The Golden State Warriors are not pretending this summer has gone the way they wanted. After falling in the play-in tournament last season, the hope was obvious: add real help, give Steph Curry another push, and try to chase a fifth NBA championship. Instead, the big names never materialized.
That has left Golden State in a place it doesn’t love, but also doesn’t seem eager to panic over. On NBA Today, ESPN’s Anthony Slater said the Warriors are comfortable with a return-to-form approach, even if that means acknowledging they are not in the title race.
“They only have room for some minimums left, so the reality is that they’re bringing a lot of it back together,” said Anthony Slater on NBA Today. “The Warriors want the ability to make moves in-season, in free agency next year.
But [The Warriors are] just fine running back with this kinda older 37-win core and understanding they’re not necessarily a part of the title conversation. I talked to Steve Kerr, and he laid out his thoughts on this moment for the franchise.
There’s a lot of angst, but he said to me that ‘I didn’t think we were in the running for LeBron. Everyone kept saying we were, but it never seemed serious to me.’
They always planned to bring the team back together; they didn’t make any big-swing trades. This is their static situation right now.”
Golden State did get off to a promising start in the summer. The team drafted Yaxel Lendeborg and then brought back Kristaps Porzingis on a team-friendly deal.
But once free agency opened up, the options thinned fast. The Warriors were quickly out of the Giannis sweepstakes, and they never had a real shot at trading for Kawhi Leonard.
That left LeBron James as the biggest possible swing. He was choosing between the Warriors, Heat, 76ers, and Cavaliers, and in a perfect world Golden State would have landed him or Giannis and re-signed Green to get back into the league’s top tier. But the Warriors believe they were never truly in the mix for James, even with the noise around them.
According to the team’s view, James was turned off by the history between the two sides, which includes four Finals showdowns. The Warriors had hoped for a different outcome, but when James signed with the 76ers, the path forward got a lot clearer - and a lot less glamorous.
So the plan now is to run it back and keep the door open for future moves. Golden State knows exactly where it stands: not in the title picture, but still trying to preserve flexibility for in-season changes and next summer’s free agency.
For Curry, that reality is the hardest part. His loyalty is being tested, and the clock keeps ticking. The Warriors have won at the highest level with him, but now he is being asked to spend more of what little time he has left in the NBA waiting on a better version of this roster to arrive.
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