One of the biggest questions surrounding the Warriors this offseason has been whether Chris Paul will start or come off the bench for his new team.
When Paul joined the Warriors back in July he resisted the idea of coming off the bench, but he seems to have changed his tune.
The veteran spoke about the lineup situation with the Warriors at media day on Monday and explained that he is going to do whatever it takes to put his team in a winning position.
“For me, I actually had an opportunity in ’08 to come off the bench for the Olympic team and that went pretty well,” Paul said. “Anybody who knows me knows that I’m all about winning. Whatever I can do to help our team win, so I know Coach and us going to talk about it and see what it looks like. We been hooping all summer and I think for the season, it’s going to be whatever to help our team win. I’ve at least tried to show and prove that my entire career.”
Wild that the Warriors have so many options that a future Hall-of-Famer point guard may not be starting.
However, one NBA insider, Marc J. Spears believes that Paul will in fact start in his 19th season in the league.
“I do expect him to start,” Spears said on Good Word with Goodwill recently. “And I think it’s like five-minute spurts. I don’t know that they really want his minutes to be high, but I think they’re gonna try it. I could be wrong, but that’s the gist I’m getting. This isn’t an opinion that he’s expected to start. It’s what I’m hearing. He’s never not started in his career.”
Head coach Steve Kerr last week repeated what he has said all summer and explained things will all get worked out at training camp but everyone needs to be on the same page.
“We basically have six starters the way I look at it,” Kerr said. “Only five can go each night, so I haven’t decided yet what we’re gonna do. I wanna see training camp. We’re gonna try different combinations and take a look. Obviously all six guys are gonna play a lot of minutes for us. If this is gonna work, everybody has to embrace it, regardless of who is starting and who’s not. It only works if the whole team buys in.”
Last season’s starting lineup featured the likes of Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson and Donte DiVincenzo, who has since left the team.
“We did have the best starting lineup in the league, so you can’t ignore that,” Green said. “And yet, you can’t ignore that Chris Paul is Chris Paul … What I do know is whatever is best for this team is going to happen.”