Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are currently in the process of sifting through the rubble left behind after their season came to an unceremonious end with a crushing road loss to the Sacramento Kings–the team they knocked out of the 2023 NBA playoffs–on April 16. Curry continued to put up great counting stats and is likely to make an All-NBA team when they are announced later this year, but the Warriors as a whole struggled mightily compared to expectations, signaling the continuation of a steady decline since their championship in 2022.

Of course, all eyes in the NBA world are currently fixated on the ongoing NBA playoffs, which are now shifting to the road cities after action got underway this past weekend. On Thursday, Curry was awarded with the NBA Clutch Player of the Year Award for his efforts in crunch time during the 2023-24 season, and as the award, he called into TNT’s show Inside the NBA.

While he was there, he gave his thoughts on the ongoing playoffs, including what it feels like to be on the outside looking in for the first time in a long while.

“I’m truly just a fan, watching how it plays out,” said Curry, per ClutchPoints on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “The good thing is, now we’re in a position where as we’re watching the playoffs from the outside looking in, you’re trying to figure out what it’s going to take for us to get back to that level, so I’m taking notes, doing a little scouting just on the feels of how much I miss that environment and that atmosphere, and we don’t want our absence to be another year next year, so trying to get back there.”

A disappointing season in the bay

The 2023-24 season was a frustrating one for the Warriors, to say the very least. It’s true that Golden State was not necessarily expected to compete for the championship this year considering how powerless they looked in their playoff exit to the Los Angeles Lakers a season ago.