Grading Golden State Warriors' Projected Final Roster
News of agreed-upon deals for Al Horford, De'Anthony Melton and Gary Payton II came in just prior to media day, which Golden State Warriors restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga notably did not attend.
Kuminga's protracted stalemate with the Dubs continues to hold up official signings, but we have something much closer to confirmation on the rest of the projected 2025-26 roster now. Seth Curry figures to join Melton and Payton on a minimum deal in relatively short order.
Assuming Kuminga signs his qualifying offer or agrees to a multi-year pact by the Oct. 1 deadline, the Warriors can start to think about how their rotation will shake out. Let's get a jump on that by grading the starters, bench, offense, defense and durability.
Is this a contender in the West or a frail collection of aging stars that shouldn't be expected to play much of the season at full strength? Short answer: Yes.
Offense: B+
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Since the Warriors still have Stephen Curry, can we just give the offense an "A" grade and stop there? Maybe, but only if you want to ignore a decade-plus of data that consistently shows the Dubs have a very hard time scoring when they do not have Curry.
Golden State's offensive rating without Curry last year ranked in the 11th percentile. The 2022 championship team scored at a 28th-percentile clip without Steph. The record-setting 73-9 Warriors managed only a 36th-percentile scoring rate when Curry sat.
Hope arises in the form of Jimmy Butler, whose stints without Steph last year produced a relatively excellent 47th-percentile offense. His devilishly clever foul-drawing should again allow the Warriors to tread water when Curry rests or misses time.
Brandin Podziemski could finally prove capable of generating shots for himself, and Quinten Post has the potential to be one of the top shooting big men in the league after canning 40.8 percent of his robust 9.4 three-point attempts per 36 minutes as a rookie. Presumed starter Al Horford has beaten the league average from deep in six of the last eight seasons, remarkable for a center who shoots with his volume.
Golden State should be as well equipped as it's ever been to maintain good spacing—even in lineups that include both Draymond Green and Butler.
A grade in the "A" range is a bridge too far given the core's likely age-related slippage, but the Warriors were the seventh-best offense in the league after they added Butler and should rank among the top 10 in 2025-26.
Defense: A-
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Nobody posted a better defensive rating after last year's trade deadline than the Warriors. Not the title-winning Oklahoma City Thunder, not the hulking Houston Rockets, not the beat-you-to-a-pulp Orlando Magic.
That performance didn't even benefit from phantom three-point defense that often skews small samples; Warriors opponents shot 37.6 percent from deep over the final 31 games of the season, the eighth-best rate in the league.
Green finished third in DPOY voting, Butler's smarts and strength allow him to wrangle all but the shiftiest wings, Podziemski is a good bet to lead the league in charges drawn, Gary Payton II remains a lovable pest, De'Anthony Melton has graded out as an elite backcourt defender by D-EPM in each of the last six seasons and Horford, somehow, has maintained his ability to switch onto guards in space as he approaches 40.
Though most associate the Warriors with the three-point revolution and high-octane offense, the most consistent element of their dynastic run was defense. Outside of the 2019-20 season it mailed in after Kevin Durant left and Curry got hurt, the last time Golden State finished with a below-average defense was 2012-13. In that same span, they've been in the top 10 nine times.
As has been the case for years, the Warriors will rate among the league's best defenses—even if everyone still assumes they're an offense-driven operation.
Starters: A
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PG: Stephen Curry
SG: Brandin Podziemski
SF: Jimmy Butler
PF: Draymond Green
C: Al Horford
Melton started twice in his six games with Golden State last year, and there's a case for him to supplant Podziemski again this season. The Warriors are short on ball-handling creators, and Podz might be better utilized as a second-unit leader. Then again, Curry, Podziemski, Butler and Green produced a plus-15.0 net rating when sharing the floor last year.
That's some serious proof of concept.
Head coach Steve Kerr used 38 different starting lineups last year, the highest number of his career with the Warriors. Some of that had to do with the mid-season deal that swapped Andrew Wiggins for Butler, and injuries were also a factor. Nonetheless, we should expect some tinkering from a coach who has never been afraid to experiment or change things up when the on-court product isn't what he wants it to be.
Bench: C
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Guards: De'Anthony Melton, Gary Payton II, Buddy Hield, Will Richard
Wings: Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, Gui Santos
Bigs: Quinten Post, Trayce Jackson-Davis
Hield's shooting will be a vital element in lineups that don't have Curry, as will Post's. Spacing alone won't matter if the Dubs can't put playmakers on the floor to exploit it, which is where one of the roster's major weaknesses arises.
The starters have enough raw talent and experience to beat defenses, despite the lack of a single player (other than Curry) who can reliably beat his man off the dribble to put the defense in rotation.
The bench should be able to play with great energy, and the Melton-Payton duo will make life very difficult on opposing ball-handlers. But neither of those two are pick-and-roll operators or from-scratch creators. Payton, in particular, is essentially a 6'2" power forward who relies on timely cuts and spot-ups for his points.
Scoring is going to be an issue for this group unless Kuminga lives up to his personal belief that he's a first-option threat good enough to drive success on his own. He has yet to prove that and may not be nearly as eager to try in the wake of protracted free-agency stalemate. If JK doesn't validate himself, the Warriors will have to create turnovers that lead to easy breakaway points against scrambling defenses.
If the Warriors' reserve units can merely break even, it'll be a win.
Durability: D
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Curry (70) and Green (68) combined to play in 138 games last season, their highest total since 2016-17 and a number they have virtually no chance of reaching again now that they're both deep into their 30s. Butler has played over 70 games just twice in his career and hasn't topped 65 since 2018-19.
If Golden State has all three of its stars on the floor in 45 games this year, it'll be a miracle.
All of the minor issues with backcourt playmaking, secondary scoring and spacing will get worse whenever the Warriors aren't at full strength. Odds are, they'll go into battle missing a critical piece as often as not.
In theory, Kuminga could take on a much larger role when Curry or Butler is out of the lineup. His ability to get to the foul line and dominate stretches of action with sheer athleticism makes him the best candidate to shore up weakened lineups. In practice, Kuminga has never consistently succeeded in that role.
Final Grade: B
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The starters could be elite on both ends, while the bench's shortcomings won't stand out so starkly as long as the Warriors stagger them with members of the first unit. The Dubs went 23-8 (25-5 with Butler) after the trade deadline and produced a plus-9.5 net rating that ranked third in the league during that closing stretch.
When everyone's good to go, Golden State will play like a true contender. However, everyone won't be good to go on most nights. That has to knock the overall roster grade down a notch, though there's a possibility that breakouts from Kuminga or Podziemski (or a trade that turns Kuminga into someone with more win-now juice) could change things.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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