Warriors' 'Gap Year' Plan for 2026-27 Season Hides Ugly Truth

The Golden State Warriors have been painfully inactive this free-agency period, and it's caught the league's attention.

They are the only team that has not signed a player who was rostered by a different team last year.

In other words, of their 13 players on standard contracts, 12 were with the team last year. The only new player is rookie first-round pick Yaxel Lendeborg.

NBC Sports Bay Area's Monte Poole recently wrote a column about how GM Mike Dunleavy hinted to the fanbase that there wouldn't be much action this free agency. In that column, Poole used the term "gap year" to describe what the Warriors are thinking.

The premise is that they are choosing to hold their draft picks and keep their books clean so they can potentially make big moves next offseason.

Though I'm not fond of this plan, that's not what I wanted to call out with this column.

Instead, I wanted to bring to light an ugly truth that's hidden from the discourse about this gap year.

That hidden truth is that the Warriors have been using the gap year strategy for most of the last eight years.

The Original Gap Year

The first time I'd heard the term gap year in a Warriors context was during the 2019-20 season.

The Dubs were coming off going to five NBA Finals in a row, but they knew going into the season that they were taking a year off from serious title contention.

Klay Thompson was out for the season. The Warriors salary-dumped Andre Iguodala with a first-round pick so they could get D'Angelo Russell in a sign-and-trade for Kevin Durant.

Fans knew the Dubs needed to make another big move to make up for the wing losses to Thompson, Durant and Iguodala, but they understood that Joe Lacob and Bob Myers were waiting for Thompson to return to go for a title again.

And then Stephen Curry suffered a major injury four games into the season, making the Warriors the worst team in the league and making 2019-20 the dictionary defintion of a gap year.

Another Gap Year

Thompson suffered a season-ending injury during the 2020 offseason, forcing Lacob and Myers into deciding whether they'd endure another gap year or go all-in to try to win without Thompson.

They essentially chose the second gap year, drafting James Wiseman and trading pennies for Kelly Oubre Jr.

Curry had arguably the best season of his career, but he was woefully supported. The Warriors missed the playoffs.

Championship Season

Before Thompson returned in January 2022, the Warriors were off to a great start anyway. Jordan Poole was having a third-year breakout, offseason additions Otto Porter Jr. and Gary Payton II were having a big impact, and Kevon Looney was thriving as a full-time starter.

Andrew Wiggins made his first All-Star team with the best defense of his career.

You could still make the case that the Warriors were holding back for the future with three lottery picks on the roster (Wiseman, Kuminga, Moody) and all but one of their future first-round picks owned, but they had enough to win a title anyway.

2022-23: Something Close to a Gap Year

The Warriors accepted being a worse version of themselves from the year before by losing Porter and Payton in free agency. They were testing their "two timelines" approach by opening up minutes to develop their youngsters.

The strategy did not pay off, as they ended up trading Wiseman for an injured Payton at the trade deadline and finishing sixth in the Western Conference standings.

In all, the Warriors gave more than 2,000 minutes combined to Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and Patrick Baldwin Jr. Their net ratings were minus-22.8 for Wiseman, minus-15.2 for Baldwin, minus-5.0 for Kuminga and minus-2.0 for Moody, per Cleaning the Glass.

One of the hallmarks of a gap year is to let young players develop so they will be ready for a contention push the following year. In that sense, 2022-23 was like a gap year.

2023-24: More Gap Year Behavior

The Warriors prioritized the development of Kuminga, Moody and Brandin Podziemski, but in this case, they were three of the seven Warriors with positive net ratings. Playing them wasn't hurting their chances.

What the Warriors needed to do was recognize that the Chris Paul experiment wasn't working well enough and trade him, picks and youngsters for a star.

Instead, the Warriors did nothing at the trade deadline before losing Paul for nothing in the offseason.

The big mistake was reportedly not being willing to trade Kuminga in a package for Pascal Siakam. The Warriors were prioritizing the future with Kuminga over the present with Curry, which is gap-year-like behavior.

2024-25 and 2025-26: Butler Trade and Its Fallout

From the moment the Warriors made the Jimmy Butler trade in February 2025 to when he got hurt in January 2026, they weren't in full gap year mode.

And it paid off, as they had their best stretch since the 2021-22 season before getting to the second round of the playoffs. They could have advanced further if Curry didn't get hurt.

But when Butler got hurt in 2026, they had a choice to try to contend without him, probably by trading multiple first-round picks and Kuminga for a star.

Instead, they traded Kuminga for Kristaps Porzingis, keeping their future picks and signaling to Curry that they weren't serious about contending.

They missed the playoffs, setting up this offseason.

Current Gap Year

The Warriors had options this offseason to at least give Curry something to work with, but all of those options involved trading future first-round draft capital.

Instead of doing that, the front office wants Curry to play out his age-38 season with a lacking roster so the Dubs have max cap space for 2027 free agency.

This all feels unprecedented in sports history. It's already rare for a team's best player to be 38 or older, but for the front office to then ask that 38-plus star to endure a gap year is a plot point that even Lost writers would find unrealistic.

Considering the recent history of high-end starters signing extensions instead of hitting the free-agent market, it's a plan that has its faults.

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