Kawakami: It’s suddenly crisis time for the Warriors

The Warriors won’t win 60 games this season, after all. They also probably won’t lose 60, either, though this five-game losing streak sort of makes it feel that way.

And it could get worse before it gets better. On Thursday, the 12-8 Warriors host their reverse-image team, the Houston Rockets, who are young and not old; surging to the top of the Western Conference standings and not sinking; and bursting with the type of versatile athletes that the Warriors do not have.

Of course, the Rockets don’t have Stephen Curry, and the Warriors do. But Curry (knee tendinitis) and Draymond Green (calf) have been ruled out for this game, which only complicates things for the Warriors as they eye the Feb. 6 trade deadline and the long haul to the playoffs.

Just a few weeks ago, the Warriors had the best record in the West after huge victories in Boston and Oklahoma City and home victories over Dallas and Memphis. It made sense for a daffy local columnist to claim that they were, indeed, doing the sacred work of maximizing the remaining span of Curry’s prime.

Hello, Old Takes Exposed? We’ve got one for you. And it’s not even that old.

But wait, let me re-explain: Maximizing Curry’s prime doesn’t and can’t mean guaranteeing a fifth title. There’s never any guarantee of that, even with Curry still playing wonderfully. The point is to remain relevant. Position themselves for a smart trade or two. Maintain the right atmosphere for a potential Curry explosion in the playoffs. Don’t get left behind. That’s all still in reach — of course, with the caveat that another batch of losses in the games coming up would be pretty decisive.

If the Warriors stabilize from here, they’ll still be on a pace for about 50 victories, which should project them into a top-4 seed in the West playoffs and home-court advantage in the first round. But they clearly have some fixes to make, particularly at the end of games. Somebody has to turn into a real offensive threat next to Curry.

And Steve Kerr has to figure out the right lineup mix — he has offensive players and defensive players and hardly any two-way players, which puts a lot of pressure on his substitution decisions. Which Kerr has not aced lately. Should it be a slumping Buddy Hield to close or an also-slumping Brandin Podziemski? Give Moses Moody a shot or plug in Gary Payton II for defense? None of them have been the right answer over these last five games. That’s the problem. None of them.

Though this season’s fast start was reminiscent of the torrid first few months in 2021-22, which set the stage for the fourth championship run of this era, it wasn’t identical. There were always bumps to come. The rotation was scrambled when De’Anthony Melton was lost to knee surgery in the middle of last month. Then, some key players stalled out, the Warriors’ defensive intensity sagged, and opponents amped up their focus on Curry to almost ridiculous levels. As a result, the Warriors’ ship has barreled straight into the iceberg.

Again, some of this was foreseeable. Even when the Warriors were 10-2 and Melton was healthy, the smartest view was that to be a true title contender in May and June, they had to bundle together some of their excess rotation pieces and make a trade for a legitimate No. 2 scorer next to Curry. But can you imagine what this season would feel like right now if they had started out 6-6 or 5-7 and then had a five-game losing streak that might turn into six, seven, eight, or who knows how long? That would be the makings of a lost season. And this season is far from lost.

Of course, the frustration level is reaching a breaking point, anyway. You saw and heard it when Kerr pointedly critiqued Podziemski after last night’s loss in Denver, which included several critical errors by Podziemski, who continued his early-season run of mostly disappointing performances.

“Podz’s a helluva player, but he needs to, and I’ve told him this, he needs to be a smart player,” Kerr said, his voice rising in decibel level. “He’s one of our guys who’s capable of making really good decisions. He had a lob when we were up 12 in the second quarter that was frankly insane. … He had the same play last week against Brooklyn where he tried to throw a lob over his shoulder. He cannot be that guy. And he can’t foul jump shooters. I love Brandin, a helluva player. he’s got a helluva future ahead of him. But I hope he watches this clip right now, me talking, because he needs to hear it.”

The Warriors have put a lot of responsibility on Podziemski’s shoulders after his strong rookie season, then added more after Melton’s injury. They just don’t have many players who can move the defense, make solid decisions with the ball, play well with Curry, and also help lead the way when Curry is resting or misses the game completely. Podziemski is their best option for this. Or at least he was last season, when he led them in plus-minus at +264. He hasn’t been that guy this season — he’s currently tied with Gary Payton II for eighth on the team in this stat, at +36.

