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Sports

Thompson: Warriors’ two timelines are stumbling, and something has to give

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SACRAMENTO — With 9:03 left, after a fast-break layup by De’Aaron Fox capped a 7-0 spurt in 55 seconds for the hosts, Warriors coach Steve Kerr called a timeout. He couldn’t wait any longer. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green had to come back in. This would, indeed, be another heavy-minute night, the third consecutive game urgency was their guide.

The Warriors need victories. Their chance for one Sunday night was slipping away. So it was winning time. That meant, again, it was time for the young studs to take a seat.

“We’re not a team right now where we can afford to let guys make mistakes,” Kerr said before the 122-115 loss to the Kings. “We’re not good enough to withstand a lot of mistakes.”

It’s hard not to miss the messaging. It’s subliminally loud. This was supposed to be the year the young guys on the roster took on larger roles, stepped forward in their destiny to one day be the stewards of this championship franchise. But when it’s time to win, they have to take a seat.

James Wiseman, the third-year center and former No. 2 pick was plucked from the rotation after their five-game skid sent the team into desperation mode. Forward Moses Moody, the second-year lottery pick, has joined Wiseman for the last two games Gorilla-Glued to the bench. Forward Jonathan Kuminga, the other second-year lottery pick, has managed a couple of stints in the early parts of games. But when it gets real, he’s right next to them.

Sunday, even Jordan Poole sat most of the fourth quarter, sacrificed in their push for a three-game winning streak.

The Warriors went with six players for most of that final nine minutes and change. Five of the six have championship rings — six of seven if you include Poole, who came in for the final 30.2 seconds when the Warriors needed 3s. The only player who didn’t have a reservoir of NBA experience but was worthy of playing in crunch time was Anthony Lamb, a 24-year-old wing who went undrafted in 2020 and snatched up a two-way spot late in Warriors training camp.

It still ended in defeat. It was their seventh consecutive road loss to start the season and a missed chance to inch closer to .500, where they can get back to the developing part of their plan.

As it stands, the Warriors have four first-round picks on the bench and none of them are sniffing the court once crunch time hits, if at all. This doesn’t look or feel sustainable. But the most troubling part is that when they lean on their veterans, they don’t have enough. They’re 0-7 on the road because those are the hardest games to win in the NBA, and Golden State is playing them largely shorthanded.

The season is 13 games old, too early to make grand proclamations. This will all be old news in March if they have figured things out as they head into the postseason.

But the direction the Warriors are heading is clear. The two-timeline plan is looking far more perpendicular than parallel. Colliding instead of complementing. They can’t seem to develop their young players and expect to win. And even when they just focus on winning, sans the development, their commitment to the youth has left them with too many holes.

Something is going to have to give. Either they will have to re-align this roster to give the veterans more immediate help. Or Kerr is going to have to swallow the mistakes and commit to playing one or two youngsters, win or lose. It’s the only way either of them can be ready when the Warriors will really need them later in the season.

No doubt, the ol’ heads on the roster could play even better. That would buy everyone more time.

The veterans had a chance to beat the Kings. Curry and Green came in, and the 9-point deficit morphed into a 111-109 lead following a Klay Thompson 3 at the 5:11 mark. In the past, this was all but a done deal. The Warriors’ wave would come and opponents would wilt. The champions flexed, and the pesky Kings were supposed to submit. But the opposite happened.

The Kings trapped Curry, who torched Sacramento for 47 points a week ago, and forced someone else to beat them. And the Warriors didn’t have anyone else who could. At least four of the Warriors’ losses have come with their stars getting outplayed down the stretch. But Curry said the critical part is how they get to those crunch-time moments.

Sunday was a common blueprint for this young season. The Warriors’ starters built a 15-point lead, 13 by the end of the first quarter, and handed it over to their second unit. When Curry, Green and Thompson checked back in at the 8:04 mark of the second quarter, the lead was down to 44-39. The Kings, who had been handled for 12 minutes, had found life.

Sacramento roared back and found its rhythm. The Kings outscored the Warriors 72-52 over the second and third quarters combined, then went on a 7-0 run early in the fourth. So now, as Curry pointed out, their opponent is on a roll, infused with the fresh lungs of momentum after feasting on the Warriors’ reserves. Those teams are tougher to vanquish. Even Detroit and Orlando, two of the worst teams in the East, looked formidable in those conditions. So did the Kings.

