One last dress rehearsal before the new era begins

Warriors have a final preseason matchup before the games really count. This year will be different

Oct 17, 2025

The Golden State Warriors are going to look a lot different once the regular season starts. After getting slow walked into these changes last season with the departure of first Klay Thompson, and then the mid-season trade that brought in Jimmy Butler, the departure of long time fan favorite, Kevon Looney cemented this season as a new beginning.

Al Horford and Jimmy Butler are joining Stephen Curry and Draymond Green to form a new core. An old one, but potentially good enough to push this franchise back into the deep end of the playoff pool. Of course, the reasonable goal for the season is to make the playoffs and avoid the play-in tournament, but the more immediate question is whether or not this is all going to work.

Tonight’s game is another that will be hard to watch. Not because it’s going to be an ugly garbage time-filled preseason game, but more that it’s literally going to be a challenge to get access to the broadcast. Once again NBA, I shake my fist at your clouds. I’ll never understand why they make it so hard to watch your favorite team.

Opening night lineup?

Expect a fair bit of tinkering tonight as the Warriors wrap up their free preseason looks, but the experimentation will have to extend at least partially into the regular season.

Moses Moody, who has emerged as one of the team’s best young options is going to miss tonight’s game, and may well be unavailable for the start of the season on Tuesday against the Los Angeles Lakers. Moody has been excellent all preseason. He came storming out of the gate for an impressive 19 points (on 5 of 7 shooting from the field) against the Lakers in the preseason opener and would have penciled in as a key rotation player next week. Instead, he’s sidelined with a relatively mild calf muscle strain - an injury that coach Steve Kerr indicates is likely to extend through next week, at minimum. Even if his body is ready, Kerr indicated recently that Moody may need some additional reps with the team prior to being able to get tossed back into the action. At time of writing, the expectation is that Moody will be out tonight, and is likely to be listed as Doubtful for Tuesday’s opener.

In a way, it’s good that the team is entering the season already working through some new mandatory lineup changes.

This roster is experienced, but they are also old. Really old. Al Horford is 39, Curry 37, Jimmy Butler 36, and Draymond Green (at 35) is the youngest of the core.

Butler is already sidelined with an ankle injury that may or may not keep him out of the season opener. And of course, De’Anthony Melton won’t even practice for a while - he’s slated to miss at least the first month of the NBA season. A few key injuries to young players (remember that both Kuminga and Podziemski missed chunks of last season) and all of the sudden, the Warriors will be behind the 8-ball.

The schedule won’t be doing this team any favors either. Golden State is slated to play 15 back-to-backs, including a hefty serving of five back-to-backs within the first 17 games. Additionally, this season will feature two six-game road trips, one of which is in November (and the other in March). In other words, don’t expect the opening salvo of this season to be gently on the old knees.

But that’s a bit too much doom and gloom for a preseason game. Golden State has options at their disposal, options that they will give extended looks to tonight.

With age comes wisdom,” Curry said recently. “We’ll take the ageism and all that stuff on the chin and keep it moving.”

Sound advice, old man. Sound advice.

Those macro factors also set the stage for some of the young players to establish themselves. There is a need for non-core players to contribute - not just every now and then either; but to help serve as the baseline support for this squad.

Kuminga and the Warriors have some baggage between them now, but once the regular season starts, none of the chatter matters a whole lot any more. Kuminga is one of the NBA’s most dynamic athletes, and he’s playing in a contract year with plenty to prove.

Much like Klay Thompson and Steph Curry’s defense went from absolute liability to strength, it’s not all that hard to imagine the game coming together for Kuminga in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with running faster than people and getting crazy dunks. Just take a look at some of his preseason stats so far:

[Kuminga’s] 17 rebounds rank second on the team, behind only Trayce Jackson-Davis, and his 16 assists rank second on the team, behind only Brandin Podziemski.To put a finer point on it, JK is flipping dimes at a slightly higher rate than Draymond Green and a much higher rate than Stephen Curry. His 17 rebounds have come in 74 minutes. Quinten Post, a 7-foot center, has 14 rebounds in 79 minutes.
Numbers like that might persuade Kerr to shrug off the brief tantrum that prompted the ejection.
“He kind of got right in Rodney’s face,” Kerr said. “You can’t do that. They’re going to eject you if you do that.
“But, like I said, I like the fire, and I like the energy that he played with. The emotion. I think JK’s having an excellent camp and I’m excited about how he looks.”

One of my favorite parts about following the Warriors so closely year over year is that we get to watch these storylines unfold. It’s not a given that Kuminga is the answer, but based on what he’s been doing so far in the preseason, the likelihood of him playing himself into Kerr’s good graces seems to be on the rise.

One more chance for a free run tonight. And then the dress rehearsals are over. Then it’s time to see this new look Warriors team.

Prediction

I’ll miss this one again. Thanks NBA broadcast schedule.

Music Friday

We are so back! Tonight I’ll be at one of my favorite weird dive venues: the DNA Lounge. Not the nice downstairs lounge either. No, that weird upstairs part. Climbing up stairs so steep and narrow that they must be illegal feels like home to me.

For today’s music, I’m sharing something from one of the loveliest punk bands you’ll ever run across. Much like the Warriors, this one is all about doing what you can, but knowing that you’ll need a hand up every now and then.