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00:00This is Kavon Looney. Welcome back to Steine and Guru on 95.7 The Game. Take it away Steine.
00:05All right, thanks Kavon. 10 points last night for Kavon. All right. Season high? We'll see.
00:13Real quick Steine, my boy Silk Basie, who you met at Norm's party, text me. He's listening.
00:17He says, reality's setting in on everybody but you, Gu. I think with what I just told you after
00:23I missed you yesterday, I think I'm there. I heard Shaski this morning. He's ready to blow it up.
00:29I think I'm in that line. That's what the leaders told me. They have nothing in the gun.
00:37No bullets. I'm trying to figure out why in the last two or three days,
00:42Steph, Draymond, and Steve Kerr have all addressed this situation and basically said,
00:49this is what Steve Kerr told Anthony Slater when he was talking about making a move that's
00:58going to debilitate him down the line. That's the hard part in addressing all this stuff,
01:02Kerr said. We're not giving in, but you have to be realistic organizationally about where you are.
01:09And you have to mind what's coming ahead in the future. I probably won't be around,
01:15but I would tell you if this organization gave away the next six or seven drafts
01:20for a wild swing, that would be the most irresponsible thing that they could do.
01:26And again, the question I have is why is this their tone now when it wasn't their tone at the
01:35beginning of the year? Their tone at the beginning of the year was we will do anything and everything
01:40to maximize Steph Curry's window. So when you now say we can't do anything that would hurt the
01:48franchise down the line, first of all, I'm not against that at all. But that does seem to fly
01:56in the face of the strategy that you told the fans was going to be yours for the last year or two.
02:03And maybe what maybe I think what we're finding out here is that without making fun,
02:10trades are hard. And I don't think they can make one. But why take this? Why say this aloud,
02:15though? And you're February 6th is the deadline. And and a lot of people and you you were one of
02:20them starting saying the Warriors were saying, you know what, we're going to take inventory
02:24and that'll be the date that we'll try to try to do something again since we struck out on
02:28Georgian marketing. But the bottom line is, why do you have to say this out loud?
02:33Because I think they know. I think they know. I think they know that of all the players that
02:40are available and all the possible trades that might be out there, I think they've looked at
02:45them all and they realize, even if they make one, it's not going to dramatically change them
02:52from a 10 or 11 to four or five. I don't think I think they believe now that that's probably
03:02out of the realm of possibility. So if. If you don't think there's a move out there that can
03:08get you up this, let's just say six. Well, now you are you are between a rock and a hard place.
03:14I've been the biggest and you tell me what you think here, a supporter of Steph Curry, Stiney,
03:19and where he's at and what he has left. And I talked about Draymond earlier and how I
03:24processed those comments. But here in Steph with his beanie on his brown beanie on and his beard,
03:31say what he said and the look in his eye. And he had twenty six, seven and seven,
03:35a bad turnover at the end of the I thought in the fourth quarter, Mr. Three. But the bottom
03:40line is, Stiney, you tell me if I'm off my rocker here. Shout out to John. I felt like Superman was
03:46telling me he didn't have the superpowers anymore to take this team. To the promised land, like
03:53goo and other goos out there, the thing that that's why I bring up and I keep saying white flag,
04:00it seemed like there was something in his eyes saying, I can't do this anymore.
04:06The way you guys think I can. And that's why he said what he said to Slater. Well, here's more
04:12what Steph said to Anthony Slater and the writers after the loss last night in Toronto. Mike
04:17understands like we want to win. We want to be in that position where we've always said that you
04:21want to be relevant in the championship type of chase. Well, you know, we understand we're getting
04:28older and deeper into our careers and allowing some of the young guys to kind of blossom.
04:33But it doesn't mean you're getting desperate. It's better to kind of be patient, understand what
04:38that looks like. And I know, you know, Mike is always on the phone trying to figure out what a
04:43big GM does. Doesn't mean there's a deal. The table doesn't mean that you're desperate. Doesn't
04:47mean that you're just playing, like I said, assets all the way around and being reckless with it.
04:52All right. So that was Steph saying. Don't make a desperate move, but to call Mike Dunlevy,
05:00and I'm not saying he's bad, Stani, a good GM. You know how many salesmen have lost their job
05:05making calls? You got to close something. So to say a good GM makes calls to me, that's just
05:13that's the price of admission. A good GM makes something happen. But now I'm reading the tea
05:19leaves. You just hit the nail on the head, Stani. Tell me if I'm wrong. They're basically saying
05:24there's nothing they can help remedy this. And through 39 games, the other right on the table
05:30brought to you by Echo Pest Control, the Warriors are are making last year look like a reality.
05:37They look like a team that's not good enough to qualify for the playoffs, which they didn't.
05:44And they're living up to that after 39 games. They're 11th. Well, let me ask you this.
05:50When we talked about the Warriors last year, and I want to throw this out to Warrior fans too.
05:54When we talked about the Warriors last year, and them winning 46 games.
