Kevin Durant's departure from the Golden State Warriors was a bittersweet moment for Bay Area fans. His arrival in 2016-17 produced back-to-back NBA titles, so at the end of the day there were no harsh feelings when the injured forward packed up for Brooklyn. To make things worse, though, All-Star shooting guard Klay Thompson could be out for the entire 2019-20 season, although head coach Steve Kerr had to flip flop on his verbiage when detailing if he expects the three-time champion back or not. Thompson's torn ACL suffered in the decisive Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals stung hard; this season's Warriors are a completely different team, with probably two-time MVP Stephen Curry's worse teammates since he was sharing a backcourt with Monta Ellis.

The Warriors have not had to deal with such strifes considering they are coming off a five-year stretch of consecutive Finals appearances, so Curry's new backcourt mate is one-time All-Star guard D'Angelo Russell, the former second-overall pick from the 2015 draft class who was signed to a maximum contract and traded to Golden State in the Durant deal.

Reality hit hard on the Bay Area franchise on Thursday night, though. With Thompson sidelined (but partially in the broadcast booth during TNT's coverage at halftime), the Warriors were in for a rude awakening, losing in their inaugural regular-season game at the Chase Center, the new Warriors arena located in San Francisco instead of Oracle Arena's presence in Oakland, California. Against Kawhi Leonard and the supercharged Los Angeles Clippers, missing All-Star forward Paul George, the Warriors gave up 141 points in game one, losing by 19. Russell scored 20 points and drained four 3-pointers in his Golden State debut, but the focus of the evening was the obvious lowered level of talent surrounding the league's generational talent in Curry, who added 23 points and four assists.

Even through one game, Curry and the Warriors are teetering right now between making the postseason and finishing in playoff-less obscurity for the first time since the end of the 2011-12 season. Their starting small forward on Thursday was Glenn Robinson III, a mediocre player who, before joining the Warriors, has competed for four teams in five seasons. After recently re-signed big man Kevon Looney had his hamstring act up, former Phoenix Suns lottery wash-out Marquese Chriss had to start at center in the second half. Chriss isn't bad—for clarity, none of Golden State's newer, less talented players are “bad”—but he is emblematic of where the Warriors are going.

This is a young team built around Curry, who to be fair is one of the dozen or so players in the NBA you would want to build around, but the inexperience was fairly obvious in Game One. It's a new challenge for Kerr and Company, and this season could be the first time the Warriors have growing pains since pre-MVP Curry.