STEPHEN CURRY'S WARMUP routine has always been worth the price of admission. It is a ridiculous, but deliberate, mix of dribbling and shooting antics that could seem unserious if it were anyone but Curry performing them.

With earbuds in and longtime assistant coach Bruce Fraser running him through, Curry entertains himself and the gallery that shows up to watch him every night. Most of the shots, regardless of length or difficulty, still go in.

It was the afternoon of April 12. Hours before tip, Curry took to his proceedings at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles before the final game of the regular season against the Los Angeles Clippers. It was a meaningless contest, with the Golden State Warriors already locked into 10th place in the Western Conference.

Curry was just a week into his return after missing 27 games with knee pain that had lingered far longer than anyone, including him, had anticipated.

On the floor, the moon shots and 30-footers, those that for years had energized him and the team, this time seemed to be doing the opposite. At one point Curry was breathing so hard he paused to wipe sweat off his brow and catch his breath.

Then, without warning, Curry broke into a dance just outside the right elbow. It was more than a shimmy but less than a twerk. He smiled.

Then, Curry spotted injured forward Jimmy Butler walking to the court and zipped the ball over to him. Butler's right knee, still wrapped tightly with a brace after surgery to repair a torn ACL in early February, caught the pass out by the 3-point line.

The shot was on target. The arc was good. For a half second it seemed like it might go in. But like so much in this star-crossed Warriors season that finally came to an end Friday night with a loss to the Phoenix Suns in the play-in tournament, the shot fell well short of the basket.

Wednesday, April 22
Magic-Pistons, Game 2: 7 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Suns-Thunder, Game 2: 9:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)

The season-ending injuries to Butler and Moses Moody, the giant heating pack Curry needed just to get through games. The miserable 37-win season that somehow still gave them a puncher's chance at earning a playoff berth. The very real possibility that this decade-long dynastic run might finally be over.

"Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong this year," said forward Draymond Green. "And yet we still have a chance. ... Because when you have a leader like Steve Kerr, who always knows the right thing to say, and a leader like Steph Curry, that you can always rally around ... anything is possible."

Three nights later, Curry showed, again, what is still possible after all this time, scoring 35 points in 36 minutes in their play-in, elimination win over the Clippers, while Green stifled Kawhi Leonard in the fourth quarter, securing a win Kerr called one of his favorite wins of the entire era.

Two nights later, their season ended at the hands of an upstart, younger Phoenix Suns team. The Warriors lost 111-96. It wasn't competitive. Curry scored just 17 points, on 25% shooting.

It was the Warriors' third consecutive appearance in the play-in tournament, and their second time in three years missing the playoffs entirely. Inside the organization, they've long known that, despite stretches of play that remind everyone of their game-changing past, like that fourth quarter against the Clippers, this team, with two aging icons on the wrong side of the actuarial table, is nowhere near good enough to win a title.

As their season came to a close, the trio of elder statesmen still fighting for it gathered on the sideline, perhaps for the final time.

"I don't know what's going to happen next," Kerr said Friday night. His right arm was on Green's shoulder, his left on Curry's. "But I love you guys to death."

play1:29Golden State Warriors vs. Phoenix Suns: Game Highlights

Golden State Warriors vs. Phoenix Suns: Game Highlights

KERR PURPOSELY DIDN'T seek an extension last summer and said he was comfortable coaching out the final year of his deal. After Friday's elimination, Kerr said he will take some time before reconvening to discuss his future with controlling owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy.

Kerr placed a timeline of about one to two weeks, which is in alignment with management's desired urgency. Team sources said they'd like to give Kerr the necessary time, but need to get the coaching situation settled quickly before pivoting to other pressing roster and strategic matters.

If Kerr returns, they will discuss staffing and what management believes is a need for philosophy tweaks, team sources said, focusing on diversifying the offensive attack and winning the analytically friendly possession battle more often. There has been a feeling internally that they were too reliant this season on 3-point variance.

Those aside, there's also overarching organizational disappointment about the 13-15 start when the Warriors were healthy, the late-game inconsistencies, the incessant turnover problem and the fact that they won only 37 games in a season in which one-third of the league was tanking.

"We didn't find it earlier in the season," Kerr said Friday night. "We were blowing some games we should've closed out. I could've done a better job. But when Jimmy got hurt, it felt like we were finding it."

After their inauspicious start, they'd won 12 of their next 16 games. Still, the charge had barely moved them in the Western Conference standings, going from No. 9 to No. 8.

If Kerr departs, the front office is expected to open up a wider search that would include several external candidates -- perhaps even exploring the college ranks, though there has been an acknowledgment about the complications of delivering Curry, Green and Butler an inexperienced head coach in their final years, team sources said.

But a Kerr exit could also signal the start of a much deeper, sweeping shift. That path has been described by several team sources as an "organizational reset" and could lead to further notable changes to the roster and coaching staff.