Steve Kerr Floated A Starting Lineup With A Rookie At Small Forward

Steve Kerr was asked what would count as a satisfactory season for the Warriors and did not answer the question. "You get into the danger zone when you start trying to predict stuff," he told Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area on Thursday. He talked about process instead, about values and basics and attention to detail, and about his staff having a good camp.

Then, asked what he actually has to settle before the season starts, he named a starting lineup. It has a rookie in it.

"The biggest things are figuring out who's going to start, and what's the rotation going to look like?" Kerr said. The combination he raised as the one worth looking at puts Yaxel Lendeborg at small forward, Draymond Green at power forward, and either Kristaps Porzingis or Al Horford at center.

Lendeborg has not played a regular-season NBA game. Golden State drafted him eleventh in June and he was the most valuable player of the Summer League championship game in July.

The four men Kerr would not project played 171 of a possible 328 games#

Kerr gave the reason for the caution in plain terms. "We understand we got some players who are older, and we can't count on them for 82 games," he said. "But we have a lot of institutional knowledge."

The players he could not attach a number to were Green, Horford, Porzingis and Stephen Curry. Last season, when Golden State finished 37-45 and tenth in the Western Conference, they played this much.

Sixty-eight, forty-five, forty-three and fifteen is 171. Four players across an 82-game season is 328 available appearances. One of the four cleared sixty games and one of them did not reach twenty.

Curry's forty-three is the number that reshaped last season, and Porzingis's fifteen is the one that never got started. Horford played more games than Curry did and started thirteen of them.

The lineup, one position at a time#

Small forward. Lendeborg turns 24 on September 30 and will be 24 on opening night. Kerr's own framing has him as more than a developmental case: Poole reported that the club considers him advanced enough to expect heavy minutes, with a chance to earn a starting role. The job is open because the man who held it is hurt, which is the next section.

Power forward. Green played 68 games last season and started all 68, more than any of the other three veterans Kerr named, and he did it at 35. He is 36 now. Whatever else is unsettled, this is the one position in the combination where the incumbent is both present and durable.

Center. Kerr named two players and picked neither. Porzingis appeared in fifteen games and started eleven of them, so when he was available he was a starter. Horford appeared in forty-five and started thirteen, so when he was available he mostly was not. The two facts point in opposite directions and camp is where they get reconciled.

Golden State opens the regular season on October 21 against the Lakers.

Butler and Moody are in none of it#

Jimmy Butler III tore the ACL in his right knee on January 19 and finished the season with 38 games. Moses Moody ruptured the patellar tendon in his left knee on March 23 and finished with 60. Both men are still carried on the league's injury report from those injuries.

Poole reported that Butler is not expected back until the second half of the season, and that Moody is not expected back until 2027. Butler turns 37 on September 14.

That is the vacancy Lendeborg is being measured against. Butler started all 38 of the games he played last season and averaged 31.1 minutes in them.

The roster is built at two ends#

Counting from birth dates, four players on Golden State's roster will be 36 or older on opening night: Horford at 40, Curry at 38, Butler at 37 and Green at 36. Five will be 24 or younger: Brandin Podziemski and Will Richard at 23, and Gui Santos, Moody and Lendeborg at 24.

One of the four older men will not be available in October. One of the five younger men will not be available at all this calendar year. The remaining six players are between 25 and 35. Two of them, Georges Niang and Brandon Williams, signed here in August after spending last season elsewhere. Of the four who were on the roster last season, only Porzingis started more than half of the games he appeared in.

Kerr's closing position was that the misfortune should even out. "I would guess we'll have better health this year; we had some bad luck last year," he said. "I think we're probably due for a little better luck this year." He also set a nearer target than any record: "We've got to win some games early and stay with the pack."

Training camp opens in Hawaii at the end of September.

Called Shots#

Yaxel Lendeborg averages more than 24.0 minutes per game for Golden State in the 2026-27 regular season. Filed at +110. Kerr has publicly floated him as a starter and the club expects heavy minutes, but the three most comparable young Warriors last season landed at 28.5, 20.5 and 20.0 minutes, so the bar sits in the middle of that range rather than below it. Resolves after the regular season ends on April 11, 2027.

Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis combine for fewer than 200 regular-season games played for Golden State in 2026-27. Filed at -105. The four managed 171 of a possible 328 last season. Reaching 200 requires an average of fifty games each from a group aged 38, 36, 40 and 31, and Kerr has already said he cannot count on them for a full year. Resolves after the regular season ends on April 11, 2027.

Sources: Monte Poole, NBC Sports Bay Area, September 4, for all Kerr quotations and for the Butler, Moody and Lendeborg expectations. Basketball Reference for games played, starts, minutes, birth dates and the injury report. NBA.com for the roster, birth dates and last season's 37-45 finish.