As much as Joe Lacob, Bob Fitzgerald and the Golden State Warriors don’t want to admit it, this is the truth: The Two Timelines approach has failed. Zach Lowe of The Ringer was bold enough to say it with his chest.

The Warriors once had the chance to do what many franchises dream of and few actually pull off: execute a hand off from one generation to the next.

The San Antonio Spurs did just that, in a way. Tim Duncan was a Top-5 player in the league for over a decade, leading the team to multiple titles; by the 2014 NBA Finals, Kawhi Leonard – drafted 13 years into Duncan’s career – ascended to be the team’s best player and win Finals MVP.

That is the high the Warriors were chasing in 2020 and 2021. An unexpected gap year with both Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson sidelined long-term due to injury handed the Warriors the No. 2 pick in the 202 NBA Draft, and the following year they had the No. 14 pick but added the No. 7 pick from the D’Angelo Russell trade. That’s three lottery picks in two years for a team still boasting a Top-5 player in Curry and a Top-5 defender in Draymond Green.

The Warriors proceeded to win the 2022 NBA Championship, the ultimate validation title for Curry and a dynastic feather in the cap of the entire organization. Yet they did so without any of those three lottery picks playing key roles; Moses Moody, the lowest-drafted of them all, had a minor rotation role. Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman, athletic marvels with superstar ceilings, did nothing.

The Two Timelines has failed

Unfortunately, that is largely what has happened since. The Warriors were mocked after owner Joe Lacob dropped the line “Two Timelines” when describing what the franchise was attempting to do. Most contending teams take their young talent and draft picks and move them for win-now players. For Lacob to suggest the Warriors could develop a future contender while still maintaining one in the present always sounded too bold to be realistic.

The Warriors would need Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody to slot in as support players, then grow in their roles until they were ready to take the step into stardom. Squint, and the upside for all three players to do that was present. In reality, all three failed spectacularly. Through some combination of the player’s ability, their mindset and the management of the Warriors, none of the three look like someone who will make an All-Star Game in Golden State.

Wiseman was a colossal bust and is on his third team. Kuminga has the highest upside but tried to skip the role player part; his time left on the Warriors could be measured in hours, not years. Moody is underrated as a wing but the coaching staff doesn’t seem to know that, and whatever on-ball upside he had entering the league appears to have vanished.

On a recent podcast, Zach Lowe chose the Warriors as one of his “WTF” teams to discuss their free agency silence and how the Jonathan Kuminga situation is a lose-lose for the organization. They once bragged about pulling off the impossible; now the Two Timelines dream is truly dead, as Lowe declared in a brief rant on the future of the Warriors franchise.

Lowe told it like it is: the post-Curry future is bleak. And no, that’s not a future built around Quenten Post and Stephen Curry, but rather the reality that for however long the Babyfact Assassin is still playing at a star level, this franchise has a chance; once that time ends, be it this season or three years from now, the Warriors are heading for a hard collapse.

The front office has realized this; over the last two seasons, Mike Dunleavy Jr. has turned the franchise toward a win-now stance. They flipped Wiseman for Gary Payton II, turned Jordan Poole into Chris Paul, and at this past year’s Trade Deadline actually traded a full first-round pick for Jimmy Butler.

There have also been plenty of rumors that the Warriors are searching for a big swing, even bigger than Butler. Kevin Durant, Paul George, Lauri Markkanen, LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo. The franchise is going to push in some chips to give Curry as much help as they can before it’s over. Will they push in all of them? That remains to be seen.