The NBA season is a little more than half over, calendar-wise. Did you see the All-Star game this year? Wow… different, but cool. Watching the rain of 3-pointers was impressive.
One of the guys making a lot of those shots from beyond the line was – no surprise – Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors. The show he and Damian Lillard put on was really impressive, and Steph and LeBron on the same squad? Equally amazing.
As impressive as Steph was with his All-Star buddies, his real-life team, the Warriors, is once again having a very tough season. As of this writing, the Warriors are barely over 500, landing them solidly in the number nine slot in the west. At this point, that’s not getting them into the playoffs. Sure, a long way to go this season, but it’s still a “challenge” for Golden State.
All this trouble for Steph and the Warriors made for one of those rare moments when Shaq and Sir Charles actually agreed with each other on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” program. Both are writing off the Warriors for the rest of the season, and say that – once again – the team should put the brakes on Curry playing major minutes.
If you haven’t been paying attention, the Warriors are once again this season playing without the services of Klay Thompson. Without the big man last year, Golden State finished with a paltry 15-50 record… way out of the playoffs.
Of course hope springs eternal (as the old saying goes), but that’s not good enough for O’Neal and Barkley. Watching the Warriors against the L.A. Clippers last week, Shaq came right out and said it during the halftime commentary: “I would tank. I’d say Steph, we’re not going to make the playoffs and if we do, we’re going to lose in the first round. Get some rest. Let me audition these young guys and see who we can add.”
TNT colleague Kenny Smith pointed out that the Warriors basically did that very same thing last year after Curry’s hand injury and the team was definitely out of the playoff race.
O’Neal said there’s no shame in waiting for next year, “I don’t want to exhaust him. I want to wait until Klay comes back and make one more run.”
Rather than sit Steph fully for the rest of the years, Barkley suggested limiting playing time for Curry to no more than 30 minutes per game from here on out. Still, Sir Charles likes the idea of waiting for next year, too. “I’m a firm believer in tanking” he said.
As several other media outlets have said, that’s quite an Interesting opinion from those two, since both Shaq and Barkley have been known to take some verbal shots at current-generation star players for not trying as hard and taking too many games off. Stay tuned to see how the Steph-situation plays out!