Warriors going all-in on reverse youth movement

The San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder battled for supremacy in the Western Conference last season behind stars in their early 20's. Now the Golden State Warriors want to counter those youth movements by getting even older.

A team already featuring 40-year-old Al Horford and 38-year-old Steph Curry is reportedly trying to add LeBron James, who turns 42 in December. To do that, they'd also give a long-term deal to 36-year-old Draymond Green, for what would be one of the NBA's most ambitious "age movements."

Golden State Warriors believe their future is now

The Warriors endured an injury-filled 2025-26 season where Curry, Horford and 36-year-old Jimmy Butler all missed significant time, with Butler suffering a season-ending ACL tear. Still, they're doubling down on their veteran-heavy strategy by chasing James, a free agent who has had a tenuous relationship with the Los Angeles Lakers recently.

Not only are they chasing James, but the Warriors are reportedly talking to the Washington Wizards about trading Butler and his expiring contract for the oft-injured Anthony Davis. The hope is that acquiring James' good friend Davis, who shares an agent with James and Green in Rich Paul, would tempt the NBA's all-time scoring leader to move north — while still remaining close to his home and business interests in L.A. 

It's a high-risk, high-reward strategy where the Warriors are gambling that the opportunity to have five future Hall of Famers on the roster is worth the significant injury risk of building around three of the five oldest players in the NBA — plus Davis, who has played in just 29 of his last 118 games since Jan. 2025.

LeBron James and Steph Curry would be deadly together

The Warriors would certainly struggle to get through an 82-game season with an old roster. They'd need to lean heavily on their few young players, like 23-year-olds Brandin Podziemski and Will Richard. However, James and Curry each managed to pull first-round upsets in the last two seasons, shocking the favored Houston Rockets.

Curry's shooting still provides spacing on its own, while James averaged 23.2 points in the playoffs. A frontcourt of Green, James, Davis and Horford should still be quite effective defensively. Even if the Warriors can't land James, trading for Davis would be a worthwhile risk, simply because Curry doesn't have many years left.

Plus, the Warriors don't have better options. They tried for a youth movement with lottery picks in 2020 and 2021, but the team has since traded James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga, and Moses Moody is out with a serious knee injury.

The team is looking at a total rebuild after Curry, so why not go all-in when they still have an all-time great? It's worth the risk, plus the extra Ben-Gay, Epsom salts and knee braces, to take a shot building the best — and oldest — team that they can.