As the Golden State Warriors prepare for next season, all eyes will be on their ability to compete with some of the juggernauts in the Western Conference as they attempt to vie for one more title within Stephen Curry's tenure with the team.
Yet, given the age of their star trio, and the potential disaster that any injury could cause, things could also go very, very poorly for the Warriors, and beat writer Marcus Thompson's recent reflections on the Good Word with Goodwill podcast make this fact blatantly obvious.
Although any team with a talent at the level of Curry's stands a fighting chance in the playoffs, this team, as it is currently constructed, stands on an exceedingly precarious ledge.
Marcus Thompson points out what could predictably go wrong go with the Warriors next season
Following their blockbuster acquisition of Jimmy Butler last season, Golden State's trajectory rapidly trended upwards, with the team going 23-8 and eventually nabbing the seventh seed in the playoffs on the back of an incredible stretch from both Curry and Butler.
Yet, once the team entered the fray of the postseason, injuries to both Butler and Curry effectively negated any chances they had of making a deep run, and, the team, after winning a hard-nosed, seven game series against the Houston Rockets, were handled easily by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round.
Now, as they prepare to enter a new campaign, Thompson has stated what would presumably go wrong if the Warriors were to be eliminated in the first round next season: "[They're] old... The league is getting younger and more athletic, and these dudes probably had to play a lot to get into the playoffs... When Steph pulls up lame in Game 1 of the semis, you could reasonably point to the load to get there [as the cause]."
Thompson, in analyzing what went wrong with Golden State's playoff run last season, sensibly points to the absolute fight the entire roster put on to grab a spot in the play-in: a brutal stretch of games that ultimately wore down the team's veteran core.
As they enter next season with, including presumed signing Al Horford, four starters over the age of 35 and attempt to compete in an absolutely loaded Western Conference, it is very likely the team will have to struggle mightily in order to get to the playoffs in the first place.
Therefore, if Thompson's diagnosis of last season's woes is correct, it is highly likely that the same issues will only show themselves more intensely this season as the team's core gets older and their competition gets tougher.