The Warriors aren't dead yet, the NBA regular season is just a (too) long slog

“The King is Dead. Long Live the King.”

Depending on what you read – and who you trust – the Great Warriors Dynasty of the last decade is dead, dying or on life support.

And the evidence presented against these past months and months keeps blasting on a "First Take"-ian loop:

Klay is washed and unable, Draymond is unstable. Wiggins is perpetually unavailable, Kuminga unsatisfiable. Steph is undeniable, sure, but his supporting cast is just too unreliable. 

Not to mention: Steve Kerr’s lost a step and his rotations don’t make sense, Joe Lacob’s arrogant and deluded – and Bob Myers escaped a sinking ship. 

And most recently: good teams just don’t get blown out by 50 points and so on and so forth.

But what is actually going on here?

Zoom out and consider – one of the main culprits of the Warriors’ uneven season might be unreasonable expectations, thanks to the NBA’s half-year long slog and its associated, exponentially-growing media ecosystem, microscope and storyline/podcast quotas. 

Golden State has received flack and been second-guessed for their roster-building hubris post-KD – but in sum, should be summarily celebrated for their two main David Blaine-esque juggling acts of 1) somehow managing to turn D’Angelo Russell into Wiggins and Kuminga and 2) squeezing a championship out of Jordan Poole and eventually jettisoning him before his value completely cratered into possibly the worst contract in the NBA – with a season of Chris Paul and a future first round pick an easy price to pay to escape second, third and forever tax apron hell.

Make a mistake? Keep Calm (Make a Trade) and Carry On. Ditto the semi-miraculous steadying of the ship after Kuminga’s public/private plea to leave in January post-Jokic bank shot/Hail Mary dagger and subsequent blossoming into a 20 PPG scorer and X-factor/difference-maker to the backdrop of Kerr’s public mea culpa. 

Kuminga is now a fully operational vertical force and the foursome he spearheads alongside Curry, Green and Wiggins is fierce (per ESPN’s Feb. 22 hit piece), with three big, multi-positional defenders as good as any in the league:

"The Warriors have used 17 starting lineups this season, but Kerr has found success with the one built around Curry, Wiggins, Kuminga and Green: They have played 246 minutes together this season," ESPN's Baxter Holmes wrote, "recording a plus-16.1 net efficiency, according to ESPN Stats & Information. That is the best among Western Conference four-man lineups to play at least 200 minutes together."

Meanwhile, 2023 draftees are long-haul keepers – gunner-and-now starting guard Brandin Podziemski is only 21 years old and at 6-foot-4, if not a perfect complement to Curry, splits the difference between Thompson and Paul in terms of play-making and shot-taking (and trash-talking) while big Trayce Jackson-Davis is a rim-running dynamo (who registered a game high +25 in their surprising and now-forgotten early-season win over the Boston Celtics).

Would the Warriors be better off with the fantasies of Tyrese Haliburton or LaMelo Ball (in place of James Wiseman) or Alperen Sengun instead of Moses Moody? Sure – and so would dozens of teams this side of Jonny Flynn and Todd Fuller.

In truth, the NBA landscape is just a vastly different place today than it was for the first half of Golden State’s reign (or the top-heavy decades prior), when a GSW-HOU West Finals had become a foregone conclusion, and challengers to that hierarchy were few and far between.

Now, there are at least a dozen teams with semi-realistic title chances – and a top-two in the West (the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves) that haven’t won a playoff series since the Obama and Bush years, respectively. 

That adds up to a regular season that favors the young and the rested, as well as consistent starting-fives – rather than a team trying, sometimes in vain, to integrate (and sometimes placate) a motley crew of old champions and new, young lions and former lottery picks.

The result is a slew of storylines that need to be cycled and recycled in the regular season’s media churn, an 82-game marathon which, as The Athletic’s John Hollinger pondered aloud last year, may not really even matter the way it used to (at least, as long as Jimmy Butler and Heat Culture are around).

Does any of this mean the Warriors should be feared once April springs anew? Not necessarily – though the five-alarm fires sounded at the sub. 500 see-saw for their first 40-something games now feels highly melodramatic.

And: they do sport an assortment of requisite, ancillary weapons to steal big games – and make people forget about their fall and winter swoon, at least until November 2024 rolls around – with a roster that runs a dozen deep surrounding the best shooter of all-time.

Thompson is gunning off the bench. Dario Saric is shooting 38% from three (with 2021 Finals experience to boot). Gary Payton II should be well-rested to reprise his position-less defensive mercenary act. Ditto CP3 (and his near-league leading 5.9 assist-to-turnover ratio) in his possible swan-song as a potent sixth or seventh option, instead of a No. 3 on last year’s Suns. 

Any or all of whom could be game (and series) changers in the mold of Mo Speights, David Lee or Leandro Barbosa; Otto Porter, Nemanja Blejica or Gary Payton II. Not to mention: Kevon Looney and Jackson-Davis are as good as any rotational bigs to throw at Jokic this side of Minnesota, with Green’s DPOY/generation lurking and looming large. 

As of March 5, the Warriors have somehow managed to win 13-of-17, and with 20-some games left, have the sixth-easiest schedule the rest of the way out — with the top-6 pillow and a potential leapfrog of the Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks within the realm of possibility. 

Zooming back into the playoffs ahead and it’s not hard to squint and conjure a world in which an eventual showdown with Denver comes to pass – and an old vs. new guard title winners and contrasting styles – Kerr vs. former Warriors assistant Mike Malone, no less – and a rematch of the 2022 First Round, only with no Will Barton or Monte Morris, Austin Rivers or Facundo Campazzo anywhere in sight. 

And moreover, this go-round: perhaps no team is as top-heavy as Denver, with Bruce Brown’s title-run scene-stealing now assigned to the collective of Christian Braun, Peyton Watson and Justin Holiday – and a continued reliance on Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.’s good run of health. 

Whether or not any of that accrues into anything close to Golden State potentially giving the Nuggets a real run for their championship money remains to be seen – especially with Denver’s seven-game winning streak dating back to 2022. 

But the Old King ain’t dead yet – so long as Steph and Draymond (and to a degree Kerr and Lacob) are around to challenge whoever sits at the current head of the table. Especially in the playoffs, when the Warriors get to throw their Beautiful Game of ball-sharing to the wind in favor of a steady dose of Steph-Dray PnRs and weakest (defensive) link big-game hunting.

Elsewhere: are SGA or Ant ready now? Is James Harden actually The One to break the Clippers Curse? Can Phoenix’s Big Three stay on the floor? Ditto DLO defensively for the Lakers? And on and on the West’s questions beg. 

In this climate, where the margins league-wide are thinner than ever, for pretty much every roster outside of Denver or Boston, it’s probably better to be lucky than good. 

With a blend of championship mettle and unrivaled depth, the Warriors have as good a shot as any team to keep creating their own luck, regular-season narratives be damned.