The Warriors’ title defense hasn’t exactly been easy and to make matters worse, rumors of their championship core and general manager leaving have been rife.
Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Steph Curry and Draymond Green have won four rings with Golden State and many believe Green won’t be back next season, along with GM Bob Myers.
Their star point guard Curry recently explained why he thinks they will be able to keep everyone together on 95.7 The Game’s Steiny & Guru radio segment.
“I think we can all acknowledge and keep it real that had we not won a championship last year, then those questions would have been a lot more … everyday, I guess?” Curry said. “But when you prove that you can win, then you kind of hold off the dogs in terms of how hard it is to do what we’ve done and keep this together for as long as we have. I still feel like we can [keep everyone together]. Obviously, we understand how important Bob is, we understand how important Coach is, our core, Draymond, Klay [Thompson], myself, Andre [Iguodala], even though he’s had a rough year with injuries and what not, he’s been extremely valuable behind the scenes in helping maintain our culture.”
The Dubs endured a 110-112 loss to the Nuggets (sans Nikola Jokic) on Sunday, so following that, the team has a 41-38 record and are in sixth place in the Western Conference.
With the West being so close, they need to win their next three regular season games to avoid the play-in tournament.
Despite their disappointing title defense and terrible away record (9-30), Curry still believes the team can will themselves to another championship.
“This year we’ve had guys in a lot of different roles, some newcomer,” Curry said. “For us to be the champs and have to take everybody’s best shot all year, some self-inflicted wounds that we’ve had, games we should have won — with all that said, absolutely [we can make a title run]. I feel like we are a team that’s a force and when we’re locked in on the specific test of trying to beat a team four times in a playoff series — obviously we need to get there and finish this year strong and hopefully stay out of the play-in [tournament] — that remains the same.”