“I think about those windows in the game more than down the stretch, especially this early in the season,” Curry said, “because that’s where you really build confidence in what you’re doing when you can kind of capitalize off of those good runs throughout the meat of the game. … It might be a close game, but the confidence and the flow of the game is a lot different. We clawed our way back from 9 down and took a 2-point lead I think. It was a pretty electric fourth quarter that doesn’t go our way down the stretch. But my focus goes to those middle portions of the game that, you know, we make the game a lot harder than we need to.”

It is looking more and more like Green was right.

About 13 months ago, he made headlines when he said, historically, mixing experience with inexperience hadn’t worked before in the NBA. It would seem he was incorrect considering the Warriors went on to win the championship. But they won it all by sitting the young players. As the team advanced, the challenge got harder, and the inexperienced players played less. It was the veterans who delivered the title.

The Warriors have 16 players under contract, including the two-way players who split time with the Santa Cruz G-League team. Eight of the 16 are 26-and-up, and all of those but JaMychal Green have a championship ring. The other half is 25-and-under with three years of experience or fewer. The divide between them seems to be increasing instead of shrinking.

Put Poole on the experienced side, since he was vital during a championship run. That’s nine on the winning side of the timeline.

Some behind the scenes scoffed at Green’s take, pointing to great teams with young players who contributed. But Green’s point wasn’t really about individual young players. An inexperienced player can work when he is able to fold into the plan to win. Green was talking more about the impossibility of competing for a championship while simultaneously preparing for the future.

This season is looking like more proof already. When it’s time to win, as the stakes get higher and the adversity tougher, the youngsters get pushed out of the rotation. Because youth doesn’t win in the NBA. Not at the championship-contender level this franchise expects. The Warriors’ last five picks, while clearly talented, seem to have a hard time fitting into the Warriors’ preferred style.

GO DEEPER

Warriors, now 0-7 on the road, face familiar flaws in loss to the Kings

It’s been only 13 games, but the concerning part for the Warriors is they no longer seem to have enough on the winning side of the timeline to carry the load. One of those nine is 37-year-old Andre Iguodala, who is being preserved mostly for later in the season. So that’s eight. JaMychal Green, an eight-year veteran who has proven himself a valuable NBA role player, has already lost his spot in the rotation. So that’s seven players on the older half of the roster. Donte DiVincenzo has been solid and was slowed by injury, but he hasn’t been the difference-maker yet they banked on when they landed him in free agency. And Thompson, one of the pillar superstars, has sputtered out of the gates this season.

Again, it’s early, but JaMychal Green and DiVincenzo haven’t made up for losing Otto Porter Jr., Gary Payton II and Nemanja Bjelica, who with Iguodala helped the Warriors get off to an 18-2 start last season. The Warriors are even missing the presence of Damion Lee and Juan Toscano-Anderson, who would likely be playing right now but left for more minutes elsewhere as the Warriors went young.

It’s not having young players that’s hurting the Warriors. It’s having so many of them.

The proliferation of youth is evident in the limited energy on the bench. Formerly known for their hype and elaborate celebrations, the Warriors don’t have veterans over there who have experience at infusing energy into the team even while sitting. It’s not really their fault, but the Warriors’ youth often look more introverted and even somber than locked in every second. They are lottery picks waiting for their turn, not experienced reserves.

The proliferation of youth is evident in how the Warriors blow early leads. They don’t have the savvy veteran to slow everything down, to take the ball and the composure of the team into his hands. Poole is still learning how to lead the second unit.

“For the most part, coming off the bench, we’ve had kind of an elder statesman, if you will,” Draymond Green said. “It’s different now. And the reality is the first guy you come off the bench with is usually JP — and JP is a sixth starter. So that’s a different feel. … Whereas it used to be kind of a different offense, if you will, it’s more like the same. I think we have to figure that out in that second unit. What you’re accustomed to is Steph goes out the game and the whole offense changes, and it’s more sets. But with Jordan, it’s still going to be more of the same as you get with Steph.”

