The Warriors will use a big starting five against the Blazers

After losing Klay Thompson as a free agent, a hot topic quickly emerged for the Golden State Warriors: Who would start in the backcourt next to Steph Curry? There was no shortage of proven two-guards sliding into Thompson's place. There was 2023 first-round pick Brandin Podziemski, who started 28 games as a rookie and was so highly regarded that the team reportedly refused to include him in Lauri Markkanen trade talks. There was fourth-year do-it-all winger Moses Moody, who was so valued that the Dubs signed him to a three-year extension on Sunday. There was defensive ace De'Anthony Melton, one of the league's brightest and most respected veterans. And there was arguably their biggest acquisition of the offseason: sharpshooter Buddy Hield.

Options galore.

At the end of the day, however, the Warriors chose an option that would have been very surprising just a few months ago: none of the above options. Shortly after The Athletic's Anthony Slater reported this, coach Steve Kerr announced that the Warriors would open the season against the Portland Trail Blazers, with Andrew Wiggins starting at shooting guard next to Curry and Jonathan Kuminga Wiggins' normal spot at the three-side position Frontcourt is occupied by Draymond Green and second-year center Trayce Jackson-Davis.

While this would have been shocking in the summer, it was the expected lineup on Opening Day. It was the starting five the Warriors opted for when Wiggins returned from illness and made his preseason debut, and it looked very good. Even when Curry had to miss the preseason finale, Kerr stuck with the supersized lineup and replaced Curry with Melton. It looked good too.

That's a big change from last year, when Wiggins and Kuminga were virtually unplayable together. And it's certainly a change of heart since the start of training camp, when Kerr disagreed with Green and Kuminga's assessment of Kuminga's position, saying the fourth-year pro was a power forward and not yet a small forward.

But Kuminga played brilliantly in Wiggins' absence in preseason and it was impossible to remove him from the starting lineup when Wiggins returned. So Kerr tried it out together and liked what he saw. And so they get a chance to prove it can work in the regular season, with success likely depending on Kuminga continuing to attack and make threes in transition and both he and Wiggins being aggressive and active off the ball.

It's still not clear how the remaining minutes in the rotation will pan out. But we're about to find out.