Something I realized last night at the Warriors-Raptors game, perhaps more pressingly than the last time the team was in town a season ago — this thing isn’t going to last forever.
You wouldn’t get that impression from Steph Curry, who takes his pre-game warmup last and happily engages with the fans who show up an hour before tip-off to watch him. Curry’s off-court presence, compared to his superstar contemporaries, has always been demure and private, but watching him revel and work within that outsized adoration is a privilege in itself. No fan in attendance watching him take feathery lob after feathery lob, or take a volleyball spike to the basketball so he could meet it mid-air for a dunk, was thinking about the finite nature of Curry — performer or competitor.
Even if the underlying desire of proximity to greatness stems from the understanding that one day that greatness will no longer exist, that reality doesn’t translate in the moment. In the moment, there’s just Curry, laughing with his coaches, signing the backs of jerseys, going through footwork, prepping for the night’s game.
Where the impression of a dynasty in its final stages becomes more pronounced is through the words of Warriors coach, Steve Kerr. Asked about how difficult it is to maintain a dynasty, and Kerr reverted to Curry.
“Steph Curry is one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever been around in my life,” Kerr said. “Someone like him, it’s so easy to form a partnership with Steph because of his authenticity, how much he cares, how hard he works, the joy he brings to the gym every single day.”
All season, Kerr has been working through lineups in an attempt to support Curry’s “twilight years”, as Kerr’s referred to this presumptively final stretch for his star and closest professional partnership. He’s also been trying to find ways for the Warriors to stay competitively functional, with an increasingly hard to play Draymond Green, a gap still not address in Klay Thompson’s departure, and the seeming reluctance to give young and hungry stars like Jonathan Kuminga any substantial runway. Where the two seem to come into conflict is prioritization.
To support Curry, to make his last seasons of basketball worthwhile and exciting — for the fans, franchise, and most of all Curry — the Warriors roster needs to find stability. As it stands the formation is loose, constantly changing, and disruptive for Curry as a result. There are gaffes in execution, missed rotations, players blanking on coverages, errors not typically associated with such an established team.
Though Kerr took responsibility postgame for the Warriors loss, one he called undisciplined and “as frustrating as a night we’ve had, all season”, where he and the team continue to draw blanks is on the team they actually are.
This happens, with dynasties definitely but generally with title winning teams. There’s a desire to hang onto to the golden and winning past, especially in the Warriors case, because it’s worked so many times. Kerr’s reticence to look ahead makes sense — his loyalty is to Curry and everything the two have been able to accomplish together. The question is the cost. Keeping two feet firmly planted in the past has hurt Golden State’s capacity to move forward, stunting their development and clipping the wings of Curry’s legacy even if it was the last thing Kerr ever intended to do.
