley-Stein was invisible, the only player on either team not to score until the fourth quarter, finishing with two points. He played 28 minutes and grabbed just four rebounds.
Jordan Poole, the shooter who can’t shoot, again could not find net. The last man off the bench went 4-for-13 — and 1-of-5 from 3 — for 13 points, contributing nowhere else.