Warriors’ Pat Spencer is having a Linsanity moment — how long can it last?

Pat Spencer fits the Hollywood mold of the underdog sports story. A little (by NBA standards). Not compiled. The guy didn't play basketball in college until his fifth year of high school after a legendary lacrosse career. He played abroad. Passed through WarriorsA system from the ground up – summer league, G-League, and now a two-way contract with a big club for which he has become something of a cult hero.

Over the last four games, Spencer is averaging 16 points, 5.8 assists and 4 rebounds on 59% shooting. He has made six of his last eight 3-pointers, giving him a 44% shooting percentage on the season. Not bad for a guy who couldn't make a single shot from deep in his only college season.

Spencer has obviously worked hard to get to this point. You don't have to know the finer details of his journey to know that there were many points where he probably could have given up. He never did. And here he is, the driving force behind Golden State rebuilding to a 3-2 record (which was seconds away from 4-1) in five games without Stephen Curry.

Warriors fans are going crazy for this guy, and understandably so. Spencer is currently running his own little version of the Linsanity run, and one night in Philadelphia he yells, “I'm that motherfucker”:

Next, I bid farewell to the Cleveland crowd:

Spencer, of course. feeling him and his game, and more importantly Steve Kerr, the man in control of the game. Kerr put Spencer in the starting lineup against the Cavs, and he responded with 19 points, seven assists and three rebounds in a huge win over the expected title contender without Curry. Jimmy Butler or Draymond Green in uniform.

The Warriors were, and essentially still are, treading water in their playoff run in an expectedly murderous Western Conference. With Curry sidelined for two weeks, he had a realistic chance of returning to a sub-.500 team.

Instead, he's expected on Friday night against Timberwolves and suddenly the 13-12 Warriors, after a much-needed three-day break without games, feel like a team with some juice again. Give Spencer flowers. He was instrumental in this small turn of events and will continue to play his role (we'll see how important it is) even when the Warriors' stars are fully recovered.

“We'll have to figure that out,” Kerr said earlier this week on 95.7 The Game when asked what Spencer's role will look like once Curry returns. “I'm not going to take all his minutes, I can tell you that. I'm definitely going to play him with Steph. Part of that will depend on the matchups. How well we can hold our own defensively… But the way Pat plays, the impact he has on winning, the impact he has on just the competitive spirit of the team, I have to keep playing with him.”

This is where it gets interesting because until the last few weeks, all Spencer has given the Warriors has been gravy. For the most part, he was a mustachioed cheerleader. Now he has set a higher standard and that comes with expectations.

Expectations, as a league scout told me several years ago, are the root of disappointment. I liked this line. I use it all the time. This is so true. Especially for NBA role players. Just look at this guy Brandin Pod Ziemiyawho became the Warriors Twitter punching bag. People think the Warriors are a Little League team and Podz only plays because Kerr is his father. It's like he doesn't even belong on an NBA court.

This is funny. Podziemski has been a winning player almost from the moment he arrived in Golden State. As a rookie, the Warriors outscored their opponents by 5.3 points per 100 possessions when he was on the court, according to Cleaning the Glass.

Last year, that number rose to plus-6.8, and if you filter a small sample and look only at Podz lineups that combined for at least 50 possessions, the Warriors were plus-22.6 when Podz played. This year's total doesn't look that big, but it's still positive at plus-0.8, and again, the nine lineups where Podziemski recorded at least 20 possessions are averaging plus-10.5 per 100 plays.

This is not a coincidence. Podzemsky is not perfect, but at his best he is Josh Hart the type of player that you can associate with everything that contributes to winning. Just from an energy point of view it is very valuable. He is an elite positional rebounder. He is always at the top of the league in charges received. On a team that collectively struggles to generate downhill pressure, he really gets into the paint. Each season, Podziemski's performance improved by almost identical minutes. He's currently shooting 40% on five three-pointers per game.

This is a guy who keeps things simple and clear. If you think he didn't collect stretches like the one Spencer is doing now, you're crazy.

The problem is that expectations are high for Podz, partly because of performances like these. Kerr has also shown a commitment to allowing him to play through mistakes when other young players are not given the same freedom, which irritates fans when they see him get dizzy and cheat his head into bad shots and turnovers.

And let's not forget the absolutely insane expectations that Podziemski had for himself when he basically told The Athletic's Nick Friedell before the season that he wanted and, on some level, expected to be the player that Curry would eventually hand over the keys to the franchise to.

There's confidence and delusion, and if Podziemski sincerely thinks he's the next franchise player, he's leaning heavily toward the latter. But these are just things of perception. The reality is that if Spencer were to call out the Underground numbers from a sample of over 100 games, it would be considered a huge success. As for Podzemsky, even though he had a lot, one is left wanting more. Expectations are the root of disappointment.

Let Spencer play real minutes. many real games. Let him feel the heat of the postseason with the ball in his hands. That doesn't mean what Spencer has achieved over the past few weeks has been a fluke. Every time he got minutes, he proved more and more that he could play. He almost certainly made millions of dollars on his next deal. In fact, he may be better suited to start the offense than Podziemski, who is best on the ball, attacks gaps in the defense's movement, and can get himself in trouble by trying to create too much chaos on his own.

Spencer knows his role that way. He organizes. Keeps the ball and flow moving. That's why Kerr wants to play him alongside Curry, because he naturally has the ball-handling skills designed to run through a maze of off-ball moves until the greatest shooter ever eventually bursts into open space, while Podz sometimes tends to get a little impatient if he gives control of the ball.

In an ideal world, fans wouldn't need to pit these guys against each other, but it's true that they serve the same functions and could, if Spencer keeps this up, compete within minutes.

Against OKC, Kerr replaced Spencer, who played brilliantly as Golden State was able to pull off a tough upset without Curry and Butler (who left the game in the first half) against the league's best team at 3:56 of Podziemski's fourth quarter, and from that point the Warriors went from a four-point deficit to a 12-point loss. Kerr spoke about the decision later and noted that it was a difficult choice because “both guys really played great games.”

This is true. Both Podziemski and Spencer finished with 17 points. Spencer added six assists. Podziemski hit three of five 3-pointers and scored 6 of 11 points overall. Still, fans were furious that Kerr dared to bring Podz back into the game. Spencer is their boyfriend now. Half of them have wanted Podzemski to be traded for a long time, and they remain irritated by the two-time approach of the organization, of which Podziemski is a key part.

Meanwhile, Spencer can do no wrong at this point. Give it some time. Given enough lighting, all role players show their flaws. That's why they are role players. The only difference here is that Spencer knows he's a role player. Hell, it took a career-altering four-game streak to even consider it. He hasn't set any real expectations for himself yet, but they are coming. Let's see what he does with them.