The 2025-26 season has not gone even remotely close to according to plan for the Golden State Warriors. After the 2025 NBA playoffs brought the franchise hope, that if they get everybody healthy come playoff time, they could compete with the best of the best, the Warriors' injury problems have been even worse this season.
Jimmy Butler tore his ACL, sending Stephen Curry's co-star to the mend — dashing the Warriors' title hopes significantly. They traded for Kristaps Porzingis, who has routinely been missing time due to illness. Moses Moody suffered a gruesome-looking knee injury that is sure to keep him out for a while. And now, even Curry himself is dealing with persistent knee troubles that has cast such a huge cloud of uncertainty on the team.
Nevertheless, as the old adage goes, it ain't over until it's over. The Warriors are still in the postseason picture, and until they're eliminated, there is still a chance that they could at least make things difficult for either the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the 2026 NBA playoffs.
At this point, qualifying for the playoffs in any capacity is already a huge win. This season has long been lost for the Dubs, and there is no way they are going to force Curry to return before his body is ready.
With that said, this is the Warriors' dream seeding and matchup scenarios heading into the 2026 NBA playoffs.
Warriors' dream scenario: Earn the eighth seed, have Stephen Curry back healthy
At the time of writing, the Warriors have a record of 34-38, as their rough month of March (they have gone 3-9 in the calendar month) has caused their free fall in the Western Conference standings. They have found life without Curry to be extremely difficult, as they do not nearly have enough fire and star power to keep up in a loaded conference without their best player making life easier for the rest of the roster.
Now, discussing the shortcomings of the roster is not the point of this piece. But to summarize, the Warriors have a roster filled with role players and supporting players that cannot scale up their production that much when their best player is gone, which leads to a ton of inconsistencies from game to game.
And Curry's return doesn't appear to be imminent; while the Warriors are insisting that he is right on schedule in his recovery, he wasn't able to take part in 5-on-5 scrimmages over the weekend when the team had initially hoped that he would be. This knee injury may be more serious than the Dubs are indicating, although that should not come as a surprise whatsoever since Curry is 38 years of age.
But as long as Curry is not yet ruled out for the rest of the season, the Warriors have hope that they can make things competitive in the play-in tournament picture. If Curry were to be ruled out eventually in a play-in tournament game, it's safe to say that the Dubs won't be favored whatsoever in any game against other likely play-in teams in the Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Clippers, and Portland Trail Blazers.
However, if Curry were to return, that changes the equation drastically in the Warriors' favor. Curry is a big-game player who's been through every battle imaginable throughout his NBA career, and a play-in game should not faze him whatsoever. There will be concerns regarding his form when he comes back from injury, but he's been brilliant in the past in the immediate aftermath of returning from a lengthy absence.
Curry would make the Warriors' offense hum yet again; without him running around the court to create space, the Dubs offense tends to run stagnant and inefficient and overly reliant on making difficult shots. With Curry back, the responsibility of his teammates scale down, and they can retreat into more comfortable supporting roles, restoring balance in the team.
If Curry comes back for the Warriors within the next week or so, then that is even better for the Warriors. This gives them a better chance of escaping the dreaded 9/10 play-in tournament game. The Dubs' play-in history isn't very encouraging, so giving themselves a better chance of making the playoffs by having two opportunities to qualify instead of just one is a must.
The Dubs are only two games back of the Clippers for the eighth spot in the conference, and that is a deficit they can make up with 10 games remaining in the season.
A game against the Suns is very winnable at present; the injury bug has also hit the Suns hard, with Dillon Brooks and Mark Williams, featured starters for the team, currently on the mend. The Suns have been playing below .500 basketball in the month of March, and the Warriors can definitely take them on — especially when Curry is back.
The blueprint for the Warriors to make the playoffs in this dream scenario is clear: they have to earn the eighth seed (very doable with four games remaining against the Brooklyn Nets, Washington Wizards, and Sacramento Kings and a crucial matchup against the Clippers), defeat the Suns, and go toe to toe against the inexperienced San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the 2026 NBA playoffs.
Now, the Warriors will be the heavy underdog in a playoff series against the Spurs. But Golden State is currently winning the season series against San Antonio (2-1). The caveat is that the Dubs earned those two wins prior to Butler's season-ending injury. Still, this shows that they can keep up with the Spurs in some capacity.
A potential playoff series against the Spurs also feels like a passing of the torch moment. As one would recall, a young, upstart Warriors squad led by an even more baby-faced Curry faced the Spurs in the 2013 NBA playoffs and gave them hell in a six-game first-round playoff series defeat.
Now, it's the young, upstart Spurs' turn to face a more veteran team that's on the end of its contending legs — which might be a fitting bookend to the true end of this Warriors dynasty.
