What is a fellow thermonuclear or a efforts I am a damp valley coming at
you with a little bit of a somber Hardwar Knocks podcast. The Stephen Curry
injury is going to be out at least a few weeks with a left shoulder
injury that he's suffered in Wednesday's loss to the Indiana Pacers. Before we dive
into the implications of this, maybe how much we should panic or not panic,
but mostly probably panic. Please remember too, subscribe to us wherever you're
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on Twitter and TikTok at Hardwood Underscore Knox on Instagram. With that out of
the way, we get to the Golden State Warriors and frankly, go ahead
and smash those Golden State Warriors panic buttons you've been staring at, maybe even
nervously fumbing for most of the season. Steph is set to miss a few
weeks after suffering left shoulder injury against the Pacers. As I mentioned before,
he isn't expected to need surgery, isn't according to sham Shrani of The Athletic,
and he's going to be reevaluated in two weeks. The Warriors are now
free to enter existential risis mode accordingly and look full blown. Dread is not
a knee jerk reaction overreaction to Steph's injury. The absence of a concrete timetable
beyond these few weeks does little too sort of diminish fears. The ambiguous wording,
if anything, and lack of context is only going to amplify cause for
alarm. Maybe a few weeks really does meet a few weeks, as in
like two or three. We know that's not how these reevaluations work, but
for argument's sake, let's say he's back in that time, great, grand
wonderful. The Warriors don't have a few weeks, and that's the thing that
we need to drive home here. They sit one game under five hundred at
the time of this news, clinging to ten places in the Western Conference and
what would be the final playing spot. Optimists will note that they are mere
five games back of the first place Memphis Grizzlies. Awesome Realists will point out
that the Doubs are the four and a half five games in front of the
fifteenth place San Antonio Spurs. This is all to say Golden State's margin for
error does not exist. The NBA is enjoying thermonuclear af levels of parody right
now, and the Warriors bird whatever breathing room they had on juggling slash fumbling
visions of two timelines and on rest nights and on off efforts they weren't and
still aren't actually good enough to have so any Lue of the Light Years podcast
had a good tweet on this. I'm gonna throw it up on the screen
b anyone watching that I really thought was salient, He tweeted. Charlotte,
Detroit, Orlando, Dallas, Indiana, Utah, Indiana again all awful,
unserious. Els that if the Warriors had simply won three of the four out
of the seven, they'd be in a good place to weather this Steph injury.
But they've not won, built the roster to maximize wins, nor two
has the coaching staff tried to develop gods to be better than their bad vet
pickups. Now the Warriors have to decide whether to make a move soon or
sit and wait on a season slipping away quickly. Again, these are just
not overreactions. Going a few weeks without Steph in this competitive climate is akin
to maybe tossing your season away. The Warriors have barely been able to go
a few minutes without step Golden State has outscored opponents by one hundred and forty
five points in the eight hundred and ninety four minutes Steph has been on the
floor. It has lost the five hundred and three minutes he's been on the
bench so far by one hundred and twenty seven points. STEP's overall net sweeting
net rating swing is still one of the sixth largest in the league, regardless
of flying time, and the Warriors see both their offensive rating and effective field
goal percentage descend into hopelessness when he's on the sidelines. They're rating drops by
seventeen point eight points per one hundred possessions, again, one of the three
biggest marks in the league. They're affective field goal percentage drops by eight point
three percentage points. That's the second largest dip in the league. Theoretically,
this is why you extended Jordan Pool on a nine figure deal. There is
no replacing Steph's impact, neither on nor off the ball, and no team
in the league is built to withstand the loss of thirty points and six point
eight assists on sixty six point eight true shooting and this three point volume and
range and defense warping movement. Still, Pool is supposed to represent the pinnacle
of Golden State's multi timeline project, the ascending star who's both ready now yet
not anywhere near his prime. The idea of his ball hand and his finishing
and his self creation and his table setting should be the vehicle through which the
Warriors navigate steps stint on the shelf in practice, though Pool's not ready,
at least he's not playing like he's ready. This season, career high usage
has been accompanied by a personal worst turnover rate and his lowest true shooting percentage
since he was a rookie. His three point clip has now dip below thirty
two percent for the year, and it's hovered beneath thirty percent for more than
half the damn season. His fifty three point four percent clip inside the arc
is a breath of fresh air, and he is knocking down sixty seven point
two percent of his looks within five feet since November. Does he get to
the rim that range enough for it to matter and not really, but there's
more variants caked into his perimeter game than ever. Pool posted an effective field
goal percent of forty eight point three on pull up jumpers last last season,
unspectacular but not necessarily dire. That number has plunged to forty two point four
this year. Similarly problematic, Pool has gone from burning thirty seven point nine
percent of his catching fire triples to just thirty four point seven percent, and
he's been even worse than that thirty four point seven percent clips since been November.
The caveat to all this, which is in no way comforting, The
best version of Pool has never even qualified as an offensive lifeline independent of Steph.
