Inside the Warriors’ Murky Present and Its Impact on Stephen Curry

Last week, the yearslong saga of Jonathan Kuminga took some unexpected twists. In the aftermath of Jimmy Butler’s season-ending knee injury, Kuminga, exiled to the bench for more than a month, reemerged in the Warriors’ rotation, scoring 20 points in 21 minutes in a loss to Toronto. The next game, Kuminga injured his knee nine minutes into a loss to Dallas. Officially, the Warriors say it is a bone bruise, with Kuminga out indefinitely. “Such a shame,” coach Steve Kerr said. “He was playing great.”

Before the Butler injury, the Warriors were cooking. They had won 12 of their last 16 with the fourth-best offense in the NBA during that stretch, a reversal of the meandering, inefficient offense that ranked in the bottom third early in the season. Butler averaged nearly 21 points per game over those 16 games (on 52.2% shooting), reviving the dynamic combination with Stephen Curry that powered Golden State into the playoffs last season.

Since then … not so much. The Warriors are 1–3 since Butler’s injury. They surrendered 145 points in a loss to Toronto and 125 in a defeat to Dallas. They surged to a win against Minnesota on Sunday before dropping the rematch on Monday in a game in which Kerr rested Curry, Draymond Green and Al Horford.

The Warriors’ front office is not sitting idle. While the Bucks have steadfastly rejected overtures for Giannis Antetokounmpo, Golden State has made it known that a Kuminga/Butler-headlined package with a cache of draft picks could be available if that position changes, sources tell Sports Illustrated. (The Warriors, as general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said last week, aren’t shopping Butler’s contract, but it’s Giannis.) Similarly, Golden State is closely monitoring the Nets’ position on Michael Porter Jr. Brooklyn’s asking price for Porter is believed to be too high for the Warriors’ liking, a source says. But if the price comes down next week, a deal could be revisited.

Still, any deadline deal that has an impact is a long shot. And Dunleavy told reporters that the team wasn’t interested in any deal that cripples the franchise in the long term.

Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo during a game against the Nuggets. — If the Bucks are open to trading Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Warriors have signaled interest in a package involving Jonathan Kuminga, Jimmy Butler and draft picks. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

“If we’re talking about trading draft picks that will be going out when Steph isn’t here, it’s going to have to be a player that we think we’ll be getting back that is going to be here when those picks are going out,” Dunleavy said. “That player’s going to have to be pretty impactful. It would take a good amount—positionally, play style, archetype, all that. I would leave it pretty broad and open.”

Which brings us to Curry. No one in the NBA, not even execs from teams who would jump at the chance to make a run at Curry, believes the Warriors would ever consider trading him. Curry, said an exec from one of those teams, “is a legacy guy, like Dirk [Nowitzki] or Kobe [Bryant].” It would take Curry asking out for that to happen and Curry, with four championships in his pocket, isn’t likely to do that.

Still, Golden State is staring down a murky future. Curry is still a top-10 NBA player. His scoring (27.3 points), shooting (46.8%) and three-point shooting (39%) numbers are close to his MVP seasons levels. He was second-team All-NBA last season and is looking like a lock for a similar slot in this one. Last fall, in the annual NBA GM survey, Curry was voted as the player execs would most want taking a shot with the game on the line—and it wasn’t even close.

Curry, who will turn 38 in March, is aging incredibly. But the Warriors have limited avenues in the next year to add top talent around him. Interest in Kuminga, as Dunleavy noted in a viral quote last week, has been lukewarm. Golden State could probably offload Kuminga to Sacramento for DeMar DeRozan or Malik Monk, but the Warriors could have done a deal like that last summer. Dunleavy hoped a competitive market for Kuminga would materialize before the deadline. So far, it has not.

All of which could lead to some hard conversations next summer. Kerr is in the final year of his contract and The Ringer reported last week that some Warriors assistants believe he is headed out the door. Green will turn 36 next month and his game has not aged nearly as well as Curry’s. Will Curry be satisfied putting up numbers on a playoff contender next season? If he wants to end his career in Golden State, that may be the only way to do it.

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