The Warriors’ stars were largely fantastic in Toronto tonight, they barked back-and-forth with the local hero on “Drake Night,” and they survived some bumpy defensive minutes in the second half to kickoff their big Eastern road trip with a nice victory over the Raptors.

Kevin Durant scored 30. Stephen Curry scored 35. Draymond Green absolutely ate up the Toronto offense in the second quarter, almost all by himself.

And Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston combined to make all five of their shots, grabbed a combined 6 rebounds, had a combined 9 assists and were plus-15 and plus-17 in the plus-minus, respectively.

So of course I was intrigued by something entirely different: Steve Kerr not only played rookie Patrick McCaw a career-high 21 minutes, Kerr actually kept McCaw in there for the final 7:35 of a competitive game on the road matched against some very good Raptors perimeter players.

And McCaw rewarded Kerr with very, very steady play throughout this game… all the way until the final buzzer.

This is relatively unprecedented in Kerr’s Warriors tenure–he hasn’t played a young perimeter player this early and this much in his three seasons here, but of course Kerr hasn’t had a young wing who plays as steadily and smoothly as McCaw, either.

Certainly not a SECOND-ROUND pick like McCaw. It’s amazing that he lasted until the 38th overall pick, but that’s what happened and the Warriors are reaping the rewards.

If Kerr is this comfortable with McCaw now… there are some implications certainly for the rest of this season (McCaw seems to have already mostly supplanted Ian Clark as the back-up shooting guard) and probably for next offseason, too.

Big implications.

First, let’s get into what happened tonight…

McCaw was the first guard off the bench–subbing for Klay Thompson late in the first quarter–and went on to take all of Clark’s usual minutes plus many others.

You can tell what Kerr likes about him: McCaw doesn’t ever look flustered, can handle the ball, he can use his 6-7 frame to create offensive angles when he drives, also is perfect in the Warriors’ switching defense and can hit a shot or two.

I think especially against opponents with multiple scoring guards, Kerr is going to lean on McCaw for a few stints, and if Thompson is a little cold that night (as he was again tonight) or Iguodala needs a little more rest, McCaw might see those minutes stretch out.

And tonight, Kerr used McCaw as a wild-card–he played Iguodala a little more than usual earlier in the game as he was mixing and matching and throwing multiple guys at DeMar DeRozan–also, presumably because Kerr knew he had McCaw to close the game, or at least wanted to take a look at that.

In that last 7:35, which started with the Warriors up by 11, McCaw made a nice drive-and-pass to David West for an assist, got a rebound, made a three-pointer, and blocked a shot.

He wasn’t overwhelming on defense–none of the Warriors were able to stay in front of DeRozan, Lowry and/or Norman Powell in the last minutes, but McCaw wasn’t awful on D, either.

Mostly, he just blended right in. The closing unit was: Curry-Draymond-Durant-McCaw-Klay (with Livingston in for some of those minutes before he was subbed out for Klay).

Overall, McCaw scored 5 points on 2-of-3 shooting, and had 3 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal.

He was minus-3 on the night, but that’s mainly because the Warriors were just exchanging free throws with Toronto for most of the end of the game.

And most importantly: Kerr never pulled him down the stretch, just kept him in there, and the Warriors won.

Since McCaw has come back from missing several games with a sprained ankle, Kerr has used him for 20, 15, 18 and now 21 minutes.

While Clark in those games has played: 12, 11, 5 and tonight he had a DNP.

There is a trend here.

This doesn’t mean the rotation is set permanently now, of course–Kerr always likes to keep open the possibility of anybody on his bench getting extra minutes here or there, depending on the match-up and performance-levels, and he likes Clark in there sometimes and proved it during last postseason.

But McCaw deserves more time, and I’m sure will get a fairly regular shot in the rotation as the back-up SG (Leandro Barbosa’s old spot), and I think there are big-picture elements to this, too.

He just does more stuff than Clark, is better with the ball and has a far higher ceiling.

Which leads to the long-term question: McCaw is an option when and if the Warriors have to start stripping their roster again to make room for Durant and Curry’s pending max/near-max deals next July.

And if it spins the way it’s looking, the Warriors will need somebody who can play defense, handle the ball and blend right in with the superstars, and gee, who did that tonight?

* Basically, it’s not clear whether the Warriors can re-sign Livingston and/or Iguodala next summer while also giving Durant and Curry max or close-to-max deals when they hit free agency in July.

Also, Livingston is 31 and Iguodala is 32 and as the Warriors plot out their near- and long-term future, they will have to at some point have a plan to replace both players if not immediately then at least in the next few years.