Basically, this signals the unofficial start of the Warriors’ pre-trade season and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s crunch time. Of course, the Warriors are always thinking about trades. Last off-season, they famously tried to get Paul George and Lauri Markkanen but couldn’t land either. They could try again on Markkanen next summer, when he’s back to being trade-eligible after signing a long-term deal with Utah last August.

But they still have this Curry prime season to maximize. They have a top-4 seed within reach. They still have interesting players, either to help them win a lot more games this season or to put on the trade market. And they’ve got about six or seven weeks to figure out exactly where they are.

I don’t think that the timing of Kerr’s commentary means that the Warriors have adjusted their stance on Podziemski, whom they were very wary of putting into trade offers last off-season. But it means that the Warriors have to take really hard looks at all players not named Curry and make some decisions.

Teams usually don’t get serious about trades until mid-January. But there are some names floating around that might, in different ways, fit what the Warriors need by early February, starting with Miami’s Jimmy Butler or Terry Rozier, Brooklyn’s Cam Johnson or Dennis Schroder, Washington’s Malcolm Brogdon, and the Bulls’ Zach LaVine or Nikola Vucevic. Those are just a few names. There will be more popping up when the calendar turns.

At the same time, the Warriors have to make multiple decisions about Jonathan Kuminga, potentially their most valuable trade asset. They didn’t get him signed to a rookie extension by the October deadline, so he’ll hit restricted free agency in the summer. Will Kerr at last commit to playing Kuminga 25 minutes a night? If Kuminga emerges as a consistent player, are the Warriors ready to match any offer for him this summer, even if it gets up to $40 million a year? If not, it’s almost certainly smarter for the Warriors to try to trade him for a more useful player than to keep him through the season.

What can they get for him? Kuminga has real value in the league, but at the moment, I don’t see a great trade match for him, unless, say, the Warriors add Andrew Wiggins into the pot to boost the tradable salary. (Adding Wiggins’ salary is the easiest way the Warriors could get a big-money player like LaVine or Butler back, because the Warriors are hard-capped at the first apron and can’t take back more salary than they trade out. The Warriors also have Melton’s expiring $12.8 million contract they can use as salary ballast, but they’d have to attach draft picks or more value to it to get anything of quality back.) But that would only multiply the risk — Wiggins is the Warriors’ best perimeter defender and Kuminga can be a singular offensive creator.

The thorny problem is that Kuminga’s a power forward in Kerr’s system, not a small forward, but the Warriors have a Hall of Famer in Draymond Green locked in at power forward. Though Kuminga says he’s a natural small forward, he seems to flourish specifically when he gets big minutes at the four, just like Tuesday with Draymond out. On nights that Draymond is playing, Kuminga’s minutes get reduced, unless Draymond plays center for long stretches, which adds a lot of wear and tear on his 34-year-old legs. It’s a conundrum. Kuminga might not fit with the Warriors right now. But if they trade him, he might turn into a star. What to do?

There are no easy answers to any of this. But we know that Dunleavy, owner Joe Lacob, and the rest of the Warriors front office have to come up with them by Feb. 6.

Kerr has been slowly but inevitably moving away from his early-season 13- or 12-man rotation, which was fun while it lasted but simply not sustainable. The stints were too short. The role players were getting squeezed.

On Tuesday, Kerr cut it down to a more manageable 10, due to some natural attrition (Draymond was dinged up) and logical narrowing (Lindy Waters was a DNP). Also, Trayce Jackson-Davis has been moved behind Kevon Looney and might be headed to shorter minutes when Draymond is back. Kyle Anderson could see limited minutes, too.

Kerr also switched around Curry’s long-time rotation on Tuesday — giving him three shorter stints of playing time per half rather than his usual two longer stints. This gets Curry more time with the backups and fewer with the starters; right now, the backups need him. But there’s a cost — Curry prefers longer stints because it gets and keeps him in rhythm. I don’t think this adjustment will last very long. It’s worth a try, though.

“We’re trying to get out of this hole any way we can,” Curry said Tuesday. “We’ve gotta get a little desperate. Try desperate things at this point.”

If the Warriors keep losing, they assuredly will try many more desperate things. They’re good enough to feel like one or two changes might really get them back on track. They’re talented enough to know that the right trade could be a huge lift. And they’ve got about a month and a half to stay relevant, make some crucial judgments, then do their best at the trade deadline not to waste this Curry season. Or any of the Curry seasons to come.