But this was no ordinary split of a four-game series in San Diego.

No, it was a roller coaster ride of emotion, featuring the best and worst the Giants had to offer, all in one long weekend.

Here are my six takeaways from the season openers:

UP: Matt Chapman

There are not many position players in baseball who can dominate an entire game. To do so requires next-level ability at the plate and on the diamond.

The Padres have a player who can do it — Fernando Tatis Jr. On Friday night, the perennial MVP candidate hit two home runs (including one that was impossible) and flashed serious leather in right field, where he won the Platinum Glove last season.

But the Giants won that game, because they have a player like that, too.

Matt Chapman also hit two home runs Friday. He’s a two-time Platinum Glove winner who has wasted no time proving that he still has it in the field. His absurd day (three extra-base hits, five RBI, a game-ending double play I’m still thinking about) should have served notice to the rest of the National League West that the Giants—yes, the Giants—have a star player in their lineup every day.

At the very least, they should know not to hit it to the left side of the infield. His pairing with Nick Ahmed is spectacular.

DOWN: Joey Bart

As in, he was designated for assignment before Sunday’s game.

I actually have little problem with how the Giants handled this situation. The team wasn’t going to carry three catchers all season, but had they made this move (Bart was out of options) at the end of spring training, San Francisco would have certainly lost the former No. 2 overall pick.

They might still lose him. Frankly, they should lose him. But by waiting until the season was a few days old, Farhan Zaidi likely limited the list of suitors. Going into the first game of the season, a roster is fluid. No decisions have truly been made. But by waiting until every team in baseball had to cull their roster to 26 players, the Giants stand a chance (even a slim one) of getting Bart to Sacramento. Teams that just made a tough decision probably don’t want to go back and tell the catcher who made their team, “We’re going with the stranger,” a week later.

Still, I expect Bart to go elsewhere.

It would be a huge but strange win if the Giants can get Bart through waivers.

But Bart is the third-best catcher in the organization right now. As long as that’s the case, he can’t be carried on the 26-man roster.

Meanwhile, Tom Murphy looks like he might be the best, but it’s early days. (My goodness, has he hit the ball hard.)

UP: The Giants’ bonafide starters

Logan Webb deserved better on Opening Day. He was nasty in the best possible way.

And Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks were both marvelous in their season debuts.

Harrison’s four-seam fastball is still sneaking up on hitters — he picked up five whiffs on it Friday, as he had an average of 21 inches of vertical break on it. That, paired with his repeated release point, strong tunneling, and ability to hide the ball makes 93 look like 98 miles per hour. I’m not sure Stuff-plus and other pitching evaluation models can take his deception on pitches into account. And while the breaking pitches still need some work, there’s a lot of promise for Harrison yet.

Hicks’ debut needs no interpretation. Even though he’s taken a few miles per hour off his pitches, he’s finding the zone more than when he was a reliever, and he’s borderline unhittable when he’s cooking. He had such stretches on Saturday.

Hicks has a chance for a special season if he can master the feel of that splitter.

DOWN: The other two spots in the rotation

Daulton Jefferies seems like a nice guy, and it’s a hell of a story that he’s back in the big leagues, but, well, that’s about all I can say after a two-inning, nine-run (five earned), one-strikeout start Sunday. Happy Easter!

And on Monday, the Giants are going Johnny Wholestaff against (checks my notes…) the Dodgers.

Blake Snell and Alex Cobb cannot join this rotation soon enough.

UP: Situational hitting

The Giants started the season 11-for-33 with runners in scoring position, driving in 19 runs and posting a .912 OPS.

Chapman has three hits with RISP, Ahmed two. Wilmer Flores also has two, but Michael Conforto, who had a monster series, hit a grand slam on Saturday, so that takes the cake.

The Giants’ offense should be solid this season, but they’re not going to bop with the best teams in baseball.

Situational hitting will determine whether this team is just another mediocre club or something more. You have to like the (very) early returns.

DOWN: Camilo Doval in a non-save situation

I know he needed the work, but did no one tell Bob Melvin about this?

Alas, it’s not yet Wembanyama’s time. He still has no idea what he’s doing on the court and he still scored 18 in the fourth quarter. Golden State won 117-113.

But that infinitely tall 20-year-old French kid in Texas put a solid scare in the Dubs Sunday. Beating him, and the Spurs took everything the Dubs had.

Wembanyama’s coming. He’s going to run this league one day. It’s the most obvious thing I’ve seen in the NBA since LeBron James entered the league 21 years ago. And that day of reckoning might come sooner than originally expected.

For the one-time league runners from Golden State — a team that boasts four Hall of Famers — the push required to win in San Antonio had to hit hard.

Yes, the Warriors have a lot going on these days. Their eyes are occupied.