And playing with Curry is a brand of basketball all its own. And with Poole as the Curry of that unit, he’s got a few players around him not well versed in that style, which is full of reads and cuts, passes and movement, screens and flares. Remember a few years back when Shaun Livingston and Iguodala would lead the second unit, and they’d walk the ball up, running an elaborate set to get the ball to Livingston in the post or David West at the elbow? They ate clock and changed the flow of the game.

With Poole at the helm, the Warriors don’t run a ball-control offense that limits opportunities. They had visions of such a thing with Wiseman in the post and Kuminga and Moody giving them size and athleticism. But it’s just too much to ask to put them on the court together.

The plan for the Warriors is to get enough wins in the immediate future to take the danger out of their season. Then, they can go back to mixing in the young guys. To do that, they’re leaning heavily on their veterans.

It used to be that a big game from Curry was about as close to a guarantee as they could get for a win. Curry lighting it up and Draymond Green playing great on defense was all but a lock. Now both are happening, and it’s still not enough.

If Thompson gets hot and Poole finds a rhythm, that seems as if it would be enough. If JaMychal Green and DiVincenzo acclimate and become who their careers suggest, that could go a long way. If one or two of the young players find their way soon, that could do the trick. Or maybe it’s one of each.

Either way, something has to give. Because the Warriors can’t win playing the youngsters, and they aren’t winning enough without playing them. And nothing about that feels sustainable.

Related reading

Anthony Slater: Warriors, now 0-7 on the road, face familiar flaws in loss to Kings
NBA Power Rankings: Warriors move up a spot; good wins/bad losses for every team

(Photo: Ed Szczepanski / USA Today)



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World

At Every Step, Afghans Coming to America Encounter Stumbling Blocks

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As many as 4,000 Afghans are moved from the camps and resettled each week, and “this is an effort that will continue,” Mr. Markell said.

He acknowledged Afghans’ frustration, and said officials have tried to answer more of their questions in recent weeks. “If we were in their shoes, we’d want the same thing,” Mr. Markell said. “We’d all want to know, as quickly as possible, where we’re going to be building our new lives.”

Refugee agencies have been overwhelmed with caring for Afghan families who are moved into American communities. A family of 10, including a newborn baby, had no money and no benefits when they were settled outside Washington D.C. and depended on grocery deliveries from the Muslim Association of Virginia. In Houston, some Afghans have been placed in crime-ridden neighborhoods and are living in apartments with dilapidated toilets or black mold in bathrooms, and are salvaging supplies from rubbish heaps or borrowing from neighbors.

“There are pregnant women who have slept on hard floors with no blankets, no mattress,” said Shekeba Morrad, an Afghan-American community organizer in Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia, who works with a nationwide group trying to monitor the situation of the newly arrived Afghans.

Hamid Wahidy, 34, and his family made it to the camp at Quantico via a route that first took them to Qatar, Germany and Dulles International Airport outside Washington. They stayed at the camp for 40 days before moving into a small Airbnb in San Diego. The first month there was a blur of bureaucratic shuffling to receive his Social Security card, which he needed to open a bank account, obtain a driver’s license, apply for a job and enroll his kids in school.

A few weeks later, he moved into a larger home. It cost him $3,400 — for one month’s rent and a security deposit — of the $5,000 the family received from a resettlement agency. He did not immediately receive food stamps and other benefits that he had expected under a spending bill that Congress passed in September that included $6.3 billion in expanded assistance to the arriving Afghans.

The legislation also did not include an expedited process for legal residency for Mr. Wahidy and other Afghans. Without it, immigration advocates say, they could eventually be deported.

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Science

The Webb Telescope’s Latest Stumbling Block: Its Name

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Sean O’Keefe, the NASA administrator who named the telescope in 2002, said in an email that Webb was “a champion of education, technology, science, aeronautics and human exploration.”

“Arguably, were it not for James Webb’s determination to fulfill the most audacious vision of his time, our capacity to explore today would be starkly different,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “He introduced complex systems management — a discipline to harness the exceptional technical capability of NASA at that time.” Mr. O’Keefe added that he was unaware of any evidence that Webb was responsible for the Lavender Scare.

