I’ve got to admit that while I was running through the Warriors’ options, I kept coming across separate ways for the Warriors to end up with these Elder Millennial stars and figured, hey, why not plop them all together and see what it looks like?
That’s how I got to this version of the Golden Oldies Warriors. Stephen Curry, LeBron, Draymond Green, Butler, Lillard, and Horford. Whew! Again: It won’t happen just like this. The Warriors are already old — Curry is 37, and Draymond and Butler are 35. Getting older would speed up the decline of the Curry era, not slow it down. And Lillard likely won’t even play again until the 2026-27 season, when he’ll be 35. So why would the Warriors want to get much, much older? Generally, they wouldn’t.
But Lillard is already available after he was waived and stretched by the Bucks on Tuesday, just a few months after his own terrible Achilles injury. LeBron may or may not be available after he opted into the last year of his deal with the Lakers and had his agent send out a passive-aggressive statement about the situation. Horford is somebody the Warriors reportedly have focused on and presumably is deciding among several similar offers. And Kuminga is in limbo because he and the Warriors haven’t agreed to a new deal, no other team has bid enough to get his attention, and his restricted free-agent status pretty much gums up everything.
Out of this group, I think Kuminga is the likeliest to be with the Warriors at the start of next season, Horford is next, and many things would have to happen before LeBron or Lillard are seriously in the Warriors’ target view.
Let’s go through each situation one by one.