One is on their daily opponent: Survive and advance. Another is on the Houston Rockets, who are pushing up on the Dubs from the depths of the Western Conference. They finally lost Sunday to the Mavericks after an 11-game winning streak.

But if this team has a third eye that’s open, it has to be focused on the future.

Amid all the half-billion dollar questions the Warriors organization will have to ask itself this summer, one should loom largest:

How many teams will be better than us in 2024-25?

Sunday’s game with the Spurs should ring alarms. A win is a win — and winning on the road is nothing to take for granted. We all saw the Warriors’ 2022-23 season, after all.

But these Spurs are on the rise. They’re crazy young, but after months of messing around, they’re figuring out how to win. Before the Dubs beat them Sunday, San Antonio had won three straight — that’s a hell of a run when you had 15 wins at the start.

With Wembanyama’s limitless talent, it’s fair—perhaps even self-evident—to suggest that this team could absolutely be a contender to make the play-in tournament next year.

Oh, and the young, surging Rockets are likely only going to get better, too.

Memphis should have Ja Morant back next season. They should be in the mix as well.

And which of the nine teams above the Warriors in the standings can you assuredly say will fade for next season? Minnesota, Oklahoma City, and the Pelicans seem to only be scratching the surface of their potential. The Clippers, Nuggets, and Mavericks have great players in their prime years — they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Sacramento might not have another level to reach, but they seem stable at their current status. Phoenix might be a mess, but I doubt they implode. Maybe LeBron will finally start playing like he’s an old man and take the Lakers down with him, but are you willing to make that bet? (Plus, a healthy Anthony Davis is good enough to anchor a team to the postseason.)

Stability, for the most part, is above the Warriors in the standings. Threats are on the rise from below.

I’m quickly doing the math, and it doesn’t look good for the Warriors.

Even if Portland and Utah continue to rebuild next season — we’ll see — that’s only two of the Western Conference’s 15 teams that the Warriors don’t have to consider a threat.

And which way is the Warriors’ arrow pointing?

Even the most optimistic fan cannot suggest its level. At best, it’s slightly pointed down.

The further away from fandom you go, though, the more downward that arrow is slanted.

This Dubs team isn’t winning the title this season. Sorry, but it’s not happening. I’m not sure what you could have seen to make you think that’s possible.

But the remainder of this Warriors’ season is really about proving that this team has the foundation to contend for a title next season.

It’s about fending off dramatic change. A “rebuild” might be the wrong term, but it would be a dramatically different build — perhaps an unrecognizable one.

After all, it’s a big ask to continue an era that looks bygone. To go from a No. 10 seed to a title contender would require stasis from the veterans, dramatic jumps from young players, and a consistent, engaged Andrew Wiggins. It would also require Warriors ownership to place the largest bet in NBA history on what is, effectively, the same roster.

Possible? Yes. Probable? No.

The Warriors have eight games remaining this regular season and perhaps only one more after that. The Dubs’ mandate this final month-plus was to prove that they had been dramatically underperforming all season and that they saved their best for last.

This necessary four-game winning streak might suggest that’s the case.

But the devil is in the details, and after a performance like Sunday’s in San Antonio, it becomes harder to believe that these Warriors are on the precipice of anything but change.

The Giants lost their season opener 6-4 to the Padres on Thursday despite Logan Webb’s strong start and a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning.

Still, it wasn’t all bad.

Let’s go over three positives and dwell on three negatives from the Giants’ Opening Day loss.

UP: Logan Webb was fantastic

» It wasn’t perfect, but it was the kind of performance we’ve come to expect from the Giants ace.

All those worries about his wickedly poor spring training were put to bed early as Webb was moving his sinker around the zone and throwing sharp sliders to go with his sandbag of a changeup.

Sure, he gave up two runs, but the sequence that brought those two runs home was a leadoff walk, an inside-out single, a seeing-eye single, a two-strike bloop single, and a dribbler to first base.

If Webb didn’t have some bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.

Webb threw 97 pitches on Thursday and deserved better.

DOWN: The seventh-inning crew

» It was a bold move by Bob Melvin to go to Jackson as the man to take the seventh with a one-run lead, and it backfired.

And while it’s hard to say if that was the result of Jackson’s back firing or just poor execution, the result was two hits, three earned runs, and no outs. Jackson said his lower back flared up, bringing about his early exit from the game.

Ryan Walker came in to salvage the inning but gave up an RBI single and a 109-mile-per-hour exit velocity double.

It wasn’t their day in a game where both Rogers brothers stayed on the bench. Jackson could be sidelined for a while, so it’s a double whammy for a team that still needs to figure out its sixth—and seventh-inning options.

