The Golden State Warriors are in freefall, and nobody is pretending otherwise.
They’ve lost seven of their last ten games and tumbled all the way to ninth place in the Western Conference. The injury list reads like a nightmare.
Stephen Curry hasn’t played since January because of a nagging knee problem — his return is still a complete unknown. Star forward Jimmy Butler has been ruled out for the season with a serious knee injury suffered in mid-January. Draymond Green, Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, Seth Curry, and De’Anthony Melton have all been in and out of the lineup for weeks.
Finding any kind of rhythm has been impossible.
Head coach Steve Kerr, usually the picture of calm composure, finally laid it bare after another brutal defeat. When asked how bad things really are, he answered with four devastating words:
“We’re going through it.”
Then he doubled down.
“We’re about as beaten up as any team I can ever remember,” Kerr said, via ESPN.
The 76ers would probably like a word, but Kerr’s point lands like a hammer. This Warriors team has been absolutely ravaged by injuries, robbed of any chance to show what they could truly be.
With Butler gone for the year and Curry’s timeline still murky at best, a legitimate playoff run feels like a fantasy. The Play-In Tournament is now the realistic ceiling — unless Steph somehow returns in the next few weeks and turns this season into one of the greatest comeback stories in franchise history.
Even Kerr knows how unlikely that is. He just won’t say it out loud… yet.
The only question left is whether this nightmare season will be the one that finally convinces Kerr it’s time to walk away when his contract expires this summer.
Right now, in the Bay, it sure feels like it.