Here's where Golden State's offense has ranked the past three years when Pool plays
without him. In twenty twenty twenty one, the OL rating ranked in the
sixth percentile during those minutes. Last year it ranked in the forty percentile,
and this year it ranks in the second percentile. This is not Pools failure
alone. More than anything, it reiterates the immense and immeasurable value of Steph
this season especially. It's also an indictment of the front office and its decisions
to tether too much of the second unit's livelihood to prospects and unproven Zenja Michael
Green two of their credit. The Warriors have discovered some semblance of balance by
adding Draymond Green to bench heavy year combos. They've actually outscored opponents by four
point three points per one hundred possessions with a top tier defensive rating. By
the way, when dre headlines deathless lineups. Jonathan Cominga has also been coming
along at both ends too. That's big, It's not a panacea. There's
a difference between surviving extended stretches against non starters and turning this set up into
your entire existence. And that's before counting for Andrew Wiggins his own absence.
He hasn't played since December third, after suffering an a ductor injury more urgently
than ever. The Warriors now must look inward and decide once and for all
whether it's officially time to look outward, if they care at all about this
season, about respecting steps timeline. Upon his return, they will make a
trade. It doesn't necessarily need to be for a star. They might have
the AMMO, but that again we've talked about on this podcast many times.
The star trade market doesn't seem to exist right now. Targeting flat out upgrades
is just is perfectly fine. A stretchy big who can still move to pair
with kaminga depth and size on the wings, and of course another ball handler
or self starter who doesn't crypt the spacing. Those would all be essential additions.
But the Warriors have to commit to pointing up for them. Maybe that
involves selling low on James Wiseman, who got recalled from the G League on
Thursday, or Moses Moody. Perhaps it involves flipping a draft pick or draft
picks plural kaminga should be off limits of I would say in non star trades,
though, but surrendering any one of these chips or some combination of everything
will Sting parting with Wiseman specifically mandate level of self awareness. The Warrior's brass
is not yet indulged. It would be an admission that, yeah, they
fucked up in the twenty twenty draft, and then yeah, they fucked up
all over again over the twenty twenty two offseason by still not doing something about
it. That's hard to do under any circumstances. It's even tougher when you're
talking about turning a twenty one year old number two pick into someone like Josh
Richardson or Kelly Olennock or PJ. Washington or Mo Bamba or Eric Horn or
Jay Crowder. It's much less painful if that someone is on the scale of,
say Miles Turner, but you're not getting Miles Turner for Wiseman and Filler
alone. At this point. There is of course a chance, the Warriors
just take the more patient approach. They could use STEP's absence to double down
on self exploration and see what they have without their franchise lifeblood, and hope
they'll then have enough time upon his return to put it all together. They
could also just not fucking care about what becomes of this season. They own
their first round pick and aren't exactly worlds away from top notch odds. Prioritizing
development for prospects and unknowns and then rest for the Vets in the name of
an impromptu gap year is technically on the table as well. They could then
recalibrate over the off season with a better idea of who they are outside Steph
and another glitzy prospect to pedal or to groom. This latter scenario would be
a choice, though, to really go through another gap year, that would
be a choice. Clay Thompson turns thirty three in February, Draymond Green turns
thirty three in March, and he hits free agency at seasons and if he
declines his player option. Steph will celebrate his thirty fifth birthday in March as
well. Golden State's core is not designed to just punt on another year and
then regroup. That's the dilemma, the same as it's ever been here.
The Warriors cannot cater to one timeline without entirely jeopardizing or damaging the other.
There might be a right answer, which would be maximizing STEP's window, but
there's not an easy one, and whether Golden State even has a choice anymore
is an entirely separate manner. And it's also debatable. There's nothing they can
do without step to improve their position. Anything the Warriors actually do will be
meant to buy time and reoptimize the roster once he's back. And yet,
how are they supposed to do anything at all without knowing for sure how long
the one player they couldn't ever afford to lose will be sidelined. And if
we're being bluntly honest, the Warriors already made their decision. They opted for
dual agendas, and in doing so, they missed their window to make a
move, expand their margin for error and maybe possibly withstand a blow such as
this, and now without Steph their season may have just ended because of it.
I don't know why you would have hope in this team being able to
rebound and staying in playoff territory. Maybe play in territory, but then they're
just exhausting themselves when Steph comes back to go on a run, make it
to the playoffs, just to get bounced in the second round. I don't
necessarily know what the answer is, but I don't know how you can feel
good about this situation. That'll do it here if you made it all the
way to the Please remember you hit that subscribe button on YouTube, or subscribe
wherever you're getting your your audio podcast follow us on all the socials links to
that or in the podcast on YouTube description along with our discord. Until next
time, and as always, I leave you all with the shout out to
the one, the only, the indelible. Maybe the Warriors should trade for
him, said he can help salvage which left up their season without Steph Frank Nila Pena