UP: Nick Ahmed

» I won’t blame Ahmed for the little-league steal of home the Padres pulled off the seventh. That was a terrible throw to second by catcher Patrick Bailey.

I will, however, credit Ahmed for his two tomahawk RBIs in the game.

Great teams get production from the bottom of their order. One game in, Ahmed has provided some serious value at the No. 9 spot in the lineup. Keep it up and the Giants will win more than they lose.

DOWN: Mike Yastrzemski

» You can forgive Yaz if his mind was somewhere else Thursday, as his wife is scheduled to be induced for the birth of their second child on Friday. Congratulations to the Yastrzemski family.

But if we’re coldly ignoring the human element of it all, Yaz did go 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Thursday. And a strikeout might have been an improvement over the ball he put in play — a 48-mile-per-hour exit velocity might as well be a bunt.

UP: Erik Miller

» Why did the Giants option this guy down to the minors during spring training?

Oh well, it all worked out. And on Thursday, we could see why they brought him back up.

Throwing a mid-to-high-90s, high-spin fastball with a nasty changeup (each had two whiffs against it) is downright nasty. To do it from the left side is perhaps unfair.

Miller’s issue has never been stuff; it’s been control. He sure looked in control on Thursday. I’d keep riding him until that control is no longer there.

DOWN: The new jerseys

» Finally, an important issue.

We saw the Giants’ new alternate jerseys in Arizona, and the new Fanatics-made duds looked awful.

But Major League Baseball was saving the worst for the regular season.

The Giants’ away grays — a classic jersey if there ever was one — debuted on Thursday and looked like cheap Alibaba knockoffs. Seriously, the Giants have done giveaway jerseys for the first 20,000 fans at the gate with higher quality.

The league decided not to do anything about all the preseason jersey complaints, deciding to let the issue “blow over.”

But it’s pretty hard to forget how cheap the jerseys look when you have to watch them for nearly three hours, every night. What an embarrassment for baseball. It’s a shame commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t care about things like “the league’s image.”

On the plus side, though, the grey pants aren’t see-through.

“There’s more at stake.”

Oldman, playing Commissioner Jim Gordon in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, had just fluffed a take, unbeknownst to him, and the director provided that feedback.

Nolan didn’t need to launch into a self-indulgent monologue or provide a rah-rah motivational speech. He just needed to help a great performer shift his tone a bit. In four words, he did that. Brevity is truly genius.

Oldman picked up what Nolan was putting down. He nailed the next take.

I wonder if Warriors coach Steve Kerr provided similar feedback to the Warriors before the team’s Florida back-to-back Tuesday and Wednesday.

Countless hours of talking-head bloviation, barrels of ink, and infinite pixels have been used to discuss these Dubs. Are they good enough? Is the dynasty over? Why can’t they seem to lock in?

Don’t they know there’s more at stake?

The Warriors aren’t just playing for the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference play-in tournament — tiddlywinks by this dynastic core’s standards. Everything is on the line for the Dubs — the past, present, and future.

In a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, people will remember if these Warriors go out sad.

And if these Warriors cannot even make the postseason — or whatever purgatory the NBA considers the PIT — they have to know that dramatic changes are coming this offseason.

It’s not my money, but it’s impossible to justify Warriors CEO Joe Lacob keeping the most expensive team in NBA history together after not even making the play-in tournament. For the first time in my professional history, I would advocate for a team to cut payroll. At some point, being expensive is offensive, and these Warriors are toeing the line, putting the futures of Klay Thompson, Chris Paul, and Andrew Wiggins futures in limbo.

There’s some heavy stuff at play here.

And yet we watched the Dubs sleepwalk through critical games the last few weeks as if everything would work out just fine — it’ll take care of itself. The Warriors played with an entitlement they haven’t earned this season or last.

But we haven’t seen it in the last two games. A small sample size? Sure, but at this point, we’ll take whatever we can get.

And whether it was good direction by Kerr, a rah-rah speech from Steph Curry or Draymond Green, the inspiration everyone with a pulse would take from one of my columns, or the red-hot Houston Rockets — a fire was lit under the Dubs before they played in Florida.

Let’s be even more specific:

A fire was lit under Wiggins.

The Warriors have maintained — perhaps delusionally — that amid months of up-and-down play, they have a higher gear they can reach this season.

We might have seen that other gear in Miami and Orlando.

It had nothing to do with Curry (who looks tired). Thompson had strong stretches, but that wasn’t it, either.

Wiggins is the difference between the Warriors being mediocre and something more dangerous. It always has been this way, and perhaps it always will be.

He’s played with force in the last two games. Has he been perfect? Hardly. But he has made himself known on both ends of the court, and that’s a dramatic improvement. In all, he scored 40 points on 51 percent shooting and registered two blocks per game. After months of floating, he was a difference-maker.

