Clearly, the softest word in sports media’s love for bold predictions is “bold.”
Bold prediction: Gui Santos scores 48 points on Christmas!
Bold prediction: Trayce Jackson-Davis makes seven 3-pointers in a game!
Bold prediction: The Warriors go on a 17-game win streak!
Now we’re talking. Every one of those predictions falls into the category of absurd, but hey, they sure are bold. Venturing off into that kind of crazy is a walk too far on the wild side, so we’re cranking it down a notch.
Instead, here are three bold-ish predictions for the Warriors ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season.
Steph’s New Career High In …
*Drum roll, please*
*Keep drumming*
*Keep drumming*
Free throws. Well, free throw attempts per game. That’s how important the new high-five rule can be for Curry.
He led the NBA in 3-point attempts per game and made threes per game for the second straight year last season. Curry, for the fifth time in his career, also was the league leader in free-throw percentage at 93.3 percent. But Curry shot his fewest number of free throws per game (4.3) in six years when he took 4.2 per game in 2019-20.
How different would those stats look if opponents didn’t paint a target on Curry’s arms and swiping across his hands on his follow-through? Defenders can no longer do so in an attempt by the league to better protect shooters.
“To me, it was kind of overdue,” Curry said of the new rule. “It was a conversation of, ‘When you’re shooting, how you protect the shooter.’ For me, I flail a little because I don’t want to roll my ankle. It’s kind of like a natural instinct.
“But when it became something where guys were attacking hands, doing not like a closeout but a second motion, going at arms and hands and stuff like that, that’s not basketball. It has nothing to do with affecting a shot. It’s more just putting people in danger, that type of thing.
“It’s avoidable. You can still play great defense and avoid doing that.”
As the NBA’s still most feared shooter, defenders will go to all lengths to slow down Curry. Doing so is hard enough, and it just became harder. Curry already had a four-point play in the Warriors’ second preseason game because of the new rule, and opened their fourth preseason game getting fouled on a 3-point attempt too. He ended the latter with 13 free throws, making 12, after reaching that number of attempts once all last season.
Pre-Jimmy Butler Curry averaged 3.4 free throws per game last season. Post-Jimmy Butler Curry averaged 5.2, and he’s at 5.7 in three preseason games going into the finale while playing just 19 minutes a night. His career high is 6.3 in 2020-21 when Curry won his second scoring title, and he’s about to leap that number.
How Buddy Beats Steph
If the thinking is the new rule is going to be a big benefit to Curry’s free-throw totals, it should also be a boost to his 3-point percentage. The thinking is fair, because it will. Curry was under 40 percent from three in a full season for only the second time ever, just missing the mark at 39.7 percent.
He’ll be back over 40 percent this season. But like last season, when Quinten Post technically edged him out, Curry won’t be the Warriors’ most accurate 3-point shooter. Buddy Hield will, leading them in 3-point percentage.
This should lean on the bolder side of the scale. Hield’s 3-point percentage dropped for the second straight season. He fell to 37.0 percent, which was lower than Andrew Wiggins, Moses Moody and Brandin Podziemski, plus the six games De’Anthony Melton played. So why believe Hield will see such an uptick?
Consistency over his career, what he just did in the playoffs and how Hield feels after one season of loving life as a Warrior.
“I’m saying this humbly, but this is probably the best summer I probably shot like, working out,” Hield said at Warriors Media Day.
These were Hield’s 3-point shooting percentages by month last season: 50, 41.4, 30.5, 31.5, 37.7, 37.9 and 35.8
These are Hield’s 3-point percentages by month for his career: 40.1, 37.9, 40.2, 40.8, 38.8, 40, 40.6 and 40.2
December and January were historically bad shooting months for Hield last season. He can be streaky, sure. After being an afterthought in the playoffs the year before with the Philadelphia 76ers, Hield shot 42.9 percent from three for the Warriors in them. That’s much closer to where he’ll be in his second season with Golden State.
Top-Four Seed
The boldest of the three? Perhaps. Not for me to judge.
Since the Warriors won their most recent title in 2022, they have been the No. 6 seed, No. 10 seed and No. 7 seed in the Western Conference. Yet they’ve increased their wins every season, going from 44 to 46 and then 48 last season. The trend will continue again, meaning the Warriors will win at least 50 games.
Which wasn’t enough to promise a top-four seed in the West. The Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and LA Clippers all won exactly 50 games, making them the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 seeds in the West. Let’s be bold and predict a three-way tie isn’t going to happen again. Either way, it really won’t matter for the Warriors.
Golden State was on a 61-win pace after trading for Butler. Projecting such a number is too bold for this keyboard, but the balance of these Warriors has them most suited for the regular season and the playoffs since the 2022 championship team.
The Warriors have made the NBA Finals all six seasons they’ve won 50 or more games under Steve Kerr, and to put a cap on being bold, we’re at least predicting they’ll have between 50 wins and the 53 from that last title team, giving the seasoned group home cooking to start the playoffs.
“Like I say, you always have a chance when Steph is on your team,” Butler said at media day. “So to be able to be running alongside him, Draymond, and the crew that we have, I think we’re going to be in really, really, really good shape.”
