Getty Kevin Durant #35 of the Phoenix Suns drives on Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors.
Has the championship window for Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors already closed?
For former basketball player-turned-ESPN analyst Jay Williams, it already has. Williams pegged the Warriors as a play-in team this season even after trading for future Hall of Fame point guard Chris Paul in the offseason.
“The Golden State Warriors will be in the play-in tournament,” Williams said on the “First Take” via NBC Sports. “We all agree that Stephen Curry has to be the Finals MVP for this team to win a championship, correct? He’s turning 36 years old in March.”
“The only player 36 years and older to win a Finals MVP is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Their age, they’re on the wrong side of age. Median age in your prime is 28 years old. Klay [Thompson] and Draymond [Green], 33 years old, turning 34. Also, you talk about [Chris Paul], 38 years old. That’s a big thing for them, age. Age is a major thing,” Williams continued.
Those are the Warriors’ top four players in their rotation. The next two — Kevon Looney and Andrew Wiggins — are 27 and 28 years old.
But Curry, Thompson and Paul do not rely solely on their athleticism. Their biggest concern is size, which Williams pointed out.
“Size, in the fourth quarter at the end of the game, they had [Paul], Gary Payton II, and Steph Curry on the floor together. What the hell is going on?” Williams said, referring to the Warriors squandering an eight-point lead to the Suns in their 108-104 loss. “Kevon Looney is the tallest player they have at 6-9. That’s not going to be good. They’re going to get banged up.”
Kerr admitted postgame they lost the game due to the Suns’ timely offensive rebounds. They got outrebounded, 60-49, with the Suns’ trio of Jusuf Nurkic, Kevin Durant and Drew Eubanks — all above 6’10 — combining for 33 rebounds.
“Also, Jordan Poole, last year 23 years old, averaged 20 points per game. He was the energy and scoring off the bench. They don’t have depth. Even though they averaged 38 points per game off the bench, six of their top seven scorers off the bench aren’t there anymore.”
Their two young players, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, showed some promise. They combined for 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting. Once Green returns from his ankle injury, Paul is expected to slide to the bench, giving the Warriors the much-needed depth.
Chris Paul’s Reaction to C-P-3 Chants
Though the Warriors lost, Paul debuted with a near-double-double.
The 39-year-old point guard had 14 points and nine assists, with the bulk of it coming in the stirring third-quarter run with the Warriors crowd chanting C-P-3.
“Yeah, it was [surreal moment],” Paul told reporters after his first official game in a Warriors jersey. “Dario looked at me and started laughing, and I couldn’t help but laugh. That was a first.”