Dieter Kurtenbach: The Warriors' biggest issue? It's the same as it ever was.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors’ biggest issue is the same as it ever was.

It’s the same problem that hung over the locker room before the first whistle of this season even blew. It’s the one fatal flaw Joe Lacob’s checkbook can’t cover up, and Steve Kerr’s motion offense can’t outrun:

Time.

The Warriors had too much of it at the beginning of the campaign. Too many miles logged. Too much wear and tear on the team’s most essential players, who are all in their late 30s now — downright ancient in basketball terms, even in this incredible, modern age of age defiance.

Who could have possibly seen them not holding up this season? Well, anybody with a basic understanding of human physiology.

And now, with seven games remaining in the 2025-26 regular season, with a play-in tournament game looming on the back end, the Warriors’ time issue is that they simply don’t have enough.

Yes, Steph Curry finally scrimmaged on Tuesday at Chase Center. That certainly beats the alternative. He stands a chance of coming back this season.

But he won’t play on Wednesday. He won’t play on Thursday, either.

If everything goes swimmingly from this point onwards, it will leave Curry with only five regular-season games he could theoretically play.

Actually, it’s four. There’s no way Rick Celebrini and his medical staff will clear a 38-year-old with runner’s knee to play in both legs of a San Francisco-Sacramento back-to-back.

So four games at best.

Four measly games before the Warriors’ one guaranteed play-in tournament game arrives.

Four games to build chemistry with what is effectively a different team than the one he last played alongside.

Four games to ramp up enough to salvage a disjointed, disappointing season.

Four games to create enough runway to convince the basketball world that the Dubs aren’t completely cooked.

Curry has worked miracles before. This ask seems well beyond even his powers.

The other thing: It requires other players to be healthy, too. And with this team, that’s a tall order.

The Dubs’ roster is a walking triage center.

Al Horford spoke to the media on Tuesday and did not try to sell us on the likelihood that he’ll be back from his calf injury in time for the end of the regular season. He would have been a nice piece for the Dubs, especially in a win-or-go-home game.

He was brought in to provide the steady, veteran on-court stability this team often lacks. Fifteen minutes of pure competence. Every team could use that.

But approaching his 40th birthday, Horford will likely end the regular season with less than 1,000 minutes played — a quarter of what the Dubs’s total. At this point, he’s just an elite locker-room presence whose absence is just another daily medical update to Kerr’s press conferences.

Meanwhile Quinten Post and Will Richard — young guys — have bad feet. And De’Anthony Melton’s injured thumb has soured his shooting stroke.

If Curry does indeed come back, what is he coming back to?

Yes, it’d be great to see him and Kristaps Porzingis work together — a hint of what could be for next season.

And we can’t take any moment with Draymond Green and No. 30 on the floor for granted.

But how much time does a team actually need to jell? How long does it take to find a cohesive identity before the “real” season starts?

In the modern NBA, everyone believes in the myth of the switch. The Warriors are in large part to blame for that. Once they ruined the league, they treated the regular season like a perfunctory exercise knowing that when the time was right — and for them it wasn’t even in the first round of the playoffs — they could “flip the switch,” lock in, and obliterate their opponents.

No one is suggesting that the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference is just waiting to “flip the switch.”

But through forces beyond their control and desire, they are engaging in the same brinksmanship.

Though I’m not sure this switch is wired.

Because even the most wildly optimistic of timeframes doesn’t provide the Warriors nearly enough time to make things work.

You can’t just drop your first chair back into the lineup after a long layoff and immediately expect a flawless symphony.

Chemistry isn’t a microwave dinner.

In all likelihood, the Dubs have already run out of time on the 2025-26 season.

They’ll make a go of it — if they can — but there’s not much to salvage.

In many ways, these final days are all about being a professional.

It’s about lacing up the sneakers, giving it a good college try, and running out the clock.

They’ll play out the string because the league mandates an 82-game schedule. They’ll hope for one more miracle. They’ll pray for one more vintage Curry flurry that makes us all forget that the calendar is the only opponent that never takes a night off.

But the sand has finally reached the bottom of the hourglass. Golden State isn’t fighting for a playoff seed anymore. They are fighting for a graceful exit.

Because the Warriors entered this season by engaging in a staring contest with Father Time.

And he hasn’t blinked.