In May, NASA promised a full investigation by its acting chief historian, Brian Odom. On Sept. 27, the agency issued a statement from the current NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, saying, “We have found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope.” Since then, no extensive report has been forthcoming.

This has infuriated many astronomers, and some 1,200 have signed a petition calling for the telescope to be renamed. “Under Webb’s leadership, queer people were persecuted,” the petition reads, in part. “Those who would excuse Webb’s failure of leadership cannot simultaneously award him credit for his management of Apollo.”

On hearing Mr. Nelson’s announcement, Dr. Walkowicz abruptly resigned their post on the NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee. “This flippant, pathetic response to the very reasonable questions raised by the astronomical community regarding JWST’s name sends a clear message of NASA’s position on the rights of queer astronomers,” they wrote in an online statement. “It also speaks clearly to me that NASA does not deserve my time.”

In an email, Dr. Prescod-Weinstein said she was frustrated at the lack of promised transparency. Moreover, she said, the claim of “no evidence” was too strong, as it suggested that Webb was not responsible for the homophobia — well-documented — that his team promulgated during his tenure at NASA.

“If he’s not responsible for the bad stuff that happened while he was in charge, why is he responsible for the good stuff?” Dr. Prescod-Weinstein said. “It seems there’s a bit of double-think happening here, where people assign him responsibility for the things they like about his legacy and pretend that he’s only responsible for the things they like.”

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Business

US removes stumbling block to global deal on digital tax

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US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has told G20 finance ministers that Washington will drop a contentious part of its proposal for reform of global digital taxation rules that had been the main stumbling block to an agreement.

The move could unlock long-stalled multilateral negotiations at the OECD, which struggled to make progress after the Trump administration first insisted on the “safe harbour” measure in late 2019.

The provision would have allowed technology companies to abide by any agreement on a voluntary basis.

On Friday, Yellen said at a meeting of G20 finance ministers that the US “is no longer advocating for safe harbour implementation”, a US Treasury official told the Financial Times.

The US “will engage robustly to address both pillars of the OECD project, the tax challenges of digitisation and a robust global minimum tax”, the official said.

Italian finance minister Daniele Franco, who co-chaired the meeting, said in a press conference afterwards that the G20 aimed to reach a solution by “mid-2021”.

“There is a need to reform the current system; this has become an urgent task as we are faced with the challenges of the globalisation and digitalisation of the economy,” he said.

Another official close to the international tax talks said the US “wants a deal on both pillars [of the proposals] by July . . . the coming few weeks will be critical but the dynamic has never been that positive”.

Yellen’s break with the Trump administration stance on digital tax came a day after she also dropped Washington’s objections to new financial support for low-income countries through an allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs), the IMF’s reserve currency.

“An allocation of new special drawing rights at the IMF could enhance liquidity for low-income countries to facilitate their much-needed health and economic recovery efforts,” Yellen said in a letter to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors on Thursday. “We look forward to discussing potential modalities for deploying SDRs [with other G20 nations].”

The last time the IMF allocated a fresh batch of SDRs was in 2009 during the global financial crisis.

Support for the financial assistance is widespread among G20 countries, so Washington’s step could pave the way for as much as $500bn in support to be pumped into the global economy. However the detail has yet to be settled; the US wants advanced economies’ SDR allocations be passed on to low-income countries with greater need for financial assistance.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, said on Friday she was “very encouraged by the growing support” for a new SDR allocation “to boost reserves of all members in a transparent and accountable manner” and offer “an additional mechanism to enable our wealthier members to support low-income countries through on-lending part of their SDRs”. 

“We stand ready to present to our membership a robust assessment of long-term reserve needs and implementation modalities,” Georgieva said. 

The gloomy prospects for a multilateral deal on digital tax during the Trump administration led a number of countries, mainly in Europe, to introduce or consider their own levies on large technology companies, in a bid to prevent them from paying little or no tax on their sales.

Washington objected to those tax measures as unilateral and discriminatory against Silicon Valley, turning the dispute into one of the biggest sources of transatlantic economic and trade tensions.

However, despite the renewed hopes for a deal, there is still a lot to do before a new global regime can be introduced. Not only will an agreement have to be finalised, but in the case of the US it will have to be approved by Congress, where taxation policy changes can be highly contentious.

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