Golden State brought back its own veterans, added one rookie and little else, and the injury news has already started piling up.
The rest of the Western Conference spent the summer getting better, and the Golden State Warriors mostly watched.
The front office brought back Draymond Green on a one-year deal worth $27.7 million, kept Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, De'Anthony Melton and Gary Payton II in the fold, and used the 11th pick on Yaxel Lendeborg.
The one real swing of the summer was a pursuit of LeBron James, and it ended with James choosing Philadelphia instead.
Nearly two months into the offseason, Golden State has not signed a single outside free agent, and that quiet approach could age very badly.
Running Back a Lottery Team
Standing pat is a defensible plan for a team coming off a deep playoff run, but the Warriors are not that team.
They finished 37-45 last season, landed 10th in the Western Conference and went home after the play-in.
Stephen Curry was still excellent when he played, averaging 26.6 points across just 43 games, but the year fell apart around him.
Jimmy Butler tore his ACL in January and appeared in only 38 games, and the roster behind the stars never showed it could win on nights the shots were not falling.
Depth was the difference between the play-in and a real playoff seed, and the front office answered by changing almost nothing.
The Injuries
The bigger concern is that this season will begin the way the last one ended.
Butler and Moses Moody are both coming back from serious knee injuries and are expected to miss the start of the year, which leaves the wing rotation dangerously thin for the October 21 opener against the Los Angeles Lakers.
General manager Mike Dunleavy admitted the roster needed work back in May.
"Do we need to get better roster-wise? I think so," Dunleavy said, yet the summer that followed produced almost nothing from outside the building.
NBC Sports Bay Area's Dalton Johnson reported this month that Dunleavy expects to open with a full 15-man roster, which means the only additions still coming are minimum-salary depth pieces.
Minimum contracts can round out a bench, but they do not replace a starting wing, and they do not raise a ceiling.
Why This Could Spiral
NBC Sports Bay Area's Monte Poole has described 2026-27 as a planned gap year, with the real prize being the franchise's massive projected cap space in 2027, and that framing should worry the fan base.
A gap year with Curry on the roster means wasting one of the last great seasons he has left, and there is already talk that a gap year could slide into a long-term rebuild if things break wrong.
Curry remains publicly upbeat about this group, and growth from Lendeborg, Brandin Podziemski and a healthy Moses Moody is the entire bet.
That is asking a lot, even if the general manager keeps telling fans it will fit together.
An aging core, two injured wings and no new outside talent is a recipe for another trip to the lottery, and if the losses stack up early, the deadline conversation turns from buying to selling.
The whole plan needs close to perfection from the young players and the medical staff, and perfection is a bad bet in this league.
