The Golden State Warriors, like a bad episode of Ted Lasso, are in conflict between the sentimental and the sensical. Built around the triplet talents of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, the Warriors were not merely the NBA’s era-defining dynasty, but an idealized vision of how and what a team can be. While everyone else chased crass, cynical efficiency, they took the scenic route, organizing their offense around complex ball and player movement. At a time where team building has never been more mercenary, the Warriors stocked their roster with homegrown talent.
Last year, though, the Warriors discovered that their reservoir of good vibes had been tapped dry. Subsequently, they missed the playoffs, marking the first time they’ve done so with Curry, Green and Thompson all healthy. Even during their strongest moments, the Warriors looked torpid, the basketball equivalent of Andre Agassi and John McEnroe puttering around on a pickleball court. In turn, the season reeked of terminal grouchiness—Green literally lashed out and Thompson was passive-aggressive to the point that it became aggressive-aggressive. By the time the Kings mercy-killed them in the play-in tournament, it was obvious that this version of the Warriors wouldn’t—and probably shouldn’t—continue.
So they won’t. Thompson is off to Dallas. Buddy Hield, Kyle Anderson and De’Anthony Melton are coming to Golden State. Together, this represents a slight rejiggering of the Warriors’ ethos, a nudge towards the ordinary. Hield’s shooting, Anderson’s cunning and Melton’s doggedness are all excellent fits for Golden State, but Thompson’s scoring chutzpah and institutional knowledge can’t be replaced in aggregate.
Despite the fact that Thompson is mostly washed (and arguably dried, ironed, folded and put back in the drawer), his departure leaves a massive hole for his old team. As a result, the Warriors will have to revert to a Curry-centric offense. If Curry is the only guy who can score the ball, why should he be forced to split custody of it?
Whereas the peak version of Curry buzzed around in an electron cloud of possibilities, he’ll now have to mimic the likes of Luka Doncic or Jalen Brunson, dribbling alone at the top of the key, possession after possession. Fortunately, Curry has always been an unguardable, if underutilized, pick-and-roll ball-handler, buffed by the fact that defenses never had the chance to laser in on any one tactic that could potentially guard him.
Without Thompson beside him, Curry should reprise his role from the 2020-2021 season (his only fully Thompson-less season), when he averaged a career-high 32 points per game. In doing so, he touched the ball nearly 20 percent more often than he did last season; over the last four years, Curry’s usage rate spiked from 27.4 percent with Thompson on the court to 33.6 percent when Thompson was on the bench. By necessity, Curry will once again operate as a more conventional star player, assuming increased on-ball responsibilities at the expense of his signature off-ball scampering. Call the new-look Warriors the Mosque of Curry-doba: they’ve sacrificed something unique in the world and built something that anyone could have built anywhere.
As he enters his late 30s, Curry is still capable of anchoring a contender, even if he’s slowed down just enough to no longer be able to guarantee one. As such, the Warriors have spent much of the last year on the prowl for a new co-star, first trying to land LeBron James and Mikal Bridges at the deadline and then angling for Paul George and Lauri Markkanen this summer. In doing so, they’ve signaled a readiness to scrap their precious “two-timeline” gambit. To wit, the Warriors finally appear to recognize the urgency of the moment—there’s no time for the 36-year-old Curry to wait for young guys like Jonathan Kuminga or Brandin Podziemski to potentially ripen into All-Stars. For years, the Warriors have snootily resisted offers to cash in their young players and draft picks for a star. Now, they’re just as desperate as the teams they were once “light-years ahead of.”
In this sense, the Warriors’ frantic, angsty summer reveals the fragility of genius. If the Warriors once looked smarter than the rest of the league, it was because Curry, Green and Thompson were so great, they provided an answer key to any tests the team faced. Accordingly, the Warriors’ Hall of Fame trio insulated the franchise, allowing them to experiment and theorize without worrying about the repercussions. Their front office maneuverings were shrewd and their offense hummed because Curry, Green and Thompson could find harmony anywhere. Ultimately, the Warriors did not so much rewrite conventional wisdom as they were exempt from it.
Nonetheless, once Curry, Green and Thompson aged out of their prime, the Warriors have been unable to keep their various plates spinning. Their talent was no longer talented enough to act as a sure-fire cure-all. Suddenly, their profligate asset management (drafting James Wiseman, trading Jordan Poole, losing Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson in free agency) has left a roster too ill-equipped to compete with the best teams. Certainly, Curry is an elite player and Green can still put opposing offenses in a chokehold with his defense (when he’s not putting opponents in a chokehold with his hands, that is), but the West is so competitive that not even a future-mortgaging trade for an All-Star would necessarily vault the Warriors into the playoffs.
Still, the real sadness of the Warriors isn’t that they’re no longer especially good, but that they’re no longer happy. Mercifully, Thompson and the Warriors managed to find soft landings, at least as far as break-ups go. Thompson will ride out the twilight of his career as a crucial piece of a Mavericks team with real championship aspirations while Curry and Green will go down as the two greatest Warriors of all time. Eventually, the fond memories will crowd out the ill will. Eleven great seasons will outweigh one tense one. When you’re light-years ahead, you can find space for everyone.