Preview: first look was promising, now Warriors attempt to make it a trend

Nuggets come to SF for their season opener

The Golden State Warriors opened their season with a resounding win over the short-handed Los Angeles Lakers, but will now return home for a home opener against the Denver Nuggets - another projected top team in the crowded Western Conference. There’s no ultimatums at this point in the season, no such thing as a must-win game, but the Warriors are going to really want this one. Denver remains one of the best teams in the league, and will be led by Nikola Jokic, one of the most dominant big men to ever play the game.

This is a new era of NBA basketball, and both Golden State and Denver are looking to find their way through this new geography. It’s not clear if either of these teams will need to go through each other in order to reach the playoffs, but when two teams feature such high-level talent at the top, there’s a certain amount of measuring up that both sides will be doing tonight.

On the injury front, still no Moses Moody for the Warriors - he’s already been ruled out by the team as he continues to work his way back from a calf strain. However, there’s hope that he’ll be back for game three, which will be an early-season back-to-back tomorrow against the Portland Trail Blazers. The other player to watch is old Al Horford, who is not expected to play back-to-backs this season; Kerr has indicated that Horford will play tonight against Denver, which signals that he’s not going to be available tomorrow night.

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GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (1-0) vs Denver Nuggets (0-0)

WHEN: Thursday, October 23rd, 2025; 7pm PST

WATCH: ESPN, various streaming options

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Did Kuminga land a starting spot?

Golden State knows that they have some decisions to make on their rotations. A preseason truncated by extended free agency signing issues has contributed to the cloudiness, which has been further complicated by injuries to key contributors De’Anthony Melton and Moody. Jimmy Butler, another relatively recent addition to the family, rolled his ankle in practice and was given most of the preseason off.

So it’s no surprise that the Warriors went into opening night with some gaps to fill, and equally unsurprising that Jonathan Kuminga got the nod. There’s no time to waste, and both the Warriors and Kuminga have vested interest in figuring out exactly how well this union will play out over the course of the season. And maybe it also wasn’t much of a surprise that Kuminga played so well.

But unless you are a big believer in the promise of Golden State’s 23-year old wing, the first game was a bit of an eye opener. Kuminga got the start, sure, but more importantly he played well enough to stay on the floor in the closing minutes as well. He logged 33 minutes on the night. Racking up all sorts of highlights on both ends of the court. From energy-filled, astute defense, to impressively athletic and heady rebounds, Kuminga was everywhere. His positive contributions were impossible to miss.

That perfect 3rd quarter will get a lot of coverage - and rightly so. 13 points on a perfect 5-of-5 from the field, including three from beyond the arc (a noted weakness in his game based on previous seasons). All told, Kuminga ended up with 17 points (off just 11 shots), nine rebounds and six assists.

None of this happens in a vacuum. Kuminga has a lot to prove this season, maybe not to himself, but the team (and the rest of the NBA) are still trying to figure this kid out. The absence of Moody opened a door that may have been partially closed. Even with full positive intentions, it’s easy to imagine how Kerr’s rotations would look different if Moody or De’Anthony Melton were available. Both players pencil in as key rotational pieces, and while they both play entirely different games than what Kuminga brings to the floor, there are only so many free minutes to go around.

Now, Kuminga has showed up. He’s met the opportunity and been more than up for it. Now the question becomes “what can he do next?” If this is the version of Kuminga that the Warriors can expect to see this season, then it behooves Kerr to make sure this window of opportunity doesn’t close prematurely.

“He’s really really matured...I think he has a better understanding of what we need,” Kerr said (via ESPN’s Anthony Slater). “I think he just has a better sense of what’s needed now compared to past years. I think Jimmy (Butler) has really helped him too. Jimmy has really talked to him a lot during camp. He’s taken him aside after practices.”

These are exactly the sort of leaps that everyone was excited for Kuminga to take - and exactly why the bad pairing with Butler last season was such a concern. For a team with so many shooters, it would seem that a player like Kuminga would be one of their most dangerous weapons.

But the off-season has given everyone enough time and space to think through whatever barriers to execution used to exist. Now, Kuminga and Butler have paired up, and the results spoke for themselves on opening night.

In his postgame comments, Butler talked about it (no link, because Twitter):

“I’m trying to teach him a little bit of what I see throughout the game. So we’ve been kicking it, hanging out, watching film, working on our game together.”

In any new environment, there’s a mental breakthrough that you have to chase. When “everything slows down” it’s not just that you’ve developed new skills, there’s an entirely new mental outlook. A new way of processing the threats and opportunities and deciding what to do about both.

Kuminga wants to be the sort of player that is featured in a team. This was reportedly one of the core issues with his Warriors’ contract renewal and free agency chase this off-season, and something that isn’t exactly unique to Kuminga - every player wants to do more; be more.

So if this dam really broke and Kuminga is the real deal, then… whew. Maybe that Warriors win prediction isn’t so outlandish after all.

Interestingly, the way last season ended created more confusion around Kuminga’s role and value than any specific play or interaction. Between racking up a bunch of DNPs and then pitching in a ton of positive contributions after Curry went down, it wasn’t at all clear where this was all heading - a confusion only further compounded by the weirdly quiet but extended contract renewal showdown over the off-season.

Kuminga has shown what he can do in a high-stakes environment such as last season’s playoffs against the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he played 27.4 minutes and averaged 20.8 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 assists during the five-game series. But before that, he was getting DNPs during the home stretch of the regular season. The hamstring injury to Curry in the playoffs against Minnesota forced Kuminga into a more prominent role -- which he capitalized on -- that left more questions than answers.

Now, as happily delusional as many in Dub Nation are right now, it’s valid to point out that after one game, we still can’t be entirely sure of what this full season is going to look like. The Lakers went just 8-of-32 from deep as a team, and played without LeBron James - so in a sense, anything other than a win would have been a bit of a disaster for a Warriors team that is eyeing a deeper push into this year’s playoffs.

If they can just slow it all down.

All the talk of a second timeline have gone out the window, tossed out into the wind with the sound of laughter in the background. No, James Wiseman cannot be the part of any viable renewal. Nor can the team assume that any random rotating cast of characters will be enough to annually re-energize a franchise that is on the tail end of a historic run. But what can happen is that one of these reloads works. None of this would be possible without Curry, but I find myself thinking a lot about the pivot to Jimmy Butler and what it has meant for Golden State. This reload - with Butler, and now Horford, plus development from guys like Kuminga, Post, Podziemski, etc. - has the feel of that ominous sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.

One game in, it’s not at all clear how this season will play out; but all that matters at this point is that the Warriors look dangerous, now they’ve got to spend the next few months cementing that into place.

All of which feels pretty doable.

For Golden State, nights like this are more than early-season tests - they’re identity checks. Every possession is a small experiment in what this new version of the Warriors can be. Against a polished Denver squad, that search for balance will be on full display. The core remains familiar, but the chemistry is new, the roles unsettled, and the hierarchy still taking shape; but all of it feels extremely viable.

Prediction

Denver is going to be a much tougher battle, but Golden State is on a roll. Dubs win a tight one, with another strong game from Kuminga and his new friend, Jimmy Butler.

And maybe that’s the whole point of this version of the Warriors - not to chase ghosts of the past, but to prove that reinvention doesn’t always mean starting over. Every era ends, but the great ones have a way of echoing forward, reshaping themselves just enough to stay dangerous. Tonight’s game won’t decide anything, but it might just hint that Golden State’s echo still carries weight.