The Golden State Warriors were easily one of the biggest surprises over the first few weeks of this 2024-25 NBA season.
Despite saying goodbye to franchise legend Klay Thompson and future Hall of Famer Chris Paul, Steve Kerr and his new-look roster jumped out to a 12-3 start and once sat atop the Western Conference standings. And the beauty of it was that Steph Curry didn't have to carry the load.
While No. 30 had plenty of strong outings in that opening stretch, he had plenty of help. Andrew Wiggins looked like the All-Star player he was three seasons ago. Jonathan Kuminga started slowly but found his groove after being taken out of the starting lineup. He's since returned to the starting five and continues to play well.
Veteran guard Buddy Hield was shooting lights out and was the anchor of a reserve unit that set all sorts of scoring records. And Draymond Green was doing all of the little things he's always done to help this team win.
But after winning 12 of their first 15, Golden State hit a bit of a rough patch, losing five straight, and has failed to find much consistency since. As such, the Dubs have fallen into the Play-In Tournament portion of the standings and will undoubtedly need to pick things up to avoid having to play in said tourney for the second straight season.
Many NBA fans and pundits say the season doesn't really start until after Christmas, and the good news for the Warriors is that they've had a lot of success after December 25 since Kerr took over as head coach ahead of the 2014-15 campaign.
Over the last 10 seasons, Golden State has won 64.2% of its regular-season games after Christmas, going 325-181. It needs to be noted, of course, that many of those victories came during the five years from 2014-15 to 2018-19 in which the Warriors made five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals.
Nevertheless, the overall record is impressive, and Kerr is obviously hoping for much more success following this holiday season. Let's see what these 2024-25 Warriors have to live up to.
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The Warriors have just one losing record after Christmas in the last 10 years
Here's a quick look at how every Golden State team under Kerr has performed after Christmas.
SEASON | POST-CHRISTMAS RECORD | WINNING PERCENTAGE |
|---|---|---|
2014-15 | 44-10 | .815 |
2015-16 | 45-8 | .849 |
2016-17 | 40-10 | .800 |
2017-18 | 31-17 | .646 |
2018-19 | 34-13 | .723 |
2019-20 | 7-26 | .212 |
2020-21 | 39-33 | .542 |
2021-22 | 26-23 | .531 |
2022-23 | 28-20 | .583 |
2023-24 | 31-21 | .596 |
As you can see, there's only been one instance in the last 10 years in which the Warriors have had a losing record after Christmas, that being the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign.
That was also the season in which Steph Curry missed all but five games with a broken hand. And with Klay Thompson out for that entire year as well with a torn ACL. So, the 7-26 mark after December 25 and the 15-50 overall record shouldn't come as a surprise.
It also shouldn't surprise anyone that the Warriors' best post-Christmas record came during the 2015-16 season when Golden State finished with the best record in NBA history at 73-9. That campaign was the second of three straight in which they won at least 80% of their games after December 25.
Nobody is expecting that from this current Warriors team. But if Kerr & Co. can come close to the 31-21 mark they posted a season ago, they should be in decent shape come playoff time.