The Golden State Warriors lost their preseason opener on Sunday in Honolulu, falling 104-101 to the LA Clippers in a game that came down to the wire. If you want to dismiss the results because regulars don’t play as much in the preseason, well … that doesn’t help Golden State’s case, since they trailed by 12 points at halftime, before pulling Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Al Horford.
Instead, try this as a reason to dismiss preseason results: they just don’t matter. And who better to make that point than Curry, who reflected on a fun and productive week in Hawaii, as the team packed up and prepared to return to California.
“I’ve been in this league 17, or going on 18 years,” the two-time MVP said, after stating that a team luau was the highlight of the first week of camp. “I don’t remember a single preseason game in terms of the outcome, other than Lindy Waters making a buzzer-beater here two years ago.”
A reporter then reminded Curry of a special preseason moment about Kobe Bryant, to which he responded, “That’s also a great one. So we got two. Two out of however many. So we’re not gonna get bogged down by the results of the game.”
It’s generally the consensus that preseason results don’t matter, and there are plenty of data points each year backing that up. There are, admittedly, also plenty of examples suggesting that the preseason is a decent barometer. The Dubs went 6-2 in preseason before winning their first title in 2014-15, and 6-1 two years later, when they won the championship again, before going a league-best 5-0 prior to their shocking 2021-22 championship.
Then again, they went just 2-2 ahead of the title-winning 2017-18 season, and they had a losing 3-4 record in 2015-16, before starting the year with a 24-game winning streak. So yeah … safe to say it doesn’t really matter.
