Wednesday’s game won’t feature Draymond Green or Kevon Looney, and Steve Kerr has already stated that he’s merely experimenting with lineups and rotations to find his team’s most effective combinations. However, Chris Paul’s decision to start on the bench for the Golden State Warriors’ game against the Sacramento Kings at Chase Center is sure to raise eyebrows across Dub Nation—and deservedly so. He started both of the preseason games he participated in before to the Warriors’ game.

On Wednesday night, Jonathan Kuminga will essentially replace the Point God in the starting lineup as he comes off the bench. With Green still healing from a sprained ankle and Looney being a late scratch due to sickness, rookie Trayce Jackson-Davis will start at center.

When asked to elaborate on that choice prior to the game, Steve Kerr said that, although the Warriors are still in the dark about what happened before the regular season, Paul was also left out of the starting lineup against Sacramento in order to better utilize his versatility within the team’s overall strategy.

All around the camp, conversations have been taking place. We’ll do something completely different on Friday, like I mentioned. Kerr said to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, “All we’re doing is looking at different options and different combinations.” “Every day of camp, Chris has been incredible. He just keeps asking excellent questions and tries to blend in. What he wants is to win. He wants to succeed and be a part of something unique. I’ve also informed him that we need him to be authentic. He’s attempting to blend in, but occasionally, if the defense is playing a particular manner, we simply need him to go make four consecutive mid-range shots. That’s what we’re going for, that comfort zone, for both of us, and we’re exploring many avenues to get there.

The “seamless” chemistry that Paul and Stephen Curry had on the floor in Golden State’s opening two exhibition games is undeniable. Paul already has a great understanding of Curry’s exceptional off-ball mobility, which was best demonstrated by this lovely spontaneous give-and-go against the Los Angeles Lakers last week.

One of the key reasons Paul made sense to replace Green in the starting five after Green’s injury was that he was the only other playmaker on the Warriors with the same random mind-meld with Curry. Whether Paul starts or starts games from the sidelines in 2023–24, he will play a lot of minutes on the court with Curry.

The future Hall of Famer’s greatest contribution to Golden State, though, is his unparalleled ease on the offensive end of the court. With Curry off the court last season, the Dubs’ offense was wildly uneven and frequently destroyed by sloppy mistakes and poor shot selection. Not only will Paul’s presence on second units naturally alleviate those problems, but his ability to make and take mid-range shots in ball-screen actions will also give the Warriors another back-pocket scoring option.

That’s the dynamic Kerr proposed was most responsible for Paul’s Wednesday night benching. But don’t discount Kuminga’s inclusion as a beginning point.

Throughout the preseason, he has been Golden State’s most outstanding player, scoring from all three levels, dominating at the free throw line, and pounding the glass with the kind of controlled recklessness that coaches requested of him the previous year. Although Kuminga won’t be the Warriors’ everyday starter for the whole 82-game schedule, his addition to the starting lineup in the first five games against Sacramento is still a significant sign of his continued development.

Golden State is still figuring things out, and they won’t know for sure until Green gets back into the starting lineup and gets used to playing again. But the more Kerr talks about Paul being himself, the more probable it seems that Paul will be a 2023–24 Dubs bench player.