Despite Ageless Steph Curry, Anonymous NBA Scout Says Warriors Are ‘Going to Be In Trouble’ This Season

Last campaign marked another excellent season from Warriors superstar Steph Curry—as well as another deeply disappointing outcome for his team.

Golden State entered the year with a proven but aging supporting cast led by Jimmy Butler. Injuries plagued the rotation from the early days, culminating with Butler suffering a torn ACL in January. That spelled doom for the Dubs’ hopes that year with Curry battling nagging injuries of his own. They made a good show of the play-in tournament, riding an unlikely comeback win over the Clippers to set up a win-and-in game against the Suns. But they fell short and failed to qualify for postseason play for the second time in the last three years.

This past offseason didn’t wind up holding any answers for the woes Golden State suffered. The team landed Yaxel Lendeborg out of Michigan in the NBA draft lottery but otherwise made for one of the more quiet organizations during a very active summer around the association. The only move of note was giving midseason trade acquisition Kristaps Porziņģis a two-year, $40 million extension. At large the biggest news of the offseason came in the form of Steve Kerr’s decision to return to the sideline after openly mulling retirement.

And so the Warriors enter this new season in familiar territory, with a roster not nearly good enough to compete with true contenders (even if Butler’s return goes smoothly and arrives on schedule) but a superstar still capable of playing like the best of them when on the floor. How far does that get them in a very tough West? Not very far, according to one NBA scout.

“Curry is amazing,” an anonymous scout told Sports Illustrated. “Other than the injuries, there’s no regression. I mean, I'm sure if you watch film from 2017 or something, you would see some differences, but he's still one, two, and three on your scouting report when you play them if he's healthy.

“I think they're going to have to make a trade or Butler's going to have to come back a little bit early and be really healthy. Until he comes back, I think they're going to be in trouble.

“It's tough nowadays for an old team to win a lot of games in the regular season because you're always sitting guys. They're going to lose games just by being old. With Curry, you can win any game. But even if Curry's an All-Star, he's not going to be able to carry them, I don't think, more than to a .500-type record. I feel like that's probably their ceiling—around what they were last year, maybe a little better.”

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Curry will be flanked yet again by Draymond Green, Golden State’s star defender who has been the yin to Curry’s yang in many ways over the years for the Warriors. The 37-year-old’s Warriors future was in brief doubt for the first time ever this offseason when he opted out of his playoff option. But the veteran only opted out to maximize Golden State’s flexibilty amid free agency and trade talks; Green signed on again on a one-year deal worth $27 million. Kerr, Curry and Green will lead the franchise once more—for better or for worse.

“Draymond can still be productive,” said the anonymous NBA scout to SI. “He can probably give them what he did last year: good quarterbacking on defense, not much on offense. I feel like he's more of a liability offensively now. And teams have caught on. He's always going to see his worst coverage... Letting Draymond play one-on-one as much as possible is a good thing. So I feel like he's still a winning player, but offensively you can use his own self against him.”

Offseason recap

Brandon Williams is one of the Warriors’ few free agency addition so far this offseason. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Who’s in: Brandon Williams, Georges Niang, Yaxel Lendeborg
Who’s out: Jonathan Kuminga (at last season’s trade deadline), Pat Spencer

While they were named in rumors swirling around both LeBron James and Giannis Antetkounmpo, the Warriors didn’t land another star. So they wound up staying the course, keeping the roster almost entirely intact from last year’s 37-45 finish.

THe addition with the biggest chance to change things: Lendeborg. The rookie wing is 23 and one of his primary selling points as a prospect was that his skills are ready-made to impact winning at the NBA level. That’s extremely hard to do for any player in his first NBA season and even if everything breaks right Lendeborg alone isn’t enough to significantly alter the Dubs’ title chances. But he could be what they wanted Jonathan Kuminga to be: a big, strong three-and-D wing who accentuates Curry on both ends of the floor.

SI’s prediction for the 2026–27 Warriors

Record: 41-41

There are quite a few ways the Warriors’ season could get completely derailed and very few in which things break right. Curry missed nearly half the season last year and isn’t getting any younger. Butler’s timetable for a return is still up in the air and whether the 37-year-old forward can play good basketball after tearing his ACL is a big question—much less whether he can become a co-star to Curry the way Golden State needs to have a prayer of seriously competing. And those question marks can be found all over the roster, from 42-year-old Al Horford being relied upon for starter minutes to Porziņģis’s extensive, concerning history of missing games in great numbers.

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If everyone stays healthy, Lendeborg proves an impactful rookie and Butler gets back to full strength by the end of the season while Curry keeps cooking... the Warriors are interesting. Still a long shot for a deep playoff run, but that’s a feisty team. Anything less and Golden State is looking at another season floundering to a .500 record.

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