Warriors Notebook: Why Steph Curry Could Be Better Than Ever with Kevin Durant

After the most scrutinized and pressure-packed season any NBA team has ever endured, there was a visceral sense at Media Day that something loomed large. It had been 100 days since the crushing blow of losing Game 7 of the 2016 Finals, but the Warriors are a much different team as constituted right now, to the relief of those who are still here to bear witness.

Head coach Steve Kerr has an immense task ahead. Not only did he lose five of his top 10 rotation players, but he has the not-all-that-unpleasant job of figuring how to effectively shoehorn in Kevin Durant (a four-time scoring champ) into a lineup that already includes Draymond Green (a nightly triple-double threat), Klay Thompson (who once scored 37 points in a quarter), and Stephen Curry, who is coming off his first scoring title and two straight Most Valuable Player awards.

First-world problems and all that, but it’s still true that there’s only one ball.

The trick will be defining the calculus wherein everyone feels they’re getting their touches and playing up to their fullest potential. The more the Warriors win, the less of an issue this ultimately will be. But Kerr has, from the get-go, been using variants on the word “experiment.”

For now, anything and everything is on the table.

Conventional wisdom says Thompson is going get his touches regardless, Green will continue filling his row on the stat sheet from one end to the other and Durant is a gravitational force too great to be denied. So, Curry might suffer the greatest regression in his stats.

More than just coming off one of the top-five offensive seasons in NBA history, the belief is that his role as the point guard will become even more defined and unalterable. Maybe give up five points or so off the 30-a-game he poured in last season, maybe his assists (which reached their lowest per-game average since his tumultuous 2011-12 season, shortened by both a lockout and numerous ankle injuries) will trend back up a tick or three.

“I try to really remind myself everyday that for us to be as great as we want to be, everyday you have to learn a little something,” Curry said after that Tuesday’s practice. “You have to be 100 percent focused on the nuances of what’s going to make this year’s team different from last year’s team.”

Indeed, it’s possible that Curry’s numbers do take a step backward in the wake of Durant’s arrival, but it may not be the zero-sum game that many assume. Yes, Curry is due for some regression on last year’s feats, but there are ways Durant not only makes the Warriors better but Curry better as well.

And if the Warriors win at anywhere near the same pace as last year’s 73-9 team while Curry’s overall stats and efficiency aren’t all that far off from where they were last season, then a third straight MVP may well be in the offing. As the defending MVP, as the undisputed leader of this superteam, he has a head start out of the gate.

In real basketball terms, the Warriors have effectively just swapped Harrison Barnes, who started at small forward for most of the past four seasons, for Durant, who slides into the 3 behind power forward Draymond Green and new starting center Zaza Pachulia.

Durant will, of course, also take Barnes’ place in the vaunted “Death Lineup,” in which Green slides up to center and Andre Iguodala comes in as an elite roving defender. Barnes, at his best, could score on the wing, knock down a three when needed and defend multiple positions. Durant does all those things, except better.

When looking at how Curry’s game was directly affected by Barnes, who was an integral cog in Kerr’s iso-allergic scheme that’s dependent on ball movement, we see Curry shot relatively poorly off passes from Barnes, just 44.9 percent from the floor. According to player tracking from Synergy, that’s the lowest percentage off passes from any regular teammate.

What’s worse is that …

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