By Brian Murphy
Was it worth it?
All the justifiable hand-wringing about age and injury? Acquiring players like Al Horford, who remembers life before mobile phones? Trading young and robust Jonathan Kuminga for more brittle Kristaps Porzingis? Building a roster older and slower and farther and farther away from a championship?
Was it all worth it for one stirring stretch of basketball from around 9 pm to 9:30 pm on Wednesday night in Inglewood, Calif. — in a *play-in game between the nine seed and ten seed*?
Was it worth it to watch Steph Curry, at age 38, make the kind of soul-crushing three-pointers he used to make ten years ago in a blaze of championship glory, but now doing so in a play-in game? Was it worth to watch Draymond Green, at age 35, play maybe the best defensive fourth quarter of his career and erase Kawhi Leonard, but doing so in a play-in game? Was it worth it to watch Horford, who will be 40 in June, make one, two, three, FOUR three-point baskets right in the face of the bewildered Los Angeles Clippers, but doing so in a play-in game?
Was it worth it to push the idea of a 2026 NBA Draft lottery pick farther down the road, pending Friday night in Phoenix?
Was it worth it — prolonging the season, knowing that the Warriors have zero chance at an NBA championship?
The Jock Blog says yes, it was worth it. Come at me, bro.
Let’s focus on a couple of reasons.
One, the win and glory redeemed the basketball plan for the higher ups down at Chase Center’s executive offices — even if you’re one of the certified haters.
Owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy have made the decision to ride the Steph-Draymond train for the next couple of years, to see if they can pull a miracle rabbit out of a miracle-making hat and make a run in a Western Conference owned by young Oklahoma City and San Antonio. That may not be a surefire strategy, but that it is their plan is not debatable. The contracts say so. And they told us as much when they traded for Jimmy Butler in the winter of 2025 and paid him, even though he was born in 1989. And they told us as much when they traded Kuminga for Porzingis, a win-now player whose contract expires this summer, opening up options.
On the grease board inside Lacob and Dunleavy’s executive suite, the script Wednesday night is what is written: Get into the post-season. Get into the fourth quarter of a post-season game. Watch Steph shoot, Al shoot, Kristaps shoot and let Draymond defend. Let championship DNA course through the veins. Win the game. Cue the ‘WARRRRRRRRIORS’ chants from fans in road arenas, remembering how young we all were in 2015.
And this excitement played out without Butler, who makes their old-but-intriguing plan that much more attractive when he returns sometime around the New Year in 2027.
So if the grease board says Steph Magic + Draymond defense + Horford threes + Maybe Kristaps + Return of Jimmy And All That He Does = Possible run in 2027, Tuesday night’s win in L.A. made the grease board look good.
You can point out all the flaws in the plan — namely, that all of these old dudes are likely to get injured at some point and young dudes will run right past them — but it’s the plan, full stop.
Two, this is life. Life is short. Life does not provide moments of athletic glory and community togetherness every day, not by a long shot. Life generally brings daily pain and angst and bills and social media that pisses you off. And if life is short and we only have so many days on this spinning blue orb, why not embrace the adrenalized glory that Wednesday night brought? If your answer is “Because they might blow a lottery pick!”, I can give you the cell phone numbers for Kuminga and James Wiseman, while wearing my Joe Smith throwback jersey.
In the meantime, I’ll be the guy standing up in front of my TV, laughing the laugh of a wildly satisfied sports fan, high-fiving family members and readying for the next show — Friday night in Phoenix.
Why the hell not? It’s worth it.
