After a lackluster trade deadline, the Golden State Warriors find themselves sinking fast in the Western Conference standings. With injuries to Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Kristaps Porzingis, the Warriors have never looked less like a contender.
Golden State failing to get better at the trade deadline means that they're nothing more than a play-in team.
Even if they were to actually make the playoffs, they face a buzzsaw in the first round. The Warriors would face either the Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Antonio Spurs, with both teams being vastly superior.
That doesn't paint a pretty picture for Golden State, who have seemingly wasted another year of Curry's greatness. It also puts more pressure on them to overhaul their roster this summer.
The Warriors are officially no longer contenders
The Warriors are desperately hoping that Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo demands an offseason trade and ends up in Golden State. That's really the only pathway they have to contend.
That only goes to show just how much they've messed up in the last few years. For a team that modeled themselves after the Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs, they failed miserably to replicate that success.
Unlike those Spurs teams, the Warriors had three lottery picks in a two-year span, but two floundered, and the other is merely a capable starter.
Going one for three on lottery picks has certainly hurt Golden State's ability to contend. In fact, it's slowly transformed them from being a perennial powerhouse to being a fringe playoff team.
Golden State is responsible for their own downfall
They've even struck out on subsequent moves that could have made them better. They had the opportunity to trade for Utah Jazz star Lauri Markkanen but turned down a potential deal to keep Brandin Podziemski.
That move, or lack thereof, has aged like milk. So has their unwillingness to trade Jonathan Kuminga to the Sacramento Kings in a deal that could have netted them a first-round pick.
Instead, they later traded him for Porzingis. Ouch. With the Warriors too good to have a high lottery pick and too bad to be a contender, they are stuck in limbo. Their only hope is that they can land a star in the off-season, but that may only be prolonging an inevitable rebuild.