SAN FRANCISCO — That joy Steph Curry plays with, that has made him one of the game’s most infectious superstars, has been absent lately, at least from his seat at the podium inside the Bill King Interview Room.
After the Warriors were blown out Sunday by the Kings, Curry wore a stoic expression and struck a monotone voice as he made a blunt assessment of the 18-17 team for the second time this homestand. In a 30-point loss, featuring 22 turnovers, to a team that was missing its leading scorer and fired its head coach less than two weeks ago, “there were no silver linings,” Curry said.
More tellingly, Curry acknowledged the reality of the current roster, something that would be difficult to say about the nine previous iterations of his Warriors teams that have gone on to make the postseason or, especially, the four that have hung banners in Chase Center.
“We’re not really built … to have that comeback,” Curry said.
That’s right. The game’s most lethal assassin from 3-point range, who actually converted two four-point possessions in the loss, looked up at his team’s 36-21 deficit at the end of the first quarter and believed it was too far out of reach. He was correct. The Warriors trailed from buzzer to buzzer.
Uncertainty pertaining to offensive firepower, or a lack thereof, is new territory for a team that, up until this summer, boasted a duo nicknamed the “Splash Bros.” With Curry and Klay Thompson, the Warriors never finished lower than eighth in offensive rating.
So far this season, they rank 18th out of 30 teams. The only worse offensive team to feature Curry in the Steve Kerr era was in 2020-21, when Thompson missed the entire season rehabbing from knee surgery and the team missed the postseason.
Curry’s signature flurries have traditionally made any deficit within reach, and he unleashed one Sunday that cut the Kings’ lead from 15 points down to 4 in the span of 1:07 in the second quarter. By halftime, he had poured in 20 points. But the Warriors entered the locker room trailing by 24.
He spent the entirety of the fourth quarter on the bench with a towel draped over his head.
“It’s just one of those things where you don’t want to be in that situation, especially in a back-to-back where the guys just exerted a lot of energy last night to get that win,” Curry said, referencing Saturday’s 121-113 win over the Grizzlies that he sat out. “I would have loved to have started the game a lot better to give ourselves a chance and not be in that situation that we’ve been in where you have to have crazy offensive fireworks to even have a chance to come back. That’s not our M.O.”
Six days earlier, after a 113-95 loss to the Cavs, Curry said to similar effect: “I think we’re just average.”
Two months from his 37th birthday, in his 16th NBA season and managing tendinitis in both his knees, Curry is being asked to shoulder a substantial load. Perhaps it is no coincidence that with a month to go before the trade deadline he is becoming more outspoken about the shortcomings of the roster assembled by Mike Dunleavy Jr.
When the Heat visit Chase Center on Tuesday, they won’t have Jimmy Butler in tow. The irascible superstar was suspended by the team after demanding to be traded, with the Warriors reportedly one of his preferred destinations. Meanwhile, other reports have tied Golden State to Bulls center Nikola Vucevic and Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith.
Kerr said he and the Warriors’ general manager planned to take a wait-and-see approach while continuing to evaluate their roster leading up to the Feb. 6 deadline, but that was before they learned they would likely be without Jonathan Kuminga for the duration of that period.
Kuminga, 22, had begun to look like a potential answer to the Warriors’ scoring woes without the ball in Curry’s hands before he sprained his ankle on Saturday. He missed the first of what is expected to be at least a three-week absence Sunday, which only served to highlight their need for alternative options.
“He’s been one of our best players over the last few weeks,” center Kevon Looney said of Kuminga. “He provides something special for us and brings a different energy in that second group. He’s definitely going to be missed. It’s something we needed tonight, somebody to put pressure on the rim.”
Without Kuminga, Curry said, “Our defense has to be our calling card.
“Offensively, just getting as organized as possible to have good possessions. I think we’re obviously going to shoot a lot of 3s and try to create good looks from 3, but we’ve got to figure out ways to attack the rim. Especially for a team that doesn’t have much rim protection, (Kuminga) feeds off that. We’ve got to be able to unlock (Andrew Wiggins) more, unlock Moses (Moody). Kyle (Anderson)’s gonna get some minutes. We’ve just got to be a little bit more organized when the game slows down.”