Warriors poised to take a step back as free agency opens

The Warriors acquired Paul for Jordan Poole and a heavily protected future first-round pick in a trade that now amounts to a salary dump because they couldn’t flip Paul this past week.

In hindsight, the Warriors could have tried to use Paul or Thompson in a trade before last season’s trade deadline, when they were expiring contracts. But Golden State was confident in making a playoff run, and each was a big part of that pursuit.

The most important factor to consider, as always with the Warriors, is Curry. The superstar averaged 26.4 points per game and was named to the All-NBA third team. He’s still capable of leading a contender, but every year that goes by without the Warriors putting one around him runs the risk of that no longer being the case. Curry is signed through the 2025-26 season.

In a recent press conference, Dunleavy stressed internal development as the easiest way to improve the team. But it would take more than a significant leap from Kuminga, Moody, Podziemski and Jackson-Davis for the Warriors to return to playoff contention in the deep Western Conference this season. And again, there’s a risk to waiting for them to blossom.

Without a Paul trade and without Thompson, the Warriors aren’t good enough to compete in the West and don’t have clear avenues to get there. The most expensive lottery team in history looks destined for the same fate, only as a more affordable version.

The television show “Community” has a famous episode called Remedial Chaos Theory. In it, seven different timelines unfold between the seven different members of the study group based on who walks downstairs to grab the pizza delivery. Most of the timelines are relatively harmless, with outlandish sit-com plots unfolding between the group.

In the darkest timeline, Donald Glover’s character returns with the pizza to an apartment on fire, a character with a gunshot wound and the group in utter disrepair. You’ve seen the meme.

For all the talk of timelines with the Warriors, the team may be entering their darkest timeline: with eight figures in expiring contracts squandered, a franchise legend walking away, and a responsibility to do right by Curry without an easy path to do so.

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