Why the Warriors Injury Report Puts 2026 NBA Playoff Hopes at Risk
The NBA Playoffs are a little over a month away, and most teams have roughly 15 games remaining in their regular season schedule. The fight for playoff seeding in both conferences is heating up, and Golden State finds itself in the thick of the play-in tournament. Currently on a four-game skid, their record has dipped below .500, and they can no longer realistically fight to have a guaranteed playoff spot. Steve Kerr’s team has not gotten off to a strong start in March, and to make matters worse, some of that relates to a continuously growing injury list.
Wherever you look in the lineup, a player is struggling with an ailment. At the top, Warriors superstar guard Stephen Curry has dealt with a persistent knee injury whose timetable has become more unclear over time. Originally supposed to return after the All-Star break, Golden State remains hopeful that Curry will rejoin the team on the court later this week, or at the beginning of next week. The team’s flashy deadline day acquisition, Kristaps Porzingis, has wrestled with multiple injuries since getting traded to the Bay. Tendinitis kept him out for some games while he was still a member of the Atlanta Hawks, and he’s now dealing with an illness that has kept him sidelined on and off for six games. 36-year-old Draymond Green’s low back soreness has also led him to miss a few games, and at his age, these kinds of injuries take longer than average to heal.
Going a bit lower down in the pecking order, Moses Moody hasn’t played a game since March 2nd. The former first-rounder collided with Clippers guard Darius Garland and picked up a wrist injury, which has kept him sidelined since then. Seth Curry, the younger brother of four-time all-star Stephen, had just returned from a sciatic nerve irritation before picking up a left adductor strain that will keep him away from action for another week. Former 2022 NBA Champion Al Horford injured his calf in Friday’s game against Minnesota, and though scans came back negative, he’ll also miss at least a few contests.
All these health knocks led Kerr to put out just a 10-man roster for tonight’s tilt against the New York Knicks. Out of those players, three are on two-way contracts, and Omer Yurtseven was signed on a 10-day contract on March 14th after being released by European giants, Panathinaikos Basketball Club. Golden State has now run out of bodies, and the front office is forced to promote G League talent that, with fewer injuries, wouldn’t make it to the NBA this season. However, now is no time for the team to give up on this campaign.
The Warriors need to fight desperately to get the eighth seed, because that would give them two chances at a playoff berth. More importantly, though, it would put them outside the scope of the likely top seed, the Oklahoma City Thunder. In the meantime, the Dubs need to play their absolute best basketball with what they have, and hope that reinforcements come back in time. Otherwise, the clock to a long, long offseason will begin to tick.
