With Stephen Curry back, it’s only a matter of time before the Warriors start clicking and playing

Forget the score. Forget the win-loss record. Forget Tuesday night’s losses. Westerns His conference’s best team stepped onto the floor Wednesday night in San Francisco, moments after Stephen Curry returned to his team after missing his 11 games with a shoulder injury. .

The Golden State Warriors will be the team to beat the West, health permitting. Everyone else is still chasing them, and the Warriors still pretend to be the throne they firmly call their own.

Yes, it certainly is. Curry’s return coincided with a stumbling block with the depleted Phoenix Suns, where he lost 125-113 to a team that entered the game on a six-game losing streak. The loss pushed Golden State below .500 to 20-21. Curry’s shooting fell short of his three. Also Clay Thomspon. The team has now lost three in a row. to the sub-par team. The same is true at home.

All sound and anger conveys absolutely nothing. Not in the long run. It doesn’t matter.

Many conversations with rival GMs and other NBA officials over the past week have reinforced the feeling that Stephen Curry & Co. is the team to beat the West despite their recent struggles.

Curry’s return means the Warriors, who won the last NBA title, are still well positioned to win their next NBA title.

Curry, Thompson, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney and Andrew Wiggins have boasted that the Warriors have played five starting players together since Dec. 2. It will take a while for this group to get back into the rhythm. Curry came back one game and Wiggins did the same personally in his second game since injury.

But they will.

And when they do, they boast the most formidable power in the league.

literally.

Going into the game, these five Warriors were the best five starters in the league. hit it.they were the best Five people rotation in the game. with wide margins.

Just 278 minutes and +132 again this season.

This is clearly better than the Denver Nuggets, who are tied for first place with a 27-13 record. But Wednesday morning, that group had him +109 in 301 minutes.

In fact, the Nuggets’ lead position in the West standings perfectly illustrates an interesting, crowded, but far from fear-inducing group of teams in the conference. There are many true and clear contenders in the East. But only the Warriors in the West can say the same when they’re clicking together as healthy as Tuesday and likely to be soon.

Denver’s defense is a big postseason responsibility. The team they’re tied to now, the Memphis Grizzlies, is, at least in my eyes, a team other than the Warriors, and I might bet my money, but their youth and sometimes careless enthusiasm That makes short-term championship prospects in doubt, even for those of us who strongly believe in long-term uplift.

The non-Warriors West is a running list of good or interesting but ultimately vulnerable teams.

New Orleans Pelicans? …might be a threat to a healthy Zion Williamson. They certainly wouldn’t be contenders without him, and his recent injury is another reminder that relying on Zion’s availability is a real gamble.

Dallas Mavericks? … Luka Doncic is incredible, but too little help and poor defense in the back. As one scout told me this week, “Luka’s problem is mainly that he’s doing so much for the team that by the time the playoffs start he’s inevitably exhausted. Yes. He needs help getting the energy to get through the long playoff runs.”

Sacramento Kings? ……Yes, turn on the beam. This team is fun and aggressively explosive. But they aren’t a playoff series threat.

Los Angeles Clippers?…return once Kawhi Leonard and Paul George stop being part-time players.

Los Angeles Lakers? … just kidding.

Even the Suns, who beat out Golden State with Steph’s return, are shells of their former selves. As the second scout put it, “Chris Paul was washed.”He said if CP3 was washed, it could be, but the Suns’ championship hopes would also be washed. deaf.

But the main reason the Warriors are the team to win is because they’re still the Warriors. Curry’s rough start in Tuesday’s game and his poor three-pointer shot that night are the inevitable rust of a layoff.

But Thompson is largely starting to take shape. The young players on this team, especially Jordan Poole, look poised to really help out in the second half of the season, as does Bizarro’s 3-16 record that the Warriors hold. but this is a strange exception. Don’t let that fool you.

Curry is back. That means the Warriors are back, too.

Let’s not write it down again too soon.