Golden State Warriors: Charles Barkley says Dubs will ‘struggle’ to make playoffs

Charles Barkley, a former All-Star center and current TNT host, said the Golden State Warriors will struggle to make the playoffs in 2020.

At some point, enough is enough. That point is now. The Golden State Warriors, barring any insane injury, will make the playoffs in 2020. Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and D’Angelo Russell will make sure of it.

However, Barkley, according to NBC Sports, said they’ll struggle mainly becuase the loss of Klay Thompson. If you didn’t know, Thompson is out till at least until the All-Star break because of a torn ACL that happened in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals.

The Dubs had three All-Stars last season. Now, they’ll be down to just one that’ll be returning from that team come opening day in 2019. Should that be concerning? Of course, but there will be teams with no All-Stars in 2019 that’ll try to contend with them.

It just won’t happen.

Russell, an All-Star in 2019, still hasn’t played a game for Golden State, being acquired just a few weeks ago. His fit is still unknown, and his ball-dominant play gives analysts a reason to worry about how he’ll mesh with Curry and Green.

The one thing that we’ve always known about Curry is that he’s willing to take the backseat. Not that he’ll take the backseat to Russell, but he’ll allow the 23-year-old space to play his style of basketball.

That won’t be easy for Curry who is used to playing alongside Thompson. However, it will allow Russell to seemlessly be incorporated into the culture. Also, the additions of Willie Cauley-Stein and Glenn Robinson III shouldn’t go forgotten.

The Warriors aren’t the dominant team that went 73-9, but they’re still very likely to make the playoffs in 2020. Over the last five years, people have hated on Golden State. Almost every time they’ve proven those that doubt them wrong.

This will again be one of those times.