One of the peculiarities of this 2023-24 season for the Golden State Warriors has been them struggling at home but excelling on the road. On Friday night, the Warriors recorded their third straight road win by beating the Charlotte Hornets and Stephen Curry thinks they need to start acting as if they are on the road every game.
“We might need to stay in a hotel in San Francisco and act like it’s a road game,” Curry said. “Like they do in football and stay in a hotel the night before. I don’t know what it is about the Road Warriors. We’ve kept our season alive with our road performance. It means a lot, and with what it’s looking like, we’re going to have to do that to get into the playoffs. So, something to rely on.”
The Warriors are now 13-3 in their last 16 games away from home and are 21-15 on their travels for the season. In contrast, they are 7-9 in their last 16 home games and have a record of just 18-19 at Chase Center in 2023-24.
This has to be one of the most bizarre occurrences we have seen considering what happened last season. The Warriors were 33-8 at home and 11-30 on the road in 2022-23.
If you had told a Warriors fan before this season that they would be 21-15 on the road, they’d have assumed the team would be fighting for the top seed in the West. Instead, these struggles at home have led to them being down at 10th with a 39-34 record.
The Warriors are at real risk of even missing the NBA Play-In Tournament, with the 38-35 Houston Rockets breathing down their necks. The two teams will face off on April 4 in Houston and the winner might well be the one to finish 10th.
While the Warriors’ success on the road would give them confidence that they can get that crucial win, the Rockets do have an impressive 26-11 record at home. Golden State might need a Curry masterclass to emerge victorious on that night.
While the team has struggled this season, Curry has still performed at a high level. The 36-year-old is averaging 26.5 points, 4.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 0.7 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game in 2023-24.
Paul Pierce Thinks Stephen Curry Will Become A Top-Five Player Of All Time If He Wins The Title This Year
With the Warriors having disappointed so much this season, they have been written off as title contenders. With a title win being so unlikely, Paul Pierce claims Curry will be a top-five player of all time if he wins the 2024 NBA title.
“If Steph wins this year you got to throw him in the top five all-time. I mean, it’s no denying if they win this year, Steph is top five all-time… He probably go ahead of Kobe.”
If Curry drags this team to a championship, he might well have to be regarded as one of the five greatest players of all time. I just don’t see it happening, though. Maybe at his absolute peak, he might have been able to pull it off, but not now.
This Warriors team is just not good enough to be a serious contender and that has led to talk of Curry perhaps needing to ask out. The 10-time All-Star might not win a fifth championship if he stays, but the two-time MVP has shown no indication of wanting to leave the franchise that drafted him back in 2009.