–IMPORTANT POINT: Iguodala and Livingston remain hugely important players for everything that the Warriors do and Iguodala especially remains an almost magic “plus” player practically every game, and a true leader in the locker room.

–They are major pieces right now. They have been for several seasons, they are now. I am NOT writing them off after nine games this season. The opposite of that.

–But you can’t keep the same roster forever, a decision the Warriors already made last summer when they offloaded Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli and Harrison Barnes in order to make room for Durant and they will have to face the possibility of more offloading next summer as they move to re-sign Durant and Curry.

–You always have to make decisions, and the Warriors’ front office committed to doing whatever it takes to keep Durant long-term once they jettisoned all those players to get him last summer.

So… we know there will be a new CBA agreement soon, we have seen the reports that there will be alterations.

These changes will almost certainly including larger cap-holds (dollar-figures that are charged against a team’s salary-cap for their own free agents or empty roster spots while they maneuver to re-sign those players or fill those spots) for most categories of players, and that puts a large arrow right on the Warriors’ ability to re-sign both Durant and Curry next summer.

I don’t want to get too far into the details, but any kind of increase in the cap-hold figures will severely limit what the Warriors can do with these two players who obviously deserve and could presume to demand max salaries.

Even if only a few of the rumored changes occur–increased minimum cap-holds up to 15 roster slots (instead of 12) and slightly higher percentages for veteran players–the Warriors probably will be looking at some or all of these tough choices:

–Pick between Livingston and Iguodala, who both will be free agents and whose combined cap-holds might preclude the Warriors from offering Durant anything close to the max;

The Warriors don’t have Durant’s Bird Rights, so his new salary will have to come out of cap space (or he could take a 20% raise from this season’s salary, without it fitting into cap space, but that would be less than his expected max salary)

The Warriors do have Curry’s Bird Rights (presuming they remain the same), so they don’t have to fit his new salary into cap space, but if his cap-hold explodes, then they will have some juggling to do to sign other players;

–If the cap-hold increases are harsh, it’s possible the Warriors will have to sacrifice both Livingston and Iguodala in order to pay Durant and Curry, if the cap-hold increases are harsh;

It’s also possible Iguodala or Livingston would take under-the-market salaries to stay with the Warriors, but I never presume that for any player because it’s their right to seek as much as the market will bear;

–They Warriors might also ask that Durant accept several million less than the max for next season;

But I’m not sure they want to ask that and it’s not likely that Durant would want to or should shave his salary low enough to fit Livingston AND Iguodala or even just one of them, if the cap-holds go too high;

He’s a great player. He knows what his market-rate is. If he doesn’t want a dollar less, he shouldn’t be asked to take a dollar less.

So… let’s just say that as the Warriors peer into the future, they are probably taking a hard look at Iguodala and Livingston.

It’s not a major leap because the Warriors might have had to jettison Livingston last summer to fit Durant if the cap figures didn’t jump up, and they would’ve done it, I’m pretty sure, but the cap jumped so they didn’t have to think about it, yet…

Fast-forward to next summer, with Livingston one year older and the CBA rules slightly or more than slightly more onerous… and yes, the Warriors would have to be thinking about it again.

The Warriors’ front office probably doesn’t like thinking about it. They obviously are primarily focused on winning a title this season and I would assume badly want to keep both players for as long as it is possible.

Again, I am not saying this means Iguodala and Livingston are on borrowed Warriors time. Not at all. I don’t know what the rules will be and what else is possible.

But the Warriors also always have to look to the future. If the new CBA narrows their options next summer, there is no bigger issue looming than their flexibility to re-sign Durant and Curry.

It’s very possible that to create the most flexibility, they will have to look at Livingston and Iguodala; it is also very possible that the owners making this deal are purposely aiming it at the Warriors and trying to make it as difficult as possible to keep Durant and Curry.

But that’s another question entirely.

Just look at the overall picture and you can see that the Warriors need to find perimeter players who fit into the future.. and currently, their liveliest option is McCaw, who isn’t an exact clone of either Iguodala or Livingston but can do some of the things both can do, and at a far cheaper price.

He plays defense. He can pass the ball. He doesn’t need a ton of shots, so he can fit alongside the superstars just fine and also as a sidekick for a secondary unit led by either Durant or Curry.

The Warriors will need other supplementary players, for sure, if the cap and the Durant/Curry deals shred them of other significant veterans.

As long as they have Durant, Curry, Draymond and Klay, they will need to fill in the other spots with inexpensive players, as they did this season with Zaza Pachulia and David West.

If they lose Iguodala or Livingston, they will especially will need young defensive-minded perimeter players–McCaw is a good start for that and he showed why tonight.