The Golden State Warriors do not have a good offense. They are currently ranked No. 23 in the league, above just a handful of tanking teams. That's not where a team with championship aspirations wants to be, obviously.
There are a few ways to view this. Firstly, the optimists view; the Warriors obviously don't have the seventh-worst offense in the league, and the fact they're almost .500 while playing well below their potential on offense is a good thing. When the offense takes off, which it clearly will with Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler running the show, this team will be off to the races. They have a top-five defense, so a good offense will be enough to compete, and any offense with Steph Curry in it will at least be good.
Or, the pessimists view; the Warriors offense really is this bad, and they've gotten lucky to even be close to .500 at the 30% mark of the season. They're playing well over their heads, and that poor offense is going to catch up to their record, not the other way around. Steph Curry is 37, and relying on him to save the team every night is not sustainable in 2026, even as brilliant as he remains.
I believe the truth is. somewhere in between those two extremes. Yes, the Warriors' offense will look more like itself when Steph Curry is back in the mix.
The team is 2-5 without him, and the offensive rating is nearly 11 points worse when he's not on the court. When he is on the court, the team's offensive rating borders on the top 10 of the league. Granted, those numbers are a little skewed (if you find the offensive rating of teams only when their star is on the court, they'd all be better, of course) but the difference is still stark.
At the same time... Curry is a 37 year-old point guard with an outrageous offensive load to carry. He's going to miss games, and can't be expected to play 36-plus minutes every night he is active. In other words, the offense has to be at least passable when Curry isn't in the picture. So far, that hasn't been the case.
Warriors offense needs to figure out life without Steph Curry
I know that kind of sounds like fish needs to figure out life without water, but it rings true nonetheless. The Spurs have figured out life without Victor Wembanyama. The Thunder figured out life without Jalen Williams. The Suns have somehow figured out life with Dillon Brooks running the show.
Teams adapt. Golden State might have the biggest adaptation, as Curry remains the foundation of everything the Warriors do. But he's not going to play 82 games. Reaching that 65 game threshold might even be asking a lot.
If the Warriors have to just punt every game he doesn't play in, or completely falls apart whenever he's on the bench, this might be a longer season than fans expected.