This Wiggins was the second-best player on a title team less than two years ago. The Warriors looked like a different team with him back in that long-vacated No. 2 role.

It’s equal parts encouraging and frustrating.

My dad used to tell me that some people are “born without a sense of urgency.” I had no idea I’d recall that line so often in adult life.

But Wiggins has, indeed, kicked his game into gear; if he’s figured out that his future with the Warriors is on the line in the final weeks of the season; if he has found a sense of urgency, then we might have some fun down the stretch and beyond.

And if this is just another tease — well, that will make shipping out his contract at the end of the season to dip under the luxury tax threshold all the easier.

No one would be bold enough to predict where this goes.

Perhaps even Wiggins doesn’t know.

But Wiggins saw Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody play with force next to him and decided to get in on the act during the last two games. He’s remembered that he can be a difference maker.

And when you pair that kind of impact from a true three-level, two-way wing with a team that knows there’s more at stake than just a play-in tournament game, you have something quite interesting. You might even have something worthwhile.

Improbably, and perhaps even unjustly, the Warriors can rewrite their season’s story over the final 10 games.

The first draft would suggest that after two well-played games, they’ll go back to dogging it on transition defense, allowing blow-by after blow-by on the perimeter, and standing around a lot on offense either Friday in Charlotte or Sunday in San Antonio. They’ll rest on the laurels they don’t actually have.

But it might be different. That’s why Kerr was handing out bear hugs, first to Wiggins, then to Curry after Wednesday’s win. That’s why Curry blew his fuse after Draymond’s early-game ejection. That’s why Wiggins has looked like a 2022 edition of himself.

This team might truly know there is more at stake.

This big-market, big-money team cannot miss the postseason for a third straight year.

It doesn’t matter how they reach the playoffs. They can magically and inexplicably win 107 games again (the super fun route) or sneak in with a barely .500 record (the got-it-done option). They can do it by leaning on old players, young players, or a whole bunch of players in between. They can buy or sell at the trade deadline or do a bit of both.

For the Giants, the ends will justify the means, so long as the end is October baseball.

(Though I’m sure ownership would prefer if they could do that and “somewhat break even.”)

And here’s the good news: it’s an absolutely reasonable goal for the Giants to make the playoffs.

It took a while to come together, but the Giants had a blockbuster offseason. Outside of the Dodgers, no one spent more on outside-the-organization talent.

In adding a top-of-the-order, everyday center fielder (Jung Hoo Lee), one of the best all-around third basemen of this generation (Matt Chapman), a former 48-home-run strongman to bat cleanup (Jorge Soler), and the reigning National League Cy Young winner (Blake Snell), it’s clear the Giants’ front office received the fanbase’s demands.

That heat emanating from their seats spurred action. The Giants acted like a team intent on making the Dodgers’ life hell in 2024 and perhaps making some waves of their own.

And outside of being the Dodgers (an impossible standard to match), I’m not sure what more anyone could ask for heading into this campaign.

After all, if the Giants that were already on the roster were fine, adding these new guys should make this year’s team pretty good.

This year, pretty good will be good enough.

And better yet, this team makes sense — at least on paper.

A team that plays 81 games a season at Oracle Park should be focused on run suppression. If the Giants have any positives in the talent pipeline, it’s pitching. They have a glut of young, impressive arms.

So by improving the team’s defense (outside of left field, there’s no clear weakness — and perhaps three Gold Glove winners on the infield) and doubling down on that impressive pitching depth by signing Snell and trading for another former Cy Young winner Robbie Ray (who will return mid-season), San Francisco should win games.

The offense should improve, too. The Giants’ 2023 season was torpedoed by anemic hitting in the second half. Before the All-Star break, the Giants had scored the 11th most runs in baseball. After that, they scored the fewest runs per game in the majors. Even the A’s were better.

Get this: the Giants’ plan to game the system and amalgamate a bunch of part-time guys in the hopes of receiving quality full-time production didn’t stand up to the scrutiny of six months and 162 games.

This year, we’ll avoid the daily mystery of who is in the lineup. There won’t be a clandestine operation to hide the day’s starting pitcher, either. Sure, there will still be some platooning—first base and right field will be split, at least to start the season — but we’re past the eras of openers, piggybacks, and general lineup tomfoolery.

The man tasked with putting together that standard, downright repeatable lineup this season was also an offseason addition.

And he might prove to be the biggest addition when the 2024 season comes to an end.

No manager in baseball has consistently gotten more from less than Bob Melvin. He won 53 percent of his games in Oakland and had the same winning percentage the last two years in San Diego, where he was hired to fix the incredible clubhouse mess former manager Jayce Tingler created in only 222 games.

