Welcome back to Dunkdown Prime. Thanks so much for being a subscriber. And if you want to move from a monthly to a yearly membership, you can get 35% off the yearly membership with the code mock deadline 26. And we begin with what has become an even more somber day here in the Bay Area news came over night

Jimmy Butler as we feared last night it does indeed have a torn right ACL and he's going

to have surgery soon but obviously won't be back until the middle of next season what's

this all mean Danny it's tough for the Warriors because Jimmy Butler

has been important since he, since he arrived at last year's trade deadline. He has been important

for the best Warriors lineups. He is an essential player for what they do, the non-curry minutes

as well. And so you have, you have his absence for this year, which is a significant thing. I think

it takes the Warriors. It's very unlikely that they will be a high-level contender, even like kind of a middle-level concedure. I think they could still theoretically if they make it that far win a playoff series against the right opponent, but it would take a lot of work because this jumbles the rotation and all these other things, which we'll talk about. But the price that I want to

start in terms of the Warriors is not the 26-27 season, which is now diminished. It's how Mike Dunleavy

and Company handled the 27-28 season, because that is, the Warriors have lined a lot of this stuff up.

So the, sorry, the 26-27 season and 27-28. So the Warriors have lined a lot of their books, a lot of their structure of the roster up for really this kind of two and a half year run with Jimmy Butler. It was last year, which occurred, this year, which is now modified. And then next year, when Butler presumably presumably, we'll be able to return during the

course of the year. But it's important to acknowledge that the Jimmy Butler is 36 now. He'll turn

37 before next season starts. So whenever he comes back in the season, will be his age 37 season.

And beyond the regular season concerns, I mean, there's the question of can a 37-year-old,

like, ACL injuries are not the death knell that they used to be, thankfully, but are the Warriors even going to get the gym boat where they want for next year's playoffs? And that's an open question. No, no. And clearly, the goal has always been to supplement a brown in this group. And I think a lot of the analysis that we did on Sunday still holds in the sense that,

yeah, they got a decent team this year.

And maybe if the field looked like it did back in 2022 or maybe even 2023 in terms

of their competition in the Western Conference, that the group that they had with Butler

at full strength might have had a fighting chance in the playoffs and that the group that they had with Butler at full strength

might have had a fighting chance in the playoffs.

And realistically, maybe could pull an upset.

That's what they did in 23.

...