The Warriors are at a strange and rare crossroads: the spotlight has faded, the expectations have shrunk, and Steve Kerr is asking a veteran group to remake itself on the fly.
At media day on Monday in San Francisco, Kerr made the mission plain. “We have to reimagine our team this year… We have to win the game in the margins.”
The goal, as he framed it, is to play “a more modern brand of basketball.”
That’s a big shift for a franchise that once set the standard for the rest of the league. Now, the challenge is survival through adaptation. Kerr leaned hard into that idea throughout his availability, invoking “the process” again and again as the team tries to modernize its offense, cut down on turnovers and give this veteran core one more real shot.
The problem is obvious: the roster is old, banged up and not built for easy durability. Draymond Green, at 36, is the youngster in the group compared with Curry at 38, Jimmy Butler at 37 and Al Horford at 40.
Butler, who called himself “Robin” to Curry’s Batman, is coming off knee surgery and isn’t expected back until the holidays at the earliest. Curry missed 27 games last season with runner’s knee, and he acknowledged the issue by saying, “There is a management element to it, for sure.”
Green missed 14 games and was limited in plenty of others. Horford didn’t play back-to-backs last season, and that won’t change this year.
The injury concerns already started before camp could really get going. Center Kristaps Porziņģis has a vague medical issue that will keep him from traveling with the team to Hawaii.
General manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said he first learned about it Sunday night. The source of the issue was not specified, but it comes with the obvious reminder of the health problems that have limited Porziņģis over parts of the last two seasons.
Even with all that, Kerr and the Warriors are still pushing the idea of a process-driven reboot. He cited that word 10 times Monday, both directly and indirectly, while talking about the team’s need to commit to change. The message was clear: if this group has any chance to squeeze out another run, it has to do things differently.
That’s easier to say than to pull off over 82 games with a roster that mixes players who are well into their 30s with others who are still trying to prove they belong in the rotation. The Warriors, as constructed, are not likely to be title contenders this season. That’s been true for a while, even if the team told itself otherwise at the start of last season.
Kerr called it a “fading dynasty,” and the numbers back up the slide. Golden State won the championship in 2022, but since that title in Boston five seasons ago, it has won only two playoff series. In two of the last three seasons, the Warriors missed the postseason entirely.
Still, there’s a case to be made that this is exactly the right moment for a reset of sorts. The national attention that used to trail the Warriors everywhere has mostly moved on. The circus has gone elsewhere, and with it some of the weight that came with being the league’s center of gravity.
That leaves Golden State with something it hasn’t had in years: room to try something new.
The upside is obvious. Curry could still produce one more huge season.
Green could settle into a final, fully formed version of himself. And there’s real excitement around rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, who Kerr said “checks all the boxes,” while Butler was even more blunt: “He’s (expletive) massive.
He shoots the ball so incredibly well. He’s smart.
He wants to learn, and he’s a winning player.”
If that kind of young help hits, it could matter. If it doesn’t, the Warriors may just end up as a deeper version of an old theme: enough names, not enough force. Kerr pointed to the league’s current emphasis on depth, saying, “I think the league has shown all of us that it’s all about depth this year.”
So the plan is set. The rhetoric is in place. The Warriors are promising another reinvention, just without the cachet they once carried.
Now comes the hard part: proving that this version can actually change.
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There is a real opening there, and not just in the frontcourt. Golden State also has a starting job to sort out at shooting guard, where Brandin Podziemski and De'Anthony Melton are in the mix. For now, the camp spotlight is on how the Warriors balance those battles while trying to find the right fit around Green before the season gets rolling. [Read more 🡒]