And what’s most impressive about Melvin’s time, specifically in Oakland, is that he didn’t micromanage, making him a sharp departure from his predecessor in San Francisco, Gabe Kapler.

After all, that sort of thing was always beneath the Giants. Let the small-market, low-budget teams sweat the small stuff and play between the margins. The Giants play in the richest region in America. It was about time they acted like it.

Now they have.

This isn’t to say that progression from last season’s 79-83 campaign is guaranteed. Far from it.

The Giants might be projected to win the third-most games in the National League this upcoming season after the March additions of Snell and Chapman, but it still puts them well behind the Dodgers and Braves — baseball’s two best. Furthermore, there are between eight and 10 other teams in the league that are projected (depending on what system you use) to be within four games of .500 this season.

Thanks to the expanded playoffs and the sport’s relatively new luxury tax thresholds, nearly every team that’s trying is playing for the middle.

Call it parity if you want — I’ll call it mediocrity. It pays in Commissioner Rob Manfred’s game.

The Giants could be part of that glob of “meh,” or they could be a step above it this season.

Either way, there won’t be much margin for error this season.

The work of the offseason was excellent and has the fan base feeling a sense of optimism that hasn’t been approached in nearly a decade. Give the Giants’ front office plaudits for that.

But now the real work begins.

Would it be nice if the 2024 Giants were fun to watch? Absolutely. We’d all like to enjoy six months of engaging, interesting, entertaining baseball.

While I think the Giants will, in fact, provide that this upcoming season, the only thing they need to deliver is a playoff berth.

This team has lofty, serious expectations this season.

They have to become reality by the fall.

Is this optimism?

I’m not terribly familiar with it. But I certainly don’t dislike it, either.

Yes, San Francisco’s vibes are off the charts right now. And while big additions and a strong Cactus League campaign are probably not enough to take down the billion-dollar boys in blue from the Southland, they should be enough to make the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

At the very least, Giants baseball should be fun to watch again. What a concept!

With all this optimism and positivity raging through our systems, I figured it was a good time to make some big, bold predictions.

All of these are plausible, but — let’s be honest — I’ll be lucky to get one of them right. Of course, if I do, I expect a parade down Market Street.

Will the Giants be following me? Probably not. But this team has enough to make things interesting come the fall, and that’s a nice upgrade from years past.

And between now and then, we’re going to see some big performances from these guys:

Matt Chapman will finish Top-5 in National League MVP voting

This might end up being a bad thing for the Giants as Chapman is on, effectively, a one-year contract. But he’ll have a monster year for San Francisco in the field (duh) and at the plate, where he regains his form from his last year in Oakland and first year in Toronto.

With the Giants making the playoffs, Chapman’s all-around prowess will make him a sleeper MVP candidate.

He has finished seventh and sixth in the American League vote. His first season in the National League will land him a fifth-place finish (I’m picking Trea Turner to win it), but more importantly for him, it’ll secure him a better opportunity to land a long-term contract starting in 2025.

Keaton Winn will be the Giants’ top rookie starter

I’m a big Kyle Harrison fan, but he is just 22 years old and has only 314 innings as a professional pitcher. There will be plenty of fun ups, but there will be a few downs, too. He’s a high-ceiling player, but the floor is still rather low. That’ll improve with time.

Winn, meanwhile, is a 26-year-old with a high floor and a ceiling that I think is underrated. He is just straight-up nasty and I can’t wait for his first start of 2024.

With a sinker that is as good as any pitch in baseball — that sandbag he tosses up there at 90 miles per hour is 43 percent better than the average sinker in baseball, per Stuff-plus — and a plus slider (19 percent better than league average), Winn already has enough for a breakout season.

After all, there are only nine projected starters in baseball who had better Stuff-plus numbers than Winn posted in his 42 innings last year.

And if Winn’s upper-90s four-seam fastball becomes a weapon this season, he has a chance to have a truly special year, particularly at Oracle Park with the Giants’ improved defense behind him.

Yes, Harrison can win National League Rookie of the Year. But when we look up in September, don’t be surprised if Winn is one of the better and more reliable starters in the league.

Jorge Soler will end the drought

Barry Bonds in 2004. As all serious Giants fans know, that was the last time San Francisco had a 30-homer hitter.

Jorge Soler will put an end to that streak of futility in 2024.

He hit 36 home runs last year despite playing in Miami, and that’s because he doesn’t hit cheap ones. Few players in baseball can hit the ball harder, and Soler showed a more judicious eye at the plate last year, allowing him to be one of baseball’s finest sluggers. According to Statcast, if he played his 2023 exclusively in Oracle Park, he’d have hit 32 home runs.

I think he can beat that number with more protection in the lineup than he had in Miami.

