The Golden State Warriors saw their last symbol of hope for this season vanish with the injury to Stephen Curry on Wednesday night. A broken left hand suffered in the thick of the third quarter was the NBA version of Batman's Bat-Signal starting to fade, no longer able to protect Gotham City from those who terrorize it.
It's time for the Warriors to tank; there's just no other way around it. With Robin (Klay Thompson) out of commission and no longer a perennial star to take the lead offensively, this Golden State team should chart course into #puntseason immediately, with hopes of getting their heroes back healthy in 2020-21.
While Golden State enjoyed formidable health in the first two seasons of its dynastic five-year championship run, it has come crashing down in ways that the rest of the NBA has largely viewed as poetic justice. Dating back to Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, the Warriors have lost their three best players to injuries in the span of six games. First it was Kevin Durant with a torn Achilles, then Klay Thompson with a torn ACL, and lastly Curry, breaking his left hand in Game 4 of the regular season.
Ouch!
The higher the climb, the steeper the fall.
Stephen Curry will still need to undergo a CT scan to determine whether the injury can be treated with a cast or if there is further damage, forcing him to have surgery and put him out for at least several weeks and likely longer.
Regardless of the outcome, the Warriors have just lost their ultimate talisman, and after a 1-3 start to the season, there are very few miracles that can be expected of a clearly disjointed offense and a porous defense to muster enough encouraging results.
Golden State's most optimistic option was to squeeze by as a seventh or eighth seed in the West, but now that Curry is gone, that prospect is just too grim to become a reality. The Warriors have looked like a completely different team without Thompson and Durant, and they will look a whole new level of inept without Curry's gravity making a difference.
The best the organization can hope for is that revisiting the somber memories of being in the cellar of the Western Conference can get them lucky enough to muster a high pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, with prospects like James Wiseman, Anthony Edwards, Cole Anthony, LaMelo Ball and R.J. Hampton waiting to hear their name called.
A recent report by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski said the Warriors would shift their focus to scouting players for the upcoming NBA Draft, as they're likely to miss Curry for at least “a couple of months” with this injury, regardless of the treatment. This means president Bob Myers and the rest of the front office were already fully cognizant of what losing one of their stars would entail.
The night is always darkest just before the dawn. There will always be another hero to come and save Gotham City, even if Batman is nowhere to be found — just like there will be a ray of hope for the Warriors, who have drafted at the bottom of the first round in nearly every season since capturing their first title in 40 years in 2015.
Longtime Warriors fans have felt the pain of draft busts of the past, but the organization has not drafted in the top 10 of the board since selecting Harrison Barnes with the seventh pick in 2012. Furthermore, they have not drafted in the top five since selecting Jason Richardson in 2001 with the fifth overall pick and Mike Dunleavy Jr. in 2002 with the third pick.
While winning has been exciting for fans in the past few years, the draft process will be just that for a front office that has had to scrap to find gems in the lower part of the first round, early second round, or even buy picks from teams, as they did with Patrick McCaw and Jordan Bell in recent memory.
The hope is that by allowing the young players to develop while losing enough games, the Warriors will muster a top-10 pick who can help them rebolster a roster that now has very little to offer without Stephen Curry to put on the cape.
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