Even with Jimmy Butler, Warriors find themselves in similar spot as last year originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – There’s a strong argument that the most introspective player on the Warriors, a team centered on three NBA stars 35 years and older, is 23-year-old Moses Moody.
He’s a reader and a poet. He spits meaningful bars at the podium that your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper wishes they could think of. He’s wise beyond his age and always worth listening to. He also took a long pause Tuesday when asked about the mood of a 13-14 Warriors team that already has gone through countless ups and downs in the 2025-26 NBA season.
“Good question,” Moody began.
“I would say good, through and through,” he continued. “A lot of highs and lows. A lot of professionals on the team, so it’s not dealing with childish emotions or anything like that. It’s more so grown men trying to figure something out. And that’s from the coaching staff to the last player on the bench.
“It’s not a bunch of emotions of, ‘Oh, you said this, you said that,’ rather than a group of men trying to figure something out, and that’s cool to see.”
Moody chose his words carefully. Frustrations for the Warriors have been seen in numerous ways. This is a team that went 23-8 down the stretch last season after trading for Jimmy Butler, beat the No. 2 seed Houston Rockets in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs and felt like they were destined for the Western Conference finals until Steph Curry’s hamstring strain.
There even was a contingent within the franchise that believed a healthy Warriors team could beat the Oklahoma City Thunder last season. This season’s team can’t keep leaning on that run. It’s done, it’s over.
The Warriors, as the calendar year gets close to ending, feel much more like the pre-Butler team they were around the same time a year ago than the post-Butler one right now.
Even coach Steve Kerr sees the similarities.
“Yeah, it feels a lot like last year, ironically,” Kerr said Tuesday. “At the trade deadline I think we were .500. We were very inconsistent. We traded for Dennis [Schröder] first, and then Jimmy obviously as we were searching for answers and we found it. And I’m very, very confident that this group will find it, because we already have Jimmy and when we’re healthy I think the lineup is very formidable.
“I think we have depth, I think we have everything we need. So it’s on me to put it together and to help these guys find the rhythm and the confidence that I know they have inside.”
Though Moody didn’t perfectly agree with the similarities of last year to this year, he does share the feelings of his coach in why belief is warranted.
“It feels different,” Moody said. “I’m not exactly sure the situation last year at this time. But these last couple games – there have been so many games this year that we should have won coming down to the end like that. We’re not far off. One shot goes differently and it’s a whole different conversation. I think we’re able to realize that. Coach is able to realize that. So nobody is panicking, more so as we’re trying to figure it out. Just figure it out a little bit.
“I think it happens a lot of times that you’ll be so close to what you want and you just need to change something, so you change something, and then you’re actually a lot further away than you’re actually trying to get to. I think it’s a delicate situation, as well as we just got to figure it out and that’s what we’re working towards.”
Needing a change became obvious enough to the Warriors last season that they traded for Schröder the first day they were able to make such a move on Dec. 15. The Warriors were 14-10 at the time. They were a game under .500 on Dec. 15 this season, and a move doesn’t seem imminent at the moment since Jonathan Kuminga can’t be traded until Jan. 15.
From the offseason to the first third of the regular season, the Kuminga cloud has hovered over everything involving the Warriors. Kuminga has received three straight healthy DNPs, in which the Warriors won the first game against a reeling Chicago Bulls team and then dropped two straight against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Portland Trail Blazers. The Timberwolves and Blazers are both teams Kuminga is meant for with his combination of size and athleticism, especially after averaging over 24 points in the final four games of the playoffs against the Timberwolves seven months ago.
Then this week, a fan email to Joe Lacob received a response from the Warriors owner and went viral. In the response, Lacob alluded to “style of play,” “coaches desires regarding players,” and “league trends” for why the Warriors have been struggling. Kerr on Tuesday brushed off the email, calling it “no big deal,” but it undoubtedly pulled back the curtain to the public in areas the two disagree on.
After getting DNP’d in Chicago, Kuminga said that he and Kerr have a good relationship and the coach echoed those sentiments when the Warriors returned home. Sources also acknowledge there have been some moments of high intensity between the two of them this season.
Butler has gone two straight games without speaking to the media after two bad losses, getting out as fast as he could. He and Draymond Green, who recorded eight turnovers in his return Sunday, didn’t appear to be on the same page offensively and defensively more than once during that game in Portland.
Though Kuminga can’t be traded for another five weeks, the upcoming G League Winter Showcase in Orlando from Dec. 19 through the 22nd will be four days of agents and front offices meeting, and words can turn to action from those conversations.
After using nine different starting lineups in as many games, Kerr on Tuesday said he’s going to give an extended look to the group that began the game against the Blazers. The next day, he said Kuminga has strung together multiple great practices while doing everything the team has asked, indicating he’ll be back in the rotation perhaps as soon as Thursday against the Suns in Phoenix. With health and availability being large factors, Kerr already has used 15 starting lineups in 27 games.
Doing so also is an indication of the roster Kerr is working with. They’re a small team in a big man’s world, and an old team in a young man’s game. The Warriors needed all 95 of Curry’s points to beat the San Antonio Spurs in two consecutive games a little more than a month ago, yet 87 points and 18 threes over two games wasn’t enough to beat a Timberwolves team that didn’t have Anthony Edwards and a 10-win Blazers team that would have just seven wins if they never played the Warriors this season.
Is this déjà vu from a year ago, something worse or a team that leads the NBA in blown fourth-quarter leads but still feels like they’re on the precipice of something special?
“I know that we have the answer here,” Kerr said Wednesday. “Last year I felt like we had to make a move. This year I don’t think that’s the case. I think we have what we need here, but we need to develop more consistency in our play and that starts with me giving these guys more consistent roles, making sure we get Jimmy the ball, making sure we get to that style of play from last year when we had control of games. … We’re not in control of games right now.
“We have that ability, and that’s our focus.”
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