Kurtenbach: The Warriors accomplished everything they needed to this season

SAN FRANCISCO — The end of the Warriors season might be seen as premature, but the fact is that Golden State already proved everything it needed to in the 2021 season before Friday’s contest with the Memphis Grizzlies tipped off.

So whether the Warriors played a real seven-game playoff series — or two — wouldn’t have changed a thing going into next season.

After a disastrous 2019-2020 season, this mid-pandemic 2021 season was a bridge campaign — an opportunity to re-establish the Warriors as a winning team.

It was touch-and-go for a while, but they did it.

And so while the end was no doubt disappointing, there’s no indictment to be gleaned from Friday’s loss. Nothing the Warriors did this season was negated by their play-in tournament losses.

And let’s remember what they proved.

Steph Curry — at age 33 — showed the league that he’s still one of its best players. Playing alongside a roster of cast-offs and unprovens, he turned in the best offensive season of his Hall of Fame career, won the scoring title, and was an MVP finalist.

And he finished the season on a tear, despite having what Kent Bazemore called a “hairline fracture” on his tailbone — a byproduct of a nasty fall in Houston.

With him leading the way, the Warriors always have a chance, and he looks like he still has years of gasp-inducing, elite play remaining in him.

Curry’s tag-team partner, Draymond Green, proved something this season, too.

There’s no question that Green’s offensive game is limited in the most important area — shooting — but no one who watched the Warriors this season can allege that Green is anything less than one of the best operators in the league.

After a lost season in 2019-2020, Green was once again one of the league’s best defenders. (He’s a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year.) He was also one of the NBA’s best point guards — he averaged the same amount of assists per game as Phoenix’s Chris Paul, the Point God.

Green might have run out of gas on Friday, but he was stupendous down the stretch. It’s a shame that his season will be remembered for his missed game-winning bunny, because it was so much more than that.

Those two, as a tandem, showed that they are still a formidable force in this league that’s defined by duos.

“We got a lot more hell to cause,” Green said. “Looking forward to it.”

Give them a bit more help than they had this year and throw them in the mix in what could still be a flat Western Conference next year and they might just go on another run.

As for that help, the Warriors might be closer than outside observers will suggest.

The Warriors are fully bought in on Andrew Wiggins after a full season with him. I’m not saying it’s impossible he’s playing for another team next season — anything is possible in this crazy NBA — but it’s going to take a no-brainer offer for the Dubs to move on from him.

Is he overpaid? Probably. Was he too passive on offense this season? Yes, far too often. But he was a super-coachable and solid two-way wing for the Dubs this season, and as a third option next to Curry and Klay Thompson, he is a clean fit. Again, the Warriors would have to be blown away by an offer.

The Warriors also found a couple of viable rotation pieces next to Curry, Green, Wiggins, and Thompson — who the Warriors are hoping can return to the form he had before two leg injuries robbed him of the last two campaigns.

While Wiggins and Green were underwhelming Friday in a must-win game, second-year combo guard Jordan Poole was tremendous. He’s either preternaturally confident or too young to know he should be afraid of the moment, but whatever the reason, he was a revelation for the Warriors in the final weeks of the season and again on Friday, scoring 19 points — including some big-time baskets down the stretch of the final contest.

He’s a keeper.

So is Juan Toscano-Anderson, who provides a little bit of everything to the Dubs and has the grit and intelligence to spark wins. Like Green, JTA isn’t the kind of player that can be properly evaluated via box score, but later in the season, when he was finally given a real run, he started filling up the stat sheet, too.

Add in Kevon Looney, who was so steady this season that he can be easily taken for granted (like I did in this column by not mentioning him until now) and the Warriors have some pieces.

Bring back Bazemore for another year — you’re not getting that kind of corner 3-point shooting and defense on the league minimum anywhere else — and perhaps Damion Lee (who missed the end of the season with COVID) and you have some nice pieces.

Add another professional (or two) to the mix, and perhaps a ready-to-contribute (but nothing crazy) young player via the draft and you have a team that should be anything but an easy out.

That’s doable, right?

It’s also important to note that the Warriors found their identity once again this season. Smallball made this season interesting for the Dubs and they should remember that going into the offseason.

What that means for rookie center James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in last year’s draft whose season-ending knee injury is conspicuously the start of the Warriors’ run at the end of the season, will be determined in the months to come.

If the Warriors can do with Wiseman what they were able to do with Poole — who came back from a stint in the G-League as a more-than-viable off-the-bench microwave — then the Warriors’ ceiling is even higher. If they move on from him and bring back a decent veteran depth piece, then the Warriors will find the same outcome.

The Warriors will spend the next few weeks on the couch, watching the playoffs, but in that time the organization can scheme ways to take advantage of a summer that should be a double-dose of chaos after last year’s.

It’s a big summer that looms for the Dubs — it can put them in title contention or back in this play-in tournament next year. But just because the offseason is starting in the spring doesn’t mean this season was a failure.

“We’re not in the playoffs, so we’re a way’s away,” Green said. “But we’re not that far.”