Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry’s depressing new reality

Stephen Curry might be a sure-fire Hall of Fame player, but his current reality with the Golden State Warriors is far removed from his glittering past.

Coming into this NBA season, we knew that the Golden State Warriors, although improved, were going to struggle to keep pace with the top of the Western Conference. Having Stephen Curry back was great, while the additional of second overall pick James Wiseman could only be a good thing, and to this point has been.

But with Kevin Durant now a distant memory and doing his thing for the Brooklyn Nets, and Klay Thompson missing his second straight season through injury, this is clearly not the same Warriors organization that won three titles in five years and is seen by most as the defining dynasty of the last decade.

We knew it was going to be tough for Curry to drag this supporting cast through the season. But at 0-2, did we think it would be this hard for him? After all he is a former league MVP, the only unanimous winner of the award in fact, with the kind of range that caused the league to shift towards players like him. Unfortunately for Curry, this isn’t going to get any easier, anytime soon.

It is still too early in the campaign to make any sort of bold predictions or read too much into the numbers. But as of right now the Warriors are rooted to the bottom of the table in terms of offensive efficiency (88.0), miles behind the second worst team (Detroit Pistons, 95.4). Given that this is an area where the Golden State Warriors routinely dominated, this is new territory for Stephen Curry.

Although he has shown in the past that you can build a brilliant offensive scheme around his shooting ability and movement without the ball, you need to have at least some of the right kinds of players around him to make this work. To say that the Warriors are currently lacking in these kinds of players would be an understatement.

Wiseman will be a good player for the Warriors, but he is a more typical center who does his best work inside. Worlds away from the likes of Durant, generational talents and big men who can put the ball on the floor. Curry has worked well with rim running bigs in the past, but that was when he had Thompson or Andre Iguodala or even a prime Draymond Green alongside him.

None of those things exist anymore, and have been replaced by the likes of Eric Paschall and Kelly Oubre Jr. Neither are bad players, but early on they just look like bad fits next to Curry. This is especially true of Oubre Jr., who may go on to frustrate both teammates and head coach Steve Kerr with the most un-Warriors like of shot selections such as this one, all year long.

Everything about that play is the opposite of what the Warriors came to be defined by on their title runs of the past. They were built on spacing, movement, unselfishness and an ability to score from deep throughout the roster. Curry is still capable of all of those things, but with no help the results are already telling.

So far Curry has shot 20 percent from deep, which again is a small sample size and is going to improve. He is too good a shooter for it not to. But opponents can sag off guys like Oubre Jr. and Andrew Wiggins (who continues to look like the poor fit he already was for this organization) and zone in on Curry, which will make it harder for him to get shots off.

Curry is also wonderful at giving up the ball, running through a maze of screens and reappearing elsewhere like a genie, before knocking down a 3-pointer (or 105). Only Curry already seems less enthusiastic about giving the ball to these guys, while there is no guarantee he’ll get it back anymore after making one of his trademark runs.

Things are bad on both ends for Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors

While it is bad on the offensive end, it isn’t much better defensively either. The Warriors currently rank 28th (118.7), and don’t have the ability to switch defensively that was also once a trademark of theirs. Curry could be hidden on weaker scorers (although he is not the negative on that end he was earlier in his career), but already more is being asked of him without the ball.

This is something else that he is both not used to, and which does not bode well for the rest of the season. Ideally you want Curry to save his legs for scoring and being the incredible offensive talent that he is. You don’t want him chasing around elite guards each night, and younger up and coming stars who want to show Curry what they’ve got, of which there’s a lot in the league.

Stephen Curry isn’t going to get any sympathy from anybody. He has led a charmed life for most of his time in the league. An All-Star in a great city who was a part of a perennial contender and perhaps the greatest team of all time. It all looks a lot different right now, and unfortunately for him, the rest of this long year feels like it will have a similar pattern with the Golden State Warriors.