Over the course of the 2025-26 regular season, there's been plenty of storylines for the Golden State Warriors. With all of the injuries and shifting expectations throughout the season, not to mention the conversations around individual players such as Jonathan Kuminga, there has been no shortage of content about the Warriors' season.

One such story has been Curry's up-and-down year in his 17th season in the league. On Friday night against the Kings, Curry added another highlight as he surpassed Tim Duncan for No. 19 on the NBA's all-time scoring list, even though he gave Warriors fans around the world a scare when he tweaked his ankle in the first half.

However, despite the Warriors' 124-118 loss to the tanking Kings that saw all of the veterans sit out the final minutes, perhaps the biggest takeaway from the game was the completion of a long saga borne from social media. At long last, Brandin Podziemski scored 30 points, a career-high for him and a barrier he hasn't been able to break for a long time.

Amidst the discourse around his role on this team and the various things he's said to the media, it's a positive achievement for the young guard who's been very valuable for the Warriors, especially over the past few weeks.

Curry came up hobbling in the first half after he collided with Devin Carter on offense. He quickly went to the bench, but ended up staying in the game after it was deemed to just be a tweaked ankle, though he didn't look quite as explosive afterwards.

After the game, Steve Kerr reassured Warriors fans everywhere that Curry's ankle tweak won't affect things moving forward.

"I took the timeout, I was worried it was his knee. I just saw him limping, but he came over and he said, 'Nah, I'm fine. It's just the ankle.' He just tweaked it or something, but he's fine. The plan is to play Steph (on Sunday). He wants the rhythm and to continue to build his conditioning. I don't know exactly how many minutes."

Curry ended up playing 27 minutes in this one, though he didn't finish the game and only played 5 minutes in the fourth quarter despite the close score. He also didn't shoot well, only going 3-8 from the field and 2-6 from downtown for 11 points, but he did include 5 assists and 2 steals.

Games at the end of the season between two teams locked into their postseason avenues — the Warriors destined for the 10th seed and the Kings bottoming out in the Western Conference — are always weird, but this one had a lot of interesting things come out of it.

Gary Payton II didn't make it to the end of the game, but it wasn't by his choice or Steve Kerr's. Instead, Payton was sent back to the locker room in the third quarter after he was assessed his second technical foul and thus ejected for throwing the ball into the stands.

Payton ended up playing 15 minutes and scoring 10 points, continuing his efficient play by shooting 5-6 from the field.

Beyond Payton's odd ejection and the novelty of Podziemski's 30-point game, the major core of the Warriors also finally got a chance to play extended minutes together.

Curry, Podziemski, Gui Santos, Draymond Green, and Kristaps Porzingis started the game as an enticing mix of players on both defense and offense, while De'Anthony Melton and Al Horford were able to come off the bench and mix into these lineups.

It'll take a bit of time to mesh, as this game wasn't exactly pretty for most of these lineups, but with one more chance on Sunday ahead of the Play-In, this game against the Kings turned out to be a good first exercise.