Entering the 2024–25 season, the Warriors find themselves in a difficult situation. A team that wants to win a championship usually blows up the roster or makes a couple trades to enhance players if it doesn’t make the playoffs.

The former requires the Warriors to trade Stephen Curry, which is unacceptable given his ambitions to retire with the franchise that made him a legend, a la Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki.

The latter is more challenging to execute without Golden State dealing Draymond Green or Andrew Wiggins, who are obviously not very valuable trade assets. A team cannot handle Green’s antics, and Wiggins has substantially declined as a player.

Then there’s Klay Thompson, a free agent, who supposedly has a bag ready for him in Orlando; Golden State is hesitant to part with that cash because of the team’s growing luxury tax burden.

The only other true trade asset after Curry is Jonathan Kuminga.

The Warriors might improve just a little bit in the 2024–25 campaign if they were to trade Kuminga for a tried and true player like Donovan Mitchell. But as Curry and Co. get older, they’d find themselves back in the same predicament. Worse still, they would have to watch Kuminga grow someplace else.

Will the Warriors try to win now by shipping off their most valuable asset? ESPN insider Ramona Shelburne anticipates that the team will be patient.

“Not at all,” Shelburne responded on Wednesday to The Game on 95.7 FM. “I believe they’ll do everything in their power to retain him, but it’s going to get complicated because of his extension talks and how much money they have.” They don’t even seem to want to bring him up [in deals], really.

The fact that Kuminga, 21, isn’t included in the aging Warriors’ timetable is an issue that is starting to surface. They find themselves in a Catch-22 predicament as they attempt to make the most of 36-year-old Curry’s limited window.