Kurtenbach: The Warriors are at rock bottom and inaction is no longer defensible

If this isn’t rock bottom for the Warriors, I don’t know what is.

It’s one thing to lose a regular-season game—the Dubs are becoming really good at that as of late—but to be dominated at home, the way the Warriors were on Tuesday, by a team that had played a double-overtime game in Sacramento the night before while you were fully rested is unconscionable.

Again, the Warriors didn’t just lose — they weren’t even close.

The red flag is 100 feet tall and whipping around in the Bay wind. Any notion that the Warriors can merely “see it through” looks laughable now.

And it all raises a question — one that is now fair to ask:

Are the Warriors content with mediocrity?

Because that’s the best this team can offer, and that’s with a healthy, corner-turned Jonathan Kuminga.

So perhaps the question should be a bit more specific:

Is Steph Curry comfortable with mediocrity?

The NBA’s trade deadline is less than a month away. Is there a move that can take this Warriors team and turn them into a bonafide contender? Probably not.

But what good is maintaining the status quo and this long, slow descent into irrelevance?

The ship is going down. Shouldn’t, you know, someone try to get a bucket and start scooping?

Instead, we have the organization pretending this was all part of some master plan.

At least Warriors coach Steve Kerr stopped pretending on Tuesday. When asked about a 19-point performance from Trayce Jackson-Davis (who also gave up well more than 19 points Tuesday), Kerr said:

“I can’t sit here after that and be excited about anything. He scored 19 points. Great. He’s having a good season. But who the hell cares if we’re not competitive? If we don’t have a competitive spirit, a fight, and a willingness to compete through everything?”

But this team’s issue isn’t simply a lack of fight.

It’s a talent issue.

The Dubs don’t have the kind of No. 2 scorer that Curry has always needed but needs now more than ever. Frankly, they don’t have enough good players around him.

It’s a coaching issue.

Kerr is running a system built around Curry but it doesn’t work for a solid chunk of the players around him. Those it works for are not at the peak of their powers these days.

It’s an ownership issue.

The Warriors’ organization seems too hellbent on proving it’s smarter than everyone else — be it with Lightyears or Two-Timelines — without recognizing that neither Curry nor Kerr can smooth out those mistakes anymore.

When you care more about winning “the deal” than winning games — and make no mistake, that’s what happened when the Warriors held too tightly to Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga this summer — you find yourself in the exact situation these Warriors.

It takes their best to simply tread water.

This team is somehow out of steam in the first week of January. And its one no-risk move—trading the contract of an injured player for Dennis Schröder—has been farcical to this point. The guard, acquired from Brooklyn, has shot better than 40 percent from the field in one game as a Warrior.

He’s played 11 games. He’s shooting 35 percent on 2-pointers and 26 percent from beyond the arc. His fit in the Warriors’ system has been clunky at best and he’s failed to make any appreciable positive impact on defense.

But he didn’t cost more than a few second-round picks, so the Dubs’ front office considers it a win.

They didn’t lose the deal, right?

There’s another way to look at that: No risk, no reward.

It leaves the Warriors hoping everything magically “clicks.”

There’s no plan for that to happen unless you consider happenstance a plan.

Kuminga has turned so many corners that he’s back where he started—he’s come full circle. Now, he’s injured and out until just before the trade deadline. I don’t know if his absence is good or bad for his trade value, but it is unquestionably bad for the Warriors on the court.

While I, for one, might not think much of Kuminga, it’s indisputable that he’s the best option on a team with no No. 2 option. Otherwise, you’re relying on Schröder, the often-missing Andrew Wiggins, or, above all else, Buddy Hield, if we’re being honest here.

Yes, this team’s fate seems to be in Hield’s hands. Over his last 21 games, he has shot 33 percent from beyond the arc—and an indefensible 38 percent overall—averaging a whopping 9.2 points per game. The Warriors are 5-16 during that stretch.

That’s the kind of team that should consider making the play-in tournament an accomplishment.

So where does it go from there? Hope and prayer? Another turned corner for Kuminga?

Or does this team try to solve its biggest question — the one that’s been asked for two seasons now — as best it can in the coming weeks?

And does Curry, who has patiently waited and let the Warriors’ front office try it their way, demand change?

If he’s ever planning on breaking his silence and tossing his weight around, the time is now.