Let’s call it 35 and never talk of Bonds’ mark and the dead-ball era that followed again.

Jung Hoo Lee will score 100

I was stunned to learn that Hunter Pence was the last Giant to score 100 runs in a season. He did it a decade ago.

Even more depressing? Kevin Pillar was the last Giant to touch home 80 times in a season. No wonder he got that MVP vote…

But Jung Hoo Lee appears to be a leadoff man of the highest order, and I think he’ll hit .300 with an on-base percentage near .400.

Bold? You bet. But he tore up the KBO, the Cactus League, and the National League seems like the next logical step.

Lee will be atop the lineup every day, and his glove will play the whole game, too. With a much-improved lineup behind him, I think he can outperform his most positive preseason projection—84 runs, per Steamer—and reach 100.

He looks so in control it’s hard not to believe he’ll hit the ground running in the big leagues.

And with excellent base running and (I think) the potential to steal 20 bags, it can all add up to a three-figure run total.

The Iceman will be near-perfect

Do you know the Giants’ single-season record for saves? Of course not. You’re a normal person with things to do.

So let me tell you: It’s 48, shared by Rod Beck (1993) and Brian Wilson (2010).

Well, I think they’ll be tied for second in a few months.

Camilo Doval is going to save 50 this season.

That’s 11 more than he had in 2023, sure, but seeing as Doval blew eight saves and pitched — for some unholy reason — in 22 games without the ability to register a save, I think the potential is there for a boost.

Add in that I think Bob Melvin will be more judicious about when he uses Doval, the Giants will win at least 10 more games than last year, and their offense—while good—won’t create many blowouts, and I think it’s a perfect storm for Doval to dominate in 2024.

Let’s call it 50 saves in 52 chances with 65 relief appearances overall — a dominant season for the unflappable reliever that will stand in the Giants record books for years to come.

Oh, and add another All-Star Game to the mix, too. He’ll be there.

And in this era of disposable starting pitchers, can I interest you in some Doval votes for National League Cy Young?

• They’re the most expensive team in NBA history.

• With 12 games remaining this season, they’re closer to falling out of the play-in tournament than moving up to the No. 9 seed.

Let these facts be your north stars as the Warriors close out this absurd, incongruous season.

And then let me know where they take you, because, outside of “don’t let the Warriors’ front office manage your investments,” I’m finding it quite difficult to garner purpose or meaning from this cursed campaign.

This team seems to be on a road to nowhere, and it’s as bumpy as an East Oakland side street.

The Warriors, of course, didn’t expect to be in this unbecoming position — No. 10 in the Western Conference. They might not even hold that position much longer, as the young, plucky Houston Rockets, the hottest team in the NBA, are now nipping at their tail, one game away from fully closing what was a five-game gap earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the Warriors, losers of three of their last four, are either a team that has run out of gas or a team playing with an entitlement this season’s squad hasn’t earned.

Either way, alarms are ringing, and the Warriors seem stunningly unaffected.

“I don’t give a damn about the Rockets,” Draymond Green said after Sunday’s loss to the Timberwolves.

Green might not care about the Rockets, but they care deeply about him.

The whole league cares about the Warriors.

They have collectively plotted their revenge for years, patiently waiting for a weak Warriors team. Now that they have one, they’re keen to vent some pent-up frustration.

The Warriors can’t decide what they want to be this season — contenders or chumps — so the league is deciding for them.

It all throws more than just the season’s final few weeks into question.

In past dynastic years, the Dubs waited until the last minute to “flip the switch.” Is this far less talented team—hanging on to the last postseason spot in the West by the narrowest of margins—planning on doing the same?

Is there even a switch to flip?

These big questions may or may not be answered in the season’s final weeks.

They certainly make the (justified) debate over whether Steph Curry should have played 30 or 32 minutes in Minnesota on Sunday seem trite.

After all, Curry didn’t force Andrew Wiggins, Trayce Jackson-Davis, or Chris Paul to turn the ball over to start the fourth quarter. And while Curry is part of the Warriors’ season-long problem of allowing opponents to shoot wide-open 3-pointers, the Warriors seemed capable of allowing those wide-open looks for deep without him on the court for those two fourth-quarter minutes, too.

“We’ve put the burden of this franchise on his shoulders for 15 years,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after that game. “We can’t expect him to play 35 minutes … If you want to say that him playing 30 minutes instead of 32 is a difference between a win and a loss, I totally disagree with that. We’re trying to win the game. And we’re trying to keep him fresh, too.”

Fair enough. Logical and sound thinking.

That acknowledged, riding Curry like there’s no tomorrow seems to be the only viable and repeatable plan for success for this Dubs team.

The Warriors lack an honest-to-goodness No. 2. It’s the defining truth of their season.

