Five Warriors questions that will dictate 2023-24 NBA season’s direction – NBC

Spotlights come in numerous sizes, with varying degrees of wattage. And those aimed at the Warriors this season, as they attempt to rejoin the NBA elite, span the full array.

A much-anticipated media day arrives Monday, after which coaches and players on Tuesday will spill into the Chase Center practice facility to search for answers to a long list of questions.

We distilled the list to five questions, five megawatt spotlights focused on specific issues that will dictate the direction of the upcoming 2023-24 NBA season.

Here they are, ranked in order of significance:

1. Can Stephen Curry continue his Tom Brady act and extend his prime for yet another season?

Everything the Warriors have done since 2012 revolves around Curry. His wellness is their power plant, and the team is most brilliant when he is at his best.

Bouncing back from a 2021-22 season that was below his lofty standard, Curry was superb once again last season, finishing eight missed field-goal attempts from his first 50-40-90 season since his MVP season in 2015-16.

With the Warriors on the brink of being a first-round playoff casualty, their salvation was a from-deep-in-the-soul 50-point screamer – on the road – from their 35-year-old leader.

Curry spent last season, including the playoffs, defying the aging process. He turns 36 next March. Coach Steve Kerr, aware of the need to manage minutes of the veterans around which the team is built, will look to keep Curry’s minutes in the low 30s.

The Warriors are betting big in pursuit of their fifth championship in 10 years. This is, in many ways, a one-season play for a jackpot. Another marvelous season from Curry is required to cash in.

2. Can Chris Paul embrace – and not merely accept – his diminished role and still be productive at 38?

Paul’s “role” with the Warriors was the talk of summer. For obvious reasons. He has started every game of an NBA career that began in 2005. Moreover, he has the ego of a man who has been the primary leader on all five of his previous teams and knows he’s bound for the Naismith Hall of Fame.

But this is an entirely new experience. Paul is making his first entry into a locker room bedazzled with championship jewelry. He has had almost four months to adjust to the fact that this is a bus on which he’ll spend more time riding than driving.

The Warriors plan to manage Paul’s workload, averaging 25 or so minutes per game, with selected nights off. The goal is to keep him as fresh as possible for the postseason.

The belief is that Paul will be a professional and respect the plan. Anything less and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. will could feel a twinge of trader’s regret.

3) Can Kerr effectively manage perhaps the strongest new personality to enter the locker room since he arrived in 2014?

This spotlight can be paired with No. 2. Paul is not 2016 Kevin Durant, who offered opinion but focused on fitting in with the group and working on his…