Predicting Warriors' Starting, Reserve Lineups with Melton, Seth Curry in Rotation

For the first 21 games, the Warriors have had a skeleton crew. There have been lots of minute opportunites available.

That could be about to change.

Seth Curry is now a Warrior. De'Anthony Melton could make his season debut during the upcoming three-game road trip starting Thursday. Steph Curry should return during that road trip as well. Al Horford will be back eventually.

If everyone is healthy, the Warriors will have 13 players expecting to have a consistent role, but there's no way Steve Kerr will play 13 players per game. Below is my best crack at a minutes distribution when everyone is healthy. Spoiler alert: Two struggling vets don't make the rotation at all.

Starters (First 5 Minutes of 1st, 3rd Qs)

Lineup: Steph, Melton, Moody, Butler, Green

De'Anthony Melton probably won't start in his first game back, but he has a good chance to start once he's fully ramped up. The Warriors have been getting torched by opposing guards, and Melton is their best bet to stop them.

Lineup for Next 4 Minutes of 1st, 3rd Qs

Lineup: Steph, GP2, Richard, Kuminga, Green
Substitutions: Kuminga for Butler; GP2 for Melton; Richard for Moody

One would think a lineup featuring Gary Payton II, Jonathan Kuminga and Draymond Green would have major challenges offensively, but lineups with that trio and Steph have scored at an 84th percentile efficiency in a small sample size this season, per Cleaning the Glass.

Lineup for Last 3 Minutes of 1st, 3rd Qs

Lineup: Podz, Seth, Richard, Butler, Post
Substitutions: Podz for Steph; Post for Green; Seth for GP2; Butler for Kuminga

Jimmy Butler checks back in with four capable shooters surrounding him.

This lineup has of course never played together, but if you replace Seth with Buddy Hield, you'll get a lineup that has a 97th percentile offensive rating in a small sample size, per Cleaning the Glass.

Lineup for First 4 Minutes of 2nd, 4th Qs

Lineup: Podz, Moody, Butler, Kuminga, Post
Substitutions: Moody for Richard; Kuminga for Seth

Surprisingly this lineup has never played together. The Butler, Kuminga, Moody trio has a brutal offensive rating, but it also has an elite defensive rating.

That's a trend for the non-Steph minutes. The Warriors have trouble scoring, but they get enough stops to get by.

Lineup for Next 4 Minutes of 2nd, 4th Qs

Lineup: Steph, Melton, Podz, Kuminga, Green
Substitutions: Steph for Moody; Green for Post; Melton for Butler

Steph, Melton and Green check back in together, and that's on purpose. Last year, that trio had an outrageous plus-39.2 net rating, per Cleaning the Glass.

Lineup for Last 4 Minutes of 2nd, 4th Qs

Lineup: Steph, Melton, Moody, Butler, Green
Substitutions: Kuminga for Butler; Moody for Podz

And we're closing with the starting lineup, although it's clear that Steve Kerr will go with a hot-hand approach at times, which means Melton and/or Moody could be replaced by a number of different options.

Final Minutes Distribution

Steph: 34
Green: 34
Butler: 32
Moody: 26
Melton: 26
Kuminga: 24
Podz: 22
Post: 14
Richard: 14
GP2: 8
Seth: 6

1 Big Flaw from This Distribution

In this hypothetical, Green would play all 34 of his minutes at center. That sounds like a good way to run him into the ground.

It's also unlikely that Al Horford would not play a single minute when healthy.

So we could slide Horford into the mid-first or mid-second quarter lineup, but then someone who doesn't deserve to sit has to sit.

It would be a good problem to have, but in reality I'm guessing it'll be extremely rare that Kerr has his top 12-13 rotation players healthy all at once. These rotation questions will take care of themselves due to injury.

Final Thoughts

In this distribution, Seth gets just six minutes, and Hield doesn't play at all. If Melton looks as good as he did last year immediately, that might be how this plays out.

But it's likely Melton will work his way into a big role, which means at least for the next couple of weeks, some of his 26 minutes will be given to Seth, Hield or Horford.

My guess is the Warriors won't want Seth and Steph playing together much to have more defensive resistance on the perimeter, so you can expect Seth to play most of his minutes with Butler. With his passing and drive-and-kick ability, Butler should fit well with Seth anyway.

We already know Steph and Melton complement each other well, so expect most of Melton's minutes to come with the two-time MVP. Melton's solid point-of-attack defense will take some pressure off Steph on the less glamorous end and allow Steph to focus more on offense.