Klay Thompson can’t play that role anymore, Wiggins — the second-best player on a title team less than two years ago — doesn’t seem interested in the job, and Jonathan Kuminga desperately wants the gig but cannot fully perform the duties on a night-to-night basis. He’s 21 years old, after all.

So if the Warriors want to win games, they have no choice but to ride Curry — a true superstar — until the wheels come off.

And let’s be honest: That could be any day now.

Sorry if that offends you, but it’s plain to see if you’re willing to accept the reality of the situation.

We’re seeing Curry struggle as if he was a mere mortal as of late. He played at half-speed against the Pacers on Friday, getting easily outrun down the court when he was on defense and doing a lot of standing on offense.

An uncharacteristic performance? Sure.

But it wasn’t a one-off.

At least one lug nut is loose here. Amazingly, it took this long for that to happen.

So, following Friday’s game, can you blame Kerr and the Warriors coaching staff for being hesitant to push Curry at the start of a stretch during which the Warriors will play eight games in eight different arenas in 13 days?

Not long ago, the Warriors managed Curry’s season-long workload by resting him for the fourth quarters of blowout games.

Now, fighting for their postseason lives, they have to decide whether to rob Peter to pay (Chris) Paul with his minutes.

I reject the belief that titles are all that matters in the NBA. But as we watch this Warriors team flounder amid the season’s home stretch, it is fair to wonder, “What are we doing here?”

I’m not suggesting Dubs should give up on this season. Golden State still has moments of worthwhileness.

But they are fleeting and far too infrequent.

The ratio between quality and disjointedness is out of whack and only worsening. It’s hard to imagine a dramatic turnaround in the final three weeks. Perhaps they hold onto that play-in spot. Maybe not.

I don’t know exactly how this season ends, but I don’t foresee it ending in a better position than last year when the Dubs were embarrassed in the second round.

After that series, the Warriors veterans were adamant they would run it back.

Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson shouldn’t be allowed to peddle that same kind of soft power again at the end of this season.

Who would want to run this back?

The Warriors can’t afford to stick with the current plan. The league’s new collective bargaining agreement is exceptionally punitive (to the point of being vindictive) to teams who remain in the luxury tax. The Warriors have an opportunity — narrow but clear — to hop under that line and reset.

There is no future for this team. Not as currently constructed. Kuminga might become that No. 2 in due time — perhaps even next season — but how long will that align with Curry’s timeline as a No. 1?

And will Kuminga ever be a title-worthy No. 1? I’d like to be wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

What other future is there? Brandin Podziemski is a solid role player, but one who fits best with veterans. He’s the energetic puppy that keeps the old dogs young. Jackson-Davis is marvelous, but he’s a role player, too — the precocious youngster who can hang out with his parents and their friends.

This isn’t a second timeline or future core — this is “running it back” on the cheap.

And without a clear succession plan to an era that is fading fast, the Warriors find themselves in a strange spot.

They could lean into this, the beginning of their Yankees and Cowboys phase, where they play well enough to be interesting but dominate off of it by selling nostalgia for a now-bygone era of greatness. That route will keep butts in the seats and pay the mortgage at Chase Center.

Or they could risk it all and make big, bold decisions this upcoming offseason.

I’m not sure which route would cost more.

And at this point, I’m unsure which route is right to take.

Perhaps the Warriors will provide an irrefutable answer over these final 12 games.

But with less than a month left in this season and this team remaining an enigma (at best), I’m not betting on it.

If you want to get into next week’s mailbag, shoot me an email (dkurtenbach@bayareanewsgroup.com) or text (510. 479.0932‬).

Let’s get after it with a question I received from more than a few folks this week:

Is it time to put Klay Thompson back in the starting lineup? – Michael in San Jose

I don’t see it.

This bench role works for the Warriors and for Klay. And the Dubs’ second unit is the one advantage this team currently boasts over its opponents.

Plus, if Thompson is playing well, he can still close games. That’s what really matters.

Yes, the Warriors’ starters need to play better. That didn’t happen on Monday night against the Knicks, who pushed around Brandin Podziemski and knocked both Andrew Wiggins off his game (though that’s not hard to do these days.)

But that performance against New York isn’t enough to throw everything into the shuffle.

What would the swap even be? Thompson for Wiggins? There’s obviously an easy argument for that move — Wiggins has been woeful as of late — but now you’re torpedoing your second unit for the sake of a marginal upgrade (at least one that is inconsistent) in the starting lineup.

Thompson for Podziemski? That’s ignoring why the kid is in the starting lineup.

No, the Warriors starting lineup makes sense with Podz. The rookie covers defensively for Curry and on the glass for Wiggins and Kuminga. His hustle and energy are necessary alongside his four starting teammates.

