Curry is back, but are the Warriors?
The Golden State Warriors entered the 2025-26 season with real expectations.
Jimmy Butler was supposed to be the missing piece, Draymond Green was still anchoring the defense, and Stephen Curry was ready for another run.
Instead, this team has spent the last three months putting out fires it never should have had to deal with.
Golden State sits at 36-42 with four games left, locked into the 10th seed in the Western Conference and headed for the play-in tournament for the third straight year.
The roster that was supposed to contend has been gutted by injuries, and while Curry finally returned to the floor on Sunday, the damage was already done.
A Season Derailed by Injuries
It started unraveling on January 19 when Butler went down with a torn right ACL, ending his season and taking the heart out of everything Golden State was building.
Then on January 30, Curry limped off with a knee injury that kept him out for 27 straight games.
Runner's knee, a bone bruise, multiple rehab setbacks. The whole thing dragged on way longer than anyone expected.
Moses Moody suffered a torn patellar tendon and is done for the year.
Seth Curry missed most of the season with various leg injuries, appearing in just six games. Al Horford dealt with a calf problem.
The Warriors went 11-21 after Butler went down, and it felt like every week brought another name to the injury report.
The team tried to shake things up at the deadline by sending Jonathan Kuminga to Atlanta for Kristaps Porzingis, who has averaged 16.6 points and 4.8 rebounds in 21 games since arriving.
Porzingis has shown flashes, but without Curry on the floor for most of his time in Golden State, there has been almost no chance to build real chemistry between the two.
Curry Comes Back Swinging
Sunday against the Houston Rockets was the moment Warriors fans had waited for since late January.
Curry came off the bench for the first time in a regular-season game since 2012, and Chase Center erupted.
He finished with 29 points on 11-for-21 shooting, went 5-for-10 from three, and became the 26th player in NBA history to reach 9,000 career field goals.
He almost won it too, but missed a long three at the buzzer as the Rockets escaped 117-116.
Even in a loss, the fact that a 38-year-old can sit out for two months and come back looking like that tells you everything about who Curry still is.
Why It Probably Won't Matter
Curry's return does not change the math for Golden State.
They are three games behind the Los Angeles Clippers for the ninth seed and almost certainly will not catch them, meaning they need to survive two play-in games just to reach the first round.
And even if they get there, the reward is likely a series against the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs.
Curry averaged 27.2 points, 4.8 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 39 games before the injury, numbers that are still very good for anyone, let alone a guy approaching 40.
But he is on a minutes restriction and has almost no time to gel with Porzingis before the postseason starts.
Steve Kerr has talked about being aggressive this offseason in the pursuit of another star, and the reality is that this season became about next year the moment Butler tore his ACL. Curry is back, and that matters.
But the Warriors need a lot more than that to fix what went wrong.