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From now until the final curtain closes on Stephen Curry's career, there will be very few doubters that wouldn't rank his career amongst the elite from the point guard position. The problem is, Curry's curtain is falling—and sooner than expected. At 32, Curry doesn't have many years left in the tank before he reasonably begins his drive down Father Time Lane.
Coming into his 12th year in the league, the 6-foot-3 guard will be going into possibly his most difficult season of his career. He'll be without Klay Thompson, who's recovering from a torn Achilles, and the superstar talent of Kevin Durant departed for Brooklyn back in 2019. How far the Warriors can go in the meantime will depend on mostly the statlines that Curry produces on a nightly basis.
No one should use small sample sizes to dictate the entirety of a season, but if you do, the Warriors' season debut against the Brooklyn Nets should serve to the many kinks the Warriors will need to work through, some of which just simply come down to talent. Andrew Wiggins is no Kevin Durant by a long shot, but he can pour in some decent production through his efforts. Their starting center is a rookie in James Wiseman that missed out on the majority of his college career.
Sure they still have Draymond Green, but even then Green doesn't produce All-Star numbers on a nightly basis, and he can't replace the production of Thompson from a scoring aspect.
To be upfront and clear, Curry's chances of winning another championship are in the slim-to-none category as things stand right now. No one's expecting them to make noise this year without Thompson, but even when he returns things may not be as easy as the Warriors think. If Thompson was healthy this year, they would've posed a threat to the juggernauts of the Western Conference; even so, no one was expecting them to completely demolish the upper echelon in the West and dethrone the Lakers.
There are so many franchises that have made their case in the past year to be considered bigger threats than even a fully healthy Warriors squad. Golden State actually needed a third star to replace Durant in order to remain championship favorites, and the transition from D'Angelo Russell to Wiggins has been less than favorable.
To make the situation sourer, Wiggins is locked in for the next three years, and the thought of the Warriors being able to move his contract for a desirable piece is unlikely to occur. With that in mind, the Curry-Thompson duo will be in their mid-30's by the time the final note is sung. Throughout those three years, the front office will be banking on Wiggins turning into a star that can help lead them to the promised land against all the other formidable teams.
We are talking about the NBA, where even the unexpected can happen. There's no certainty that Thompson can't return next season and give the Warriors true championship aspirations. The demolish outweighs the beauty in this case, however. Unless the Warriors can make additional moves in the years to come, the time of Stephen Curry's dominance may be coming to an end.
