SAN FRANCISCO – Three games into the final third of the 2024-25 NBA regular season, the Warriors have met their goal. They’re undefeated yet unimpressed, as it should be for a team followed a 12-3 start with a 13-23 skid.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” Buddy Hield told NBC Sports Bay Area after Golden State’s third consecutive emphatic victory, 128-92, over the lottery-bound Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday night at Chase Center.
The Warriors have gotten a substantial boost in the seven games since Jimmy Butler III joined the roster. They’re 6-1, riding a four-game win streak. In less than a week, they’ve moved from 10th place to eighth in the Western Conference.
The uptick in confidence is real, but that doesn’t mean their recent rise is sustainable. To their credit, they seem to understand this.
“To do what we want to do, I know we still got a long way to go,” Draymond Green said.
“We’re not in position to overlook anybody,” coach Steve Kerr said. “We’re fighting to try to get into the playoffs.”
It was about two weeks ago, with the Warriors in 10th place still struggling to escape mediocrity, that Stephen Curry and Kerr identified the No. 6 seed as their goal. With 24 games remaining, they’re already close enough to sixth place to see it with the naked eye.
But Golden State’s self-belief, so flimsy in the weeks before Butler, is almost tangible now. It’s only seven games, but continuing to prosper means finding a balance between confidence and humility.
“We have to stay humble because the ultimate goal is to win a championship,” Hield said. “Every day is humbling. Winning is great. But we all know that to get to that goal, we have keep winning until we can hold that trophy at the end. That’s what matters for this franchise. That’s what they’ve done for the past 10 years.
“We have to keep that in mind. It will be a disappointing season if we don’t get to the promised land.”
That is the NBA Finals, where Green famously vowed the Warriors not only would return for the first time since 2022 but walk away with victory.
That can’t happen before June, which is more than three months away. As they leave Wednesday for a five-game road trip, they’re hoping to pack their burgeoning momentum. In short, stay hungry.
“We’re 32-27,” Green said, giving the team an extra victory. “It’s pretty easy to stay humble. We also know how hard it is to stay humble. We also know how hard it is to win a championship. So, nobody is getting too overly excited over six or seven games. We’ve got bigger goals. Bigger fish to fry. We ain’t done nothing to get big-headed about.
“Other than add a pretty great player.”
That’s a shout-out to Butler. He has put the fizz back into Golden State mix by doing things small and large that accentuate the skills of those around him. The Curry-Green-Butler trio still is finding its rhythm, but the early stage is showing immense promise. There is enough temerity and leadership to keep the team rising in the West.
“We’re all expecting to win,” Butler said. “I don’t see why we can’t win every game. I don’t know if it’s going to happen. But to the best of my abilities, and our abilities, that’s what we’re going to try to do. That’s what’s expected.”
Expectations for the Warriors are back where they were in mid-November, when they were sitting atop the conference and hoping to stay or at least close. When they began tumbling and were unable to stop, there was a lesson within.
Don’t look too far ahead, and never consider yourself infallible. Don’t let a win streak, whether it’s four games or 14, tempt you into believing you’ve arrived. The Warriors, aiming high, seem to grasp the concept.