{"id":352972,"date":"2025-12-17T02:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T02:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352972\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T02:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T02:23:07","slug":"if-steph-curry-cant-save-warriors-were-truly-in-dynastys-final-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352972\/","title":{"rendered":"If Steph Curry can\u2019t save Warriors, we\u2019re truly in dynasty’s final days"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warriors coach Steve Kerr<\/a> says he isn\u2019t doing a good job.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m inclined to believe him.<\/p>\n

Because right now, the Dubs aren\u2019t a basketball team. They are a desperation experiment. It\u2019s no longer \u201cStrength in Numbers,\u201d it\u2019s \u201cThrow Spaghetti at the Wall and Pray it Looks Like Art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert: It doesn\u2019t. It looks like a mess. And it reeks of panic.<\/p>\n

Steph Curry has scored 87 points<\/a> in his first two games back from injury<\/a>. Eighty-seven. He\u2019s playing at a first-team All-NBA level in his late 30s, defying physics, logic, and Father Time.<\/p>\n

And it hasn\u2019t mattered.<\/p>\n

This, friends, is what the terminal stage of a once-great dynasty looks like.<\/p>\n

When the \u201cSave Us, Steph\u201d button \u2014 the franchise\u2019s panic switch that has bailed them out of every jam since the Obama administration; the one that even Team USA used in the Olympics \u2014 isn\u2019t working, it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

Alas, the button has been pressed so hard it\u2019s now permanently stuck in the console.<\/p>\n

If Steph dropping nearly 90 points in 48 hours doesn\u2019t overcome the problem, you don\u2019t have a slump. You have a corpse.<\/p>\n

Look around at the carnage. Kerr\u2019s on-court relationship with Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> has reached an impasse, again. But beyond the that will-they, won\u2019t-they drama, look at the personnel: This rotation changes more often than NBA teams switch uniforms these days.<\/p>\n

(I\u2019m saying it\u2019s a lot. I\u2019m that old guy now.)<\/p>\n

Will Richard went from a nobody second-round pick to a rookie starter back to the end of the bench so fast he probably got whiplash. I\u2019m not sure what he did or didn\u2019t do to deserve any of it.<\/p>\n

Same with Kuminga: The 23-year-old forward played five good games and was anointed a permanent starter. Now he\u2019s permanently on the bench. The meaning of the word permanent is really getting pushed here, but at least we can say the Dubs\u2019 success isn\u2019t permanent.<\/p>\n

Quentin Post played well for exactly one week, so naturally, Kerr is now riding him like he\u2019s prime Andrew Bogut \u2014 at least until he decides on Thursday that Post is unplayable.<\/p>\n

Remember when Seth Curry showed up, played roughly 15 minutes in his first two games, and wasn\u2019t seen from again?<\/p>\n

Oh, and how can we forget Pat Spencer? One minute he\u2019s in the G League, the next he\u2019s in the starting lineup, forcing the Dubs to play a 2-3 zone because a Curry-Spencer backcourt has all the defensive authority of a speed limit sign on I-5 outside Modesto. Everyone ignores it, and someone is going to get hurt.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s frantic. It\u2019s debasing. And worst of all, while it\u2019s intriguing if you\u2019re someone who views sports as expensive reality TV, if you actually like basketball, it\u2019s creating a downright boring product.<\/p>\n

Steph is trying, but no one is coming to save him or the Dubs.<\/p>\n

Al Horford doesn\u2019t play.<\/p>\n

Draymond Green is a shell of his former self. We have to be honest about that. He\u2019s effective on one end of the floor for mere spurts, a part-time defensive coordinator who can no longer guarantee overall team competence on that end of the floor, let alone dominance.<\/p>\n

And Jimmy Butler? The grand acquisition? He looks nothing like a superstar. He looks slow, unexplosive, and frankly, like a negative on the defensive side. He\u2019s wandering around the court like a tourist looking for a coffee shop.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough watch.<\/p>\n

And for the first time in a decade \u2014 excluding 2020, which luckily doesn\u2019t count as a year \u2014 the Warriors can\u2019t even lie to themselves anymore.<\/p>\n

Since the 2022 title, the Dubs have been able to operate on an often delusional hope:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we just get healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we just click for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust get through the play-in tournament, and there\u2019s a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lies we tell ourselves\u2026<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s all gone now.<\/p>\n

This team \u2014 even if everything \u201cclicks\u201d \u2014 isn\u2019t beating the Rockets in a seven-game series. They aren\u2019t touching the Spurs, the Nuggets or the Thunder.<\/p>\n

This organization used to pace the field. But they\u2019ve been fully overtaken. Now they\u2019re getting lapped.<\/p>\n

The only reason this brand of mediocre basketball isn\u2019t resulting in a truly lost season is that the Western Conference has decided to be terrible at the bottom. The bar for the final play-in spot is 10-16.<\/p>\n

But the Warriors have become irrelevant.<\/p>\n

The Warriors are 14-15, stumbling over a bar that is lying on the floor.<\/p>\n

They are wasting greatness. They are taking the twilight of the greatest shooter who ever lived and surrounding him with fads, G Leaguers, and fading stars, hoping the spaghetti sticks.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s just sliding down the wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warriors coach Steve Kerr says he isn\u2019t doing a good job. I\u2019m inclined to believe him. Because right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,5552,56492,3914,590,85,2136,85084],"class_list":{"0":"post-352972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-golden-state-warriors","12":"tag-inside-sports","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-sports-columnists","17":"tag-warriors-hq"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}