Steph Curry was honored Sunday as one of the NBA’s top-75 players and he played like one in the All-Star Game, shattering the All-Star game 3-point record with 16 3-pointers and winning the MVP award.
The health of the Warriors' roster, namely Draymond Green, will determine Golden State's fate this season. If the Warriors return to full strength, they should be one of the top title contenders. But if they remain at less than 100 percent, the Warriors' season could end quicker than planned.
Working against the Warriors is a brutal post-All-Star break schedule that sees Steph Curry and Co. play 14 of their final 23 games on the road. Using the strength of schedule rankings at Positive Residual, the Warriors have the third toughest remaining schedule, trailing only the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls. Positive Residual factors in not only opponent winning percentage but also home/road splits, rest advantages, and other factors.
The Warriors exit the All-Star break seven games back of the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in the loss column. While the injury to Chris Paul is big, the Suns should have a big enough cushion to hold off the Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies for the Western Conference's top seed. The bigger threat to the Warriors is the Grizzlies, who are just one-and-a-half games back of the Warriors for the No. 2 seed and have a much easier post-break schedule.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
That won't matter much to the Warriors who feel that, as long as they enter the playoffs healthy, their seeding won't matter.
That being said, there are two key stretches of the Warriors' post-break schedule that will be critical in terms of momentum, potential seeding ramifications, and how we view the Warriors as title contenders.
The first comes right out of the chutes.
Golden State gets a soft landing post-break as it opens Thursday in Portland against a Trail Blazers team that is actively trying to tank. With no Damian Lillard, no Jusuf Nurkic, and with CJ McCollum in New Orleans, the Warriors should open with a win in the Rose City.
Golden State Warriors
Find the latest Golden State Warriors news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
Then, it gets tougher.
The Warriors' next eight games all are against playoff or play-in teams, with seven of those coming against Western Conference teams who Golden State could see in the postseason. The Warriors host the Dallas Mavericks, currently the No. 5 seed, before going on the road to face the Minnesota Timberwolves (No. 7 seed), the Mavericks again, the Lakers (No. 9 seed), and the Denver Nuggets (No. 6 seed). Then, the Warriors come back home to host the Los Angeles Clippers (No. 8 seed) before heading back to Denver to face the Nuggets and then finishing this stretch at home against the defending champion Bucks, who pasted the Warriors in Milwaukee back in January.
That's a brutal eight-game stretch in the span of 13 days against teams who are fighting to move up the playoff ladder.
No Anthony Davis and no Kawhi Leonard or Paul George make the tilts with the Lakers and Clippers more manageable, but the Warriors face a gauntlet right out of the gate. Golden State entered the break losing four of five. If the Warriors continue to be plagued by their defensive issues and rebounding woes to start this stretch, things could get dicey.
RELATED: Kerr responds to Steph's take on criticism of his usage
The Warriors get a bit of a reprieve after the Bucks game. Only two of their next seven games are against teams with a winning record (Boston Celtics and Miami Heat). The other five games are against teams they should handle easily in the Orlando Magic, San Antonio Spurs, and Washington Wizards (twice).
Following that softer stretch, the Warriors face a tough five-game stretch that starts with a game at Memphis before hosting the Suns and Utah Jazz at Chase Center. Golden State then heads up the road to face the Kings before returning home to host the Lakers one final time on April 7.
The hope is that the Warriors will have their full roster for this five-game flurry, and that should give us a good judge of how the Warriors look against four teams they very well could see in the postseason.
Golden State's regular-season then wraps up with home games against the Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans.
But it's those two highlighted stretches that will determine the Warriors' post-break fate.
That first stretch will show us if the Warriors were able to fix some of their flaws during the time off or if they are going to continue sliding as the playoffs approach.
The final five-game flurry to end the season should, if the Warriors are healthy, give us a true gauge of how the Warriors stack up against four teams they might have to go through to make it back to the NBA Finals.