Ta-Da! It's a tire fire!

Warriors are suddenly struggling, just in time for tough stretch of games

The Golden State Warriors were never going to breeze through this entire NBA season. Too old, with too many concessions around the edges to make the salary work while also filling roster gaps? Maybe, maybe not. The fun part about being a basketball fan is that everything can pivot at a moment’s notice.

So sure, the Warriors are facing a lot of uncertainty, but you know what? This is what we are here for. This campaign is far removed from the sure thing era featuring Kevin Durant and a stacked roster - heck, Dub Nation was even treated to a “what are they gonna say now” bonus championship just a few seasons ago.

And it is important to understand that the issues popping up now - too many turnovers, an overall sense of ennui or disinterest - are all too familiar. Turnovers have been this team’s Achilles heel for so long that the initial take may as well have been written by Homer. It may not always be a fatal flaw, but it is a critical one. We are digging through the bottom of the old Doritos bag, as it were, searching for that one last good chip - don’t be surprised if the hand comes out full of crumbs.

Tonight, the Warriors are back home for a quick visit before resuming their wild November road trip stretch. As they’ve disclosed, Golden State is picking one of these two upcoming back-to-back games to play Al Horford - he’s sitting tonight but will return for tomorrow night’s game in Sacramento.

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GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (4-3) vs. Phoenix Suns (3-4)

WHEN: Tuesday, November 4th, 2025; 7pm PDT

WATCH: NBCSBA

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You ever eat a meal blindfolded?

Maybe it’s because I’m a little bit crazy, but I find myself smacking my lips, trying to figure out the flavor of this team. Are they as dominant as they’ve looked in early flashes? An error-filled gourmet spoon of mediocrity? The answer is, of course, somewhere more in the middle. So, what have the Warriors shown us so far? Looking at the statistics, there are some patterns that can help us figure out what these Warriors are - at least so far.

Small sample size warning should be lighting up across your mental threat detection dashboard, so please take the following with extreme doses of salt. That said, it looks like the Warriors are shaping up to be a primarily defensive team.

via BBall Ref, as always

Part of this is simply the results of some early season randomness, and perhaps the graying of Golden State’s elder statesmen. Curry is fine; recent press aside, his turnovers and shooting are both pretty much in line with historical norms. That said though, one of the outlier values when I look at the stats breakdown above is that the team turnover percentage is amongst the worst in the league (rank 28). So although it’s not Curry himself that is driving these turnovers, the team as a whole is. That’s the sort of stuff that makes Steve Kerr break a clipboard or two.

But merits of angrily breaking clipboards aside, turnovers have always been generally slotted into the “cost of doing business” category, it’s not so much about the turnovers themselves, but the comparative rate of the other - nicer - stuff going on.

There’s a strange poetry in watching a dynasty age. The sharp edges that once cut through the league’s best have dulled a bit, but they’ve been replaced by something else - endurance, patience, a willingness to keep finding meaning in the grind. This version of the Warriors feels less like a highlight reel and more like a punk band deep into a messy set: sometimes chaotic, sometimes transcendent, and always teetering between collapse and brilliance. You can’t look away, not because they’re perfect, but because they’ve become so profoundly human.Which brings us back to the tire fire aspect… for a couple of reasons.

First, the Warriors’ traditional strengths haven’t really shown up yet. Kuminga is doing great, the starters in general are mostly okay, but that old school excellence hasn’t made an appearance just yet. Sure, they are still launching three-pointers at a prodigious rate (in fact, rank 3 in this regard is the highest the Warriors appear on any of these main statistical leaderboards). But what’s missing this time around is that the threes aren’t dropping as frequently. Partially due to personnel, and partly due to a league that has at this point basically been raised on a steady diet of worrying about Steph Curry, the NBA is finding that adopting Curry’s play style is a good concept, but being able to defend it? That’s a prerequisite.

Second though, you don’t really put out a tire fire. Just let it run its course. As my wiser, more hilarious, more award winning colleague, Daniel Hardee pointed out yesterday, it’s important to give some grace here. This has been a crazy off-season. After some major roster turbulence last season, the Warriors and Jimmy Butler are now attempting to incorporate some new major elements. It’s not just new arrival, Al Horford (who, by the way, randomly is going to take a bunch of nights off due to prioritization of post season readiness. There’s also a different approach to Jonathan Kuminga’s role, a freedom of expression and trust that will take some getting used to.

So sure, break some clipboards, get mad; but at the end of the day, this is an ongoing evaluation. Losses at this point in the season sting - especially coming against some of the opponents that Golden State has - but there’s quite a bit of slack before any of the Warriors’ shortcoming become truly alarming.

Prediction

What’s left, then, is the question that has always defined this era: how much longer can belief carry them? Every season feels like an echo of something both fading and familiar - flashes of brilliance, the stubborn refusal to accept decline, the quiet hope that experience can still outthink youth. Maybe that’s the real show now. Not the rings or the records, but the act of keeping faith in a team that keeps daring time to catch them.

We don’t have many more seasons with this core. Chew slowly on this season. Chew carefully. Savor it. Warriors run over the new-look Suns, because why not?