The Golden State Warriors have now had their fate sealed for multiple weeks. In the absence of Stephen Curry, they've fallen out of reach of a top-six seed. With the many teams tanking below them, they have ultimately no choice but to attempt to survive the Play-In Tournament.
Obviously the goal here would be to land the seventh or eight seed in the Western Conference, allowing them the opportunity to win just one game before facing off against the second seed in the first round. With their recent performance, even that is seeming more impossible. Golden State is currently the 10th seed, and there's two whole games separating them from the seventh-seed Los Angeles Clippers.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, and it likely means that any hope of a deep Warriors playoff run is already dead. It's a frustrating way for a season to end yet again.
Draymond Green, speaking on the latest episode of his podcast The Draymond Green Show, highlighted just how frustrating this result is for the team. In doing so, he may have pointed out a brutal truth about the state of the Warriors in their current era.
Will they ever be more than a play-in-caliber team before Curry's retirement?
The Warriors may be confined to the play-in no matter what they do
Green is just as frustrated as everyone who's rooting for the Warriors. With the way their season has gone, that's perfectly understandable.
“I feel like every year we come in and say, ‘Yo, we want to stay away from the play-in,’ and it’s like the play-in attracts us. It’s like we keep coming sayin’ ‘We just got to be Top 6, we don’t want to be a play-in team.’ And it’s just we’re looking at the wall and spinning to the wall. We keep ending up back in this play-in for whatever reason" - Draymond Green
In 2023-24, Golden State finished as the 10th seed in the West, only to lose to the Sacramento Kings in their first play-in game.
In 2024-25, their aggressive acquisition of Jimmy Butler helped them make a major late-season turnaround, but it wasn't enough to keep them out of the play-in. They finished seventh in the Western Conference, and although they advanced out of the tournament, it led to a difficult first-round series with the Houston Rockets. Though they prevailed in seven games, they were ultimately banged-up and deflated across their second-round series with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Warriors owe it to Curry to do everything they can to give him a shot at championship contention before the end of his career. With his contract expiring at the end of next season, that time could rapidly be approaching.
It seems as though, no matter what Golden State does, the aging nature of their core and the lack of cohesive depth across their roster limits their ceiling in the regular season. Over their past few campaigns, it's put them at a disadvantage from the very outset heading into the playoffs.
With Curry, you always have a chance at making an improbable run. But as it stands, this era of the Warriors will be remembered as a series of play-in-teams.
Perhaps some high-leverage moves this offseason can turn things around. For now, however, Green's comments highlight just how dismal things truly feel.