The Warriors are 'pretty good' at halfway mark, but is there a path for them to get better?

After the Golden State Warriors smashed the shorthanded Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday, both Steve Kerr and Draymond Green told reporters the team was in a "pretty good" place. Halfway through the regular season, Golden State is 22-19 and eighth in the West. This is not what the Warriors envisioned when they were talking about championship contention heading into the season, but they've won nine of their last 13 games, they have the league's fifth-best defense and they're healthy.

"We obviously have lost some games in the first half of the year that we should have won," Kerr said following the 119-97 win. "We feel like our record should be better, but none of that matters. We gotta just take care of ourselves right now and do what we can to climb up the standings. We're playing better, playing pretty consistently, doing a lot of good things right now."

Green said that Golden State is starting to "turn the corner." For a full month (with the exception of a game it punted against the Oklahoma City Thunder), Kerr has gone with the same starting lineup: Stephen Curry, Moses Moody, Jimmy Butler, Green and Quinten Post. This unit hasn't even been particularly effective, but "it allows the game to unfold in a way that we like," Kerr told reporters. Green doesn't have to start the game battling opposing centers, and the team has gotten comfortable with the rotation.

For all of the (cautious) optimism in the air. Butler blunt when asked for his midseason assessment: "Mediocre."

He continued: "We need to win more games, lose less games. That's just where we are. And I think it's the worst place to be is to be mediocre. Because yes, it can go either way, but nobody wants to be just average."

The Warriors were 21-20 at this point last season. They traded for Butler at the deadline, had a late-season surge and looked formidable before Curry strained his hamstring in the first game of their second-round series in Minnesota. This time around, a Butler-level acquisition is "unrealistic," according to GM Mike Dunleavy. The question, then, is whether or not there's a path for Golden State to go from good to great.

The turnover problem

Golden State's biggest issue this season is obvious: turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. The Warriors rank No. 24 in turnover rate (15.6%, per Cleaning The Glass), and an inability to take care of the ball has cost them several games. Memorably, Green turned the ball over eight times when they wasted Curry's 48-point performance in Portland on Dec. 14, and Golden State committed four straight turnovers at the end of the third quarter (and several more in crunch time) when the team collapsed in Toronto two weeks later.

Green, who leads the league in turnover percentage, has been the biggest offender. Specifically, he's been throwing the ball away: On a per-possession basis, only Luka Dončić has more bad-pass turnovers. As The Athletic's John Hollinger pointed out, with opponents not treating him as a scoring threat, Green has too often forced passes into tight spaces.

The bad news: Green is not the only one coughing the ball up. The Warriors' turnover rate is identical with him on and off the court. Around the league, teams have increased their ball pressure and prioritized forcing turnovers. Golden State has never been awesome at protecting the ball, but, this season, the sloppy stuff has been both too frequent and extremely difficult to overcome.

The good news: The Warriors have been significantly less sloppy lately! In their last 12 games, they have a better-than-average turnover rate (13.7%, per CTG). Some of that is health-related: They've looked like a more mature, organized team with veterans De'Anthony Melton and Al Horford back from injuries. Some of it may simply be the result of the team having a more stable rotation.

Golden State's offense has been just average overall. When it has actually gotten a shot up, though, it has generally been fine -- its effective field goal percentage is almost exactly the same as it was after the Butler trade last season. If the Warriors are just average in terms of taking care of the ball in the second half of the season, they could make a jump in the standings.

The bigger picture

At 37 years old, Curry is getting up a career-high 17.3 3-point attempts per 100 possessions and making 38.8% of them. On a per-possession basis, he's having his third-highest-scoring season. He's still shouldering an enormous load, shooting with absurd efficiency and attracting defensive attention like no one else in the NBA. We all know the Warriors are trying to maximize the roster around him. Ahead of the trade deadline, though, what exactly are they shooting for?

According to Kerr, they "just want a chance." In a recent interview on "The Tom Tolbert Show," Kerr said that they're not operating as if they "should be competing for titles year in and year out with San Antonio and Oklahoma City the next few years." They weren't the favorites, though, when they won the 2022 title.

"That felt like kind of a post-glory-years title," Kerr said. "We weren't quite ourselves, but we were good enough to give ourselves a swing at the plate, everything fell our direction, we went and got a ring. That was pretty cool."

Last season was also "pretty cool," Kerr said, from the Butler trade until Curry's injury. They weren't the league's most stacked team, and while they didn't end up making a title run like they did in 2022, they felt like they had an opportunity to do so. This season, they believe they can be that kind of team again. It would help if they could find a way to add some more offensive firepower, some more athleticism and maybe even a new starting center. This, combined with the Jonathan Kuminga situation, is why few teams are more interesting going into the trade deadline.

It is not good for anybody that Kuminga (who will become trade-eligible on Thursday) has found himself banished from the rotation again. By signing him to a tradable contract ($22.5 million this season, $24.3 million team option next season), though, the Warriors aren't in such a bad spot. They have all of their future first-round picks, too, and could conceivably include Moody ($11.6 million) and/or Buddy Hield ($9.2 million) in a deal.

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Together, those three contracts would be enough to absorb the salary of Michael Porter Jr., who is having an incredible season with the Brooklyn Nets and would supercharge Golden State's offense. It makes perfect sense that Golden State fans have come up with fake three-way trades that send Porter to the Bay Area and Kuminga to the Sacramento Kings (who remain both interested in Kuminga and at an impasse with the Warriors in trade talks, per The Stein Line's Jake Fischer). The Nets might not move Porter, though, and, according to NBC Bay Area's Dalton Johnson, the Warriors are hesitant to pursue him or part with future firsts.

If they can't pull off a deal for MPJ, can they find someone who can give them, say, what Otto Porter Jr. gave them four years ago? Could they add another player on Melton's level? Usually, if you're this close to .500, you're not just a role player away from making noise in the playoffs, but maybe Golden State is an exception. In recent years, while it hasn't had much room for error, it has shown an ability to reel off wins when the pieces fit and it catches a rhythm. They may be pretty good right now, but an upgrade would help.