The Golden State Warriors only have a few years left competing for titles with their core of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and now Jimmy Butler.
After they finalize a deal with Jonathan Kuminga, the team expects to sign free agent Al Horford. However, even with the addition of the champion center, they increase their biggest cause for concern over the next few seasons.
As mentioned by Anthony Slater of ESPN, Curry, Green, Butler, and Horford are all over 35 years old, and trying to compete in a Western Conference with young players yet to hit the prime of their careers, age could be the downfall of this Warriors franchise that has seen incredible success over the past decade.
“Jimmy Butler III will turn 36 before training camp. Draymond Green will turn 36 in March. Stephen Curry will turn 38 before the playoffs. Al Horford, the free agent the basketball world has ticketed for the Warriors, will turn 40 during next June’s NBA Finals,” Slater wrote. “That’s four projected starters attempting to fight off the aging process against a league exploding with young and improving talent.”
Curry, Green, and Butler are all under contract for the next two years, but there’s no guarantee any success will come in that time. With older stars come more injuries, and as seen on Golden State recently, one injury can change the course of a team’s season for the worse.
Aging Stars On The Warriors
While it’s not like a team filled with older players hasn’t had postseason success before, Golden State’s front office will be asking a lot of multiple players who are closer to retirement than they are to the peak of their careers. Yet still, each had successful campaigns last season, despite their ‘old age‘ relative to NBA terms.
“But the last time we saw all four, they were still highly productive. Curry finished as a second-team All-NBA guard. Green finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting,” Slater wrote. “Butler joined the Warriors and, when paired with Curry, helped them close the regular season with a 22-5 record. Horford was a vital part of the Celtics’ playoff run.”
None of these three, along with their projected fourth in Horford, has seen a sharp decline in their overall play over the past few years. Although Horford took a step back with the Boston Celtics last season, the Warriors likely wouldn’t ask either him or Green to be major factors in their offense.
However, both Curry and Butler had strong offensive outputs last season, putting up scoring numbers consistent with their career averages. Though each year brings a more difficult task of competing in 82 games along with a potential four playoff rounds, it would be a bigger cause for concern if Golden State’s stars were already showing signs of their play falling off a cliff, which has yet to happen.
But as Slater added, “Any incremental decline from any of the four would put a dent in their already long shot title odds.”
Curry’s Uncertain Future
While it is almost impossible to imagine a Warriors team not led by Curry, that will likely be the case by the end of the decade. Though his run has been incredible, with four championships, one Finals MVP, two regular season MVPs, the best regular season record in NBA history, while becoming the greatest three-point shooter of all time, time is ticking for the future Hall of Fame player.
Curry suffered a hamstring strain in their playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, a sign of an overworked body paired with 15 years in the league.
“The internal belief is Curry’s hamstring strain in the Minnesota series was a wear-and-tear issue following a sprint into and out of the play-in followed by a seven-game first-round series against Houston,” Slater said about the injury.
Curry also discussed the topic of retirement in a recent interview. He said that though he wants to continue playing as long as possible, every time he goes through rehab in the offseason, like this one, it makes it more difficult to stay at his peak.
“Rehab is scary, and you don’t want to do it,” Curry said about walking off the court with an injury. “So if I can get through off-seasons, I feel like that’s the marker as to how long I can push it.”
Regardless of age, the talent on Golden State makes them a worthy opponent for any team in the playoffs.
As Slater put it, “The season is a marathon. Rivals wouldn’t be lining up to face a rested Warriors team in a playoff series, but the challenge will be getting through 82 games intact and revved up enough to actually threaten.”
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