The 2019-20 NBA season couldn't end soon enough for the Golden State Warriors, who experienced an abysmal fall from grace after making it to the NBA Finals for five straight years.
These are the 10 storylines that defined what was otherwise a season to forget for Steve Kerr's crew.
Stephen Curry breaks his left hand
After two double-digit losses in the opening two games, an 11-point win over the New Orleans Pelicans in the third game of the season brought back some spark to an otherwise ugly start to 2019-20.
That energy would only last a mere two days, as Stephen Curry soon found himself joining his backcourt mate Klay Thompson on the bench after suffering a broken left hand due to colliding with Phoenix Suns center Aron Baynes when going up for a layup.
The announcers knew it from the time Curry landed, squished by a 270-pound Baynes who landed right on top of the guard. The injury would result in four months of agony for the team, as their ultimate scoring weapon was out for the bulk of the season.
Eric Paschall emerges
The D'Angelo Russell-led Warriors were winless without Stephen Curry until Eric Paschall, the lowest-drafted rookie out of the three the organization selected in 2019, exploded for a game-high 34 points against the Portland Trail Blazers.
General manager Bob Myers noted the rookie out of Villanova was the most NBA-ready player out of his three choices in the draft, despite being picked with the 41st pick. Paschall had already put up 20 points against the Phoenix Suns and 25 against the Charlotte Hornets through the first six games of the season, but it took until the seventh to showcase just how explosive he could be.
Paschall also grabbed a season-high 13 rebounds that night, as well as connecting on four of his six 3-point attempts. Not bad for a rookie.
Lights-out DLo
The 2019-20 Warriors no longer had Kevin Durant, plus Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were out with their respective injuries. However, they still had a respectable scorer in D'Angelo Russell.
The 23-year-old guard went off for a career-high 52 points in an overtime loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team he would ultimately call home later on in the season.
Russell led the team in scoring, rebounding (nine), and assists (five) as they faced the Timberwolves without Draymond Green. DLo was 19-of-37 from the floor, 7-of-17 from deep, and a cool 7-of-8 from the foul line — adding three steals and two blocks to a formidable line in 40 minutes of play.
A four-game Christmas present
The Warriors were a ghastly 5-24 by mid-December, already looking like a likely lottery team with the worst mark in the league. Long gone were the days of long win streaks and coast-to-coast victories — at least until Christmas came around, that is.
Starting with the New Orleans Pelicans, the Warriors rolled out a four-game winning streak right as 2019 ended. They nabbed a four-point win against NOLA, a nine-point victory over Minnesota, and a 12-point triumph against the Houston Rockets on Christmas Day. The Dubs put on a masterclass on how to stop James Harden, limiting the scoring champion to one free-throw attempt and zero points from the foul line.
Golden State also grabbed a nine-point win over Phoenix to make it four wins in a row, by far the longest winning streak of the season.
Losers of 15 of 16
The Warriors were coming off a four-game winning streak at home and looked to go 5-of-5 at the new Chase Center to close out the year, but they were met by a hungry Dallas Mavericks team that beat them by 20.
That would be the first of 10 straight losses, and 15 of their next 16 games would be Ls in the win-loss column. The Warriors were simply brutalized by the Mavs this season, losing by a whopping 48 points on Nov. 20 (their worst loss since 1973), as well as 20 and 27 points, respectively, later in the year — an average of 31.7 points per game.
Nine of the 15 losses during this stretch were by double digits, with four of them by 20 or more. The Warriors were 10-39 by the end of January and looking every bit of the bottom-dwelling team they were before Curry and company were drafted.
Trade chips with no salsa
The Warriors knew they would have to move pieces pretty soon, so they shipped Willie Cauley-Stein to the Mavericks in return for mere draft pick compensation. While the 7-footer had developed into a better defender in his short time with Golden State, he simply didn't have the right tools to make him a future cog of this team.
The organization also made the most of key role players like Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III by sending them to the Philadelphia 76ers for more draft picks.
The school of thought was to make the most of their development pieces like Damion Lee, Ky Bowman, and Marquese Chriss for a much cheaper salary than their more experienced counterparts.
Goodbye D'Angelo Russell
The Warriors had already torn down part of their roster, but they were far from done. After a contentious period in which they assured they traded for D'Angelo Russell with a vision to keep him, Golden State relented and traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves right at the deadline in exchange for Andrew Wiggins.
The trade received mixed reactions, as Wiggins was coming off two subpar seasons in Minnesota without developing into the No. 1 pick the franchise thought they'd received after trading Kevin Love to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014.
Russell was the Warriors' leading scorer and their lone source of offense during an injury-plagued season. To trade for a non-specialist making an even bigger salary was dumbfounding.
Hello Andrew Wiggins
It didn't take long for Andrew Wiggins to suit up in a Warriors uniform and show a completely different side to his skills. The new Warrior put up a decent 24-point debut in a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers and even managed to shoot above 62% from the floor twice in his first three games — a feat he didn't muster all season long with the Timberwolves.
It became evident that Wiggins would be playing off the ball from the start instead of generating isolation plays. Steve Kerr and company quickly designed a way to get him used to the system, awaiting Stephen Curry's return to put his skills and fit to the test.
Stephen Curry returns, but not for long
Stephen Curry made his much-awaited return after a four-month absence, putting up 23 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists in a close loss against the Toronto Raptors on March 5.
Curry was rusty with his 3-ball, shooting only 3-of-12 from distance, yet he connected on all eight of his shots from the foul line, including a 4-point play over a lunging Kyle Lowry.
Unfortunately for Warriors fans, this would be the only time Curry would wear the uniform the rest of the way, as he was sidelined with the flu in the next two games before the season was suspended.
The night that ended it all
The Warriors' season came to an end on March 11 — they just didn't know it at that point.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called a halt to the season, postponing it after the first positive case of the novel coronavirus hit the league. After nearly a three-month hiatus, the league decided to invite the best 22 teams to a truncated resumption of the regular season at Walt Disney World, leaving the Warriors out of that conversation.
Having mustered a league-worst 15-50 record, Golden State will have an equal 14% chance to net the No. 1 overall pick, tied with the third-worst Minnesota Timberwolves and the second-worst Cleveland Cavaliers.
With a high chance of getting a top-five pick, the Warriors have boundless possibilities for next season. They can welcome in some new young talent or trade for another piece to the puzzle as they rebound from a season worth forgetting in every aspect of the word.
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