06:02A lot of people believe that had Draymond Green not missed 25, had Andrew Wiggins been available
06:09all year long? What else? Had Klay Thompson fit in a little bit better last year? I mean,
06:19what happened to the people that thought this was a 50 plus win team once they got Draymond back?
06:25Is this team underachieving to a significant point? Or were they never a 50 win team?
06:34I mean, I was a little skeptical of thinking that 46 wins was going to translate to 54 if
06:41everybody was healthy this year. But why aren't they? Why haven't they taken a step
06:48up? Why haven't they taken a step up this year? Now that Draymond's been relatively healthy,
06:55Steph's been pretty healthy. Wiggins has been available for almost the entire portion of the
07:00season. Kuminga even has shown some strides. I mean, on the one hand, it's like, why aren't
07:06they better than last year? That's the maddening part about all this. And you were talking to me,
07:12you didn't say it. But I was the guy doing that math that if Draymond hadn't missed,
07:16you know, the time and everything that you just ran down. But how little did they look yesterday?
07:22And that's something that's bigger than just basketball's DNA. But I'm looking at Pirtle,
07:28Barnes, Boucher, and Barrett. They made the Warriors look like a CYO team just in regard
07:35to length. And how many guys on this Warrior Club, you didn't ask me, Stiney, but it's apparent now,
07:43can create their own shot off the dribble. And as much as I love Schroeder, Stiney,
07:47the ball stick in his hand like bad eggs in a frying pan. But that's who he was before you
07:54went and got him. He's a ball stopper. And I'm not mad at Schroeder. He meets the criteria,
08:02at least, I can do some things. But the balls, it's an eyesore watching this team right now,
08:09man. I mean, it really is. They're small. You know, they won a title in 2022.
08:17And, you know, a lot of things went right. And I feel like they came back the next year
08:25and thought they were the best team in basketball and they could just kind of keep it going.
08:30I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say that I knew specifically what was going to
08:36happen to this team, you know, in the last year or two or maybe in the next year or two.
08:41But and I get it. We can we can we can talk about every move they've made.
08:48But I feel like if we're realistic, they talk to me. There was just they had a dynasty.
08:57They won a title in 2022. And now they're three years removed from that. And at some point,
09:05the core players were going to get older. They move Clay Thompson. And now they're left with
09:10Steph and Draymond Green, both of whom are aging superstars who are still under contract for two
09:18and a half more years. And I just kind of feel like one way or the other, it was all going to
09:24catch up to them. And this is how it's looking right here, right now. And I didn't expect this
09:31team to you know, I never expected a team coming off a dynasty to be able to maintain a level of
09:41play where they're one of the top five, eight teams in the league. It's just asking too much.
09:47Well, what about Clay Thompson? He was the poster boy. He was the addition by subtraction.
09:53It was sold. You tell me if I'm wrong. There were whispers that he was a black cloud in the locker
09:59room, the way that he was moping and just having him out of there and not seeing him, you know,
10:06kind of bring morale down, that that was going to be a plus, right? Now, all of a sudden, after 39,
10:1140 games, Donnie, we can't say that Clay Thompson is what L last year's Warriors.
10:17I thought it was addition by subtraction. Well, I mean, that's and that's one thing that I,
10:22you know, if you were to tell me they would have re-signed Clay Thompson and then,
10:28you know, they wouldn't have healed Melton, Schroeder and Kyle Anderson. I don't believe
10:34for one minute they'd be better. I just don't. I they might be 22 and 19, but like, I don't think
10:42they'd be significantly better. But was I thought the air would be thinner on the road. Just forget
10:49on the court, off the court. I thought, you know, being around him was, you know,
10:53he was sucking some energy out of the guys. But now that that sounds like that's so weak
10:58that I never went in 100 percent that they, you know, that's what I told him. But study,
11:03I thought that was the attraction or what made this team a reason to get excited about it.
11:09Well, I mean, that's it was one thing. Clay Thompson was just one piece of the puzzle.
11:13They have a lot of different pieces to this puzzle. And whether getting rid of clay has
11:19helped or hurt, I don't know. I don't think it'd be drastically different one way or the other.
11:24But where they're at, right. I mean, the biggest issue this team has and I get it,
11:29we can all talk about what coming is injury and we can all want Wiggins to be a little better.
11:34And pods has had a bad year. We all know that they're missing them. But the reality of the
11:40situation is the biggest two things that that the Warriors have to overcome right now is that
11:48their best player is almost 37 years old, but he's not who he used to be. And he's and he is and will
11:55always be the, you know, most important player on this team. So your most important player on this
12:04team isn't the player he once was. And your second most important player isn't what he was.
12:11And I'm talking about Draymond Green and between you and me, Gu, I get it. They're 19 and 20 right
12:19now after 12 and three star. But my question to anybody out there, anybody and you included,
12:26is how do they get better with Steph and Draymond? I don't I don't know that it's possible without
12:37just an absolutely phenomenal move that may not be out there.
12:41There are two most important and impactful players are declining, but they're still
12:48going to be around for two and a half more years.