Mapping out three possible outcomes for Warriors’ upcoming 2025-26 NBA season

A decade now has passed since Steph Curry won his first NBA MVP, and the Warriors won their first championship in 40 years the same season. So much has changed since.They weren’t supposed to win a title in 2022 and haven’t made it past the second round of the NBA playoffs since. The Warriors’ core is historically old, and also have the talent and experience to be reawakened as a sleeping giant in a league of parity where a young man’s game is played. There are three avenues the always intriguing Warriors can go down in the upcoming 2025-26 NBA season: Good, bad and great, with questions and answers for all options. Let’s map out how the Warriors can wind up in each final destination. The Rewind This road is a straight shot to right about where the Warriors wound up last season. In this scenario, they finish with between 46 and 49 wins and are anywhere from the No. 8 seed in a loaded Western Conference to the No. 6 seed. They have highs, they have lows and end up as an above average team. The Warriors last season started off red-hot, going 12-3 in their first 15 games. Then they imploded, falling right off a cliff. They also were two different teams in one season. Before the Jimmy Butler trade, the Warriors went through a five-game losing streak, two three-game losing streaks and four two-game losing streaks. After his acquisition, the Warriors had a losing streak – which lasted two games – only once. To run it back as a similar result to last season, the Warriors’ veterans of Curry, Butler, Draymond Green and Al Horford would be bitten hard enough by the injury bug. Curry in this case is the lone All-Star with Butler either barely missing the cut or not being healthy enough. Their talent and experience is too much, but so are the miles on their bodies. Whether it was home or on the road, the Warriors were the same team last season. Literally. The Warriors were 24-17 at home and 24-17 on the road. But they also were just 5-11 against their Pacific Division foes. The older players are good enough but run into bumps and bruises and can’t always find their second gear on the second night of back-to-backs. The young players make minimal leaps and the Warriors can’t find a good enough upgrade at the trade deadline. Verdict: Unlikely The Disaster Isn’t this scenario obvious? It all starts with the health of the Warriors’ core four. Horford (39), Curry (37), Butler (36) and Green (35) are all over 35 years old to start the season. Golden State will be rolling out a historically old group, and that always comes with major risk. Curry’s hamstring ended the Warriors’ 2024-25 season the second he began grabbing the back of his leg in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals. The Warriors were 7-5 without Curry in the regular season and then lost four straight games after his injury in the playoffs. They were 6-8 without Green and lost the one regular season game Butler didn’t play for them.But even the younger guys dealt with some injuries, too. Kuminga missed more than two months with a badly sprained ankle. Brandin Podziemski twice missed time and then had to undergo two surgeries in the offseason. Moses Moody missed just a handful of games but also is coming off surgery as well. De’Anthony Melton? He played a grand total of six games for the Warriors and won’t be ready until the first few weeks of November at the very, very earliest. Gary Payton II also always is an injury risk.A Warriors recipe for disaster is major injuries to their stars and older players, at least one bad injury to their younger players and steps backwards from them too. Their win total would be somewhere between 37 and 40 games, fighting to even make the play-in tournament.Verdict: Scary possibility, but unlikelyThe Title Hunt Turn on the film from the moment Butler put on a Warriors jersey and stop right before Curry’s hamstring injury in Minnesota. Now imagine a full season of that team, which is the ride the Warriors are looking to revel in.From an offseason perspective, all the Warriors lost was Kevon Looney, which will be hard to replace in his own right. But they now have Butler from the start, while signing Horford and Seth Curry, and bringing back Melton and Payton.Once Butler arrived, the Warriors, like their newest teammates, found their joy again. The Warriors went 23-8 the rest of the regular season, which in an 82-game season would have them on pace for 61 wins. That win total is probably out of reach but there are reasons the analytics love the Warriors. Most sportsbooks have the Warriors’ over/under at 46.5 wins. One ESPN wins projection has the Warriors winning 56 games, and another ESPN simulation has them winning 63 and making it all the way to the NBA Finals. The goal should be at least 50 wins, which was tied for the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 seeds in the Western Conference last season. Winning that many games would ensure the Warriors wouldn’t have to be in playoff mode starting in early February. It also would mean they start hot out the gates, don’t have extended losing streaks, can withstand back-to-backs, have at least two All-Stars, their young players take major leaps and Kuminga is either too good to trade or brings back the exact player the Warriors need to compete for a title.Quick history lesson: The Warriors have made the Finals every season they have won at least 50 games with Steve Kerr as their head coach.Avoiding the play-in tournament is a must for the Warriors. Finding themselves as a top-four seed with home-court advantage is something the rest of the league doesn’t want to think about. Curry played like his first MVP season after the Butler trade and is as motivated as ever to chase his fifth ring.Compiling between 49 and 55 wins should have him gearing up for 16 playoff wins, and maybe even in the MVP hunt. Verdict: Better than 50/50 chanceDownload and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Mapping out three possible outcomes for Warriors’ upcoming 2025-26 NBA season

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