It’s been a few weeks since our NBA Tuesday eyes looked at the Golden State Warriors, our local team that has fallen on “tough times” after a nice run of dominance from 2015–2022. With a 29-26 record now coming out of the All-Star break, the Warriors aren’t really a threat to win much as superstar Stephen Curry looks toward retirement someday soon. When that happens, the Golden State franchise will fall into disarray, as those bandwagon fans disappear, inevitably.

We don’t state this to be mean, but it’s the nature of the sport, really: Curry has been a transcendent player, and he is irreplaceable. The Warriors front office has tried its best to extend his window for winning championships, yet the most notable “title” run Curry has made in the last four years was the 2024 Summer Olympics gold medal, and that assuredly will be his final crowning glory. It’s not Curry’s fault things have ended this way, as Golden State really has failed him.

Again, the team’s management tried with the Jimmy Butler trade, but Father Time catches up with all the great ones. Ask LeBron James, who hasn’t sniffed a ring since 2020, despite his Los Angeles Lakers handlers trying as hard as they can. So, we know Curry is out for the next 10 days with a knee challenge after playing in only 39 of the 55 games so far this season, and Golden State cannot be expected to make a run to the top of the conference without him or Butler now.

The Warriors finally ended their Jonathan Kuminga saga, and they didn’t get much in return, except an injured, aging frontcourt guy in Kristaps Porziņģis—who has played in just 17 games this year and none yet for Golden State. He is in his age-30 season after playing less than 100 games combined in the prior two campaigns to this one while with the Boston Celtics. Maybe if Butler, Curry, and Porziņģis were all healthy and able to play 30-plus minutes a night, right?

Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Curry did manage 144 games combined in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, but the team couldn’t survive the play-in tournament in 2024, and he managed just eight appearances over 12 playoff games in 2025. He just doesn’t have the physical ability to survive the modern-day NBA grind now that he is in his own age-37 season. And as we have mentioned before, all those deep postseasons from 2015-2022 add up to another year of games, really.

Plus, the toll the injuries have taken on his legs? Curry is like age 40 in “basketball years” at least. He has one more year on his contract, which pays him in excess of $62M next year, so he will stick around to collect that. However, only the foolish really will believe the Warriors have one last run in them next year. Again, it would take a minor miracle for the above “Big Three” to be healthy enough to survive next season together at anything near top form. The Warriors are done.

There: we said it.

Curry is playing career-low minutes for a “full season” right now, and again, he’s not even going to come close in playing a full season this year. The Golden State front office had an impossible task from the moment the team won the NBA title in 2022: trying to win another one with an aging, fading roster, building around their one true superstar. Everything that was tried basically did not work, and that’s okay, because again, it was going to be impossible to replace Curry in the end.

As Don Meredith used to sing, turn out the lights, San Francisco … this party really is over now. The team owes Butler almost $57M next year as he recovers from terrible injury; Porziņģis’ contract expires at the end of this season; and the overrated Draymond Green still is on the roster for almost $28M next year. So, between Butler, Curry, and Green, you’re looking at three old guys prone to injury and ineffectiveness taking up almost $150M of cap space. That’s painful, yo.

Thus, again, it’s all over in San Francisco but the crying, and when the fans disappear there, don’t say we didn’t warn you.