Getty Klay Thompson works out on the court while Steve Kerr and Bob Myers chat on the sidelines ahead of the 2022 NBA Finals.
As if they didn’t know it already, the Golden State Warriors are receiving big-time confirmation of a singular truth in the NBA. Specifically, that life is a whole heck of a lot harder when you’re not rolling around with Stephen Curry.
Unfortunately, that’s the life that the Bay squad is going to be living for the next couple of weeks (and maybe longer). After suffering a shoulder subluxation during the Warriors’ December 14 loss to the Indiana Pacers, the eight-time All-Star isn’t even scheduled to be reevaluated by doctors until after the calendar’s turn.
Obviously, there’s never a good time to lose a player of Steph’s caliber, but the timing is particularly bad for the Warriors, who are somehow outside of the top eight in the West standings. As of Wednesday’s blowout loss to the Brooklyn Nets, the defending champs are now three games below the .500 mark.
Things have gotten so bad, in fact, that team president Bob Myers and head coach Steve Kerr are apparently now having dinner meetings about the incredible backward slide. Moreover, Myers is struggling to identify its genesis and what exactly he needs to do to stop it.
Bob Myers Gets Real on the Warriors’ Struggles
During his latest appearance on 95.7 The Game’s Steiny & Guru, Myers was asked how difficult it was to take stock of the Warriors with Curry and Andrew Wiggins (adductor injury) both sidelined. Apparently, it’s pretty hard.
“I think it is impossible without those guys,” Myers declared.
While he’s not pulling punches about the importance of Golden State’s missing links, Myers clearly doesn’t think that getting the duo back will be some kind of cure-all. He may not understand all the ins and outs, but he knows full well that even before the injuries hit, there were issues there.
“We saw a decent chunk with them and I can’t say why we went out early and lost some games those guys were finishing…” Myers said. “We didn’t play well in the clutch, I don’t know what that is. In a playoff series, I would trust those guys to finish it out, there’s no reason they wouldn’t, but it just didn’t go that way.
“Then you try and evaluate ‘What does that mean?’ and then you have injuries and it does cloud the whole thing up as far as what are you?”
Soldiering Ahead
The apparent holding pattern created by the team’s absences leaves Myers, Kerr and everyone on down the line with a heck of a job in attempting to correct its problems (something that may ultimately involve mixing things up ahead of February’s trade deadline).
As the Dubs prez sees it, though, that’s just “the beauty of sports.” He remains confident that he and the rest of the team have both the time and the mindset needed to right the ship but he still has a sense of urgency about getting to the bottom of things, too.
“I can sit up here and make excuses, but there’s more time to figure it out, but we’re not sitting here liking losing, no one does. Not the players, not me, not Joe [Lacob], certainly not Steve [Kerr]. We gotta try and get it going in the right direction.”