Thompson deserves plaudits for accepting and thriving in this role. It seems dangerous to mess with that now.

Would the 49ers really trade Brandon Aiyuk? — David in Fremont

They could, but they won’t.

Aiyuk is being cryptic on social media — flirting with other teams and removing the Niners from his Instagram page.  That’s par for the course with a contract negotiation like this, particularly with wide receivers who are, on the whole, weird and self-involved.

These folks can’t throw the ball to themselves — they innately know how to draw attention.

Now, the Niners’ modus operandi is to pay top players top dollar. They love “rewarding” their guys.

But they also wait until the summer to do it.

Nick Bosa just missed all of training camp. Deebo Samuel signed a new contract on July 31, 2022. Fred Warner was paid in July, too. George Kittle signed his contract extension in August.

The Niners don’t have much say in contract negotiations like those or Aiyuk’s—it’s easy to figure out how much money and how long a deal for a top-tier player should be. But the Niners can afford to wait longer than any player—Aiyuk still has to play 2024 under his fifth-year option. By waiting, they gain a bit of leverage in negotiations.

So they’ll wait. And Aiyuk will complain. And come the summer, they’ll agree on a new deal.

Aiyuk is Brock Purdy’s favorite receiver, after all.

The Niners have gone all-in on special teams this offseason. Do they know something we don’t? – Brian in San Francsico 

They might!

The Niners have brought back George Odum, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, and added Chase Lucas, Ezekiel Turner, and Isaac Yiadom.

That’s a lot of special teams guys.

But my 49ers Gameday podcast partner Jake Hutchinson thinks the Niners are loading up because the NFL kickoff rules might change for the upcoming season.

I subscribe to the theory. (Just like you should subscribe to the podcast!)

The NFL competition committee has proposed a radical change to kickoffs. The short of it is that it’s the XFL rule: teams would line up away from the kicker, with five yards separating the coverage and return teams. Neither team can move until the returner has the ball. The theory is the lack of run-up should make kick returns safer.

It also increases the need for good open-field tacklers.

The league is also proposing a rule that would effectively eliminate touchbacks on kickoffs. While I think this is a step too far — touchbacks would now come out to the 35-yard line and there would be a “receiving zone” between the goal line and the 20 — it might just get the votes to be implemented this season.

And with all these special teamers they’ve added, the Niners might be ahead of the rest of the league should that happen.

Given that this team appears to have taken a step back on defense, being a top special teams operation could help mitigate that blow.

Well, the offseason ended weeks ago, but the Giants have certainly made a splash.

To start off March, San Francisco signed All-Star, Gold-Glove third baseman Matt Chapman — one of the top free-agent position players on the market.

And on Monday, they went even bigger, signing the reigning National League Cy Young winner, Blake Snell. The New York Post reported that the Giants and Snell agreed to a two-year deal (with an opt-out after 2024) worth $62 million.

Add those two big-time pickups to a team that already added centerfielder Jung Hoo Lee (at a more traditional time), and the Giants have done pretty well for themselves.

It took a while, but this team makes some sense now.

In a league where so many teams are simply playing to be a bit better than mediocre — 83 or 84 wins should land a Wild Card spot — San Francisco should be expected to rise above that morass with Snell and Chapman in the fold.

The Giants are no longer a team that is simply hoping to be good enough to make the playoffs.

No, the Giants have to view themselves — and be seen — as a team that expects to make the playoffs this season.

And frankly, that’s the only acceptable standard for a big-market, big-fan-base, big-money team.

They’re acting like one. And it was worth the wait.

Oh, and about the money: The Giants added two of the best players on the free-agent market this month because they waited for the market to cool down like a San Francisco summer night. They’ll pay both Chapman and Snell handsomely—as both players deserve—but San Francisco won’t take on the long-term risk that comes with so many big-money contracts.

In essence, both Chapman and Snell are on one-year deals.

And there is no such thing as a bad one-year deal.

Zaidi has his detractors, and most have salient points, but this is good team building, even if new manager Bob Melvin has been left with little time to actually prepare this late-assembled team for the regular season.

These are the kinds of deals the Giants have found success with in the past, too, particularly for pitchers. You can pay big bucks and give a long term to players who you develop from your minor-league talent pipeline — guys like Logan Webb.

But seeing as the Giants have, to date, developed exactly one everyday position player under Zaidi — catcher Patrick Bailey — there was simply no excuse for San Francisco not to have done what they did: flash around a little short-term cash and maximize for the upcoming season.

Worry about 2025 next year.

Win some games now.

Now I’d hold off on buying a Chapman or Snell Giants jersey, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy what both will bring to San Francisco.

Chapman is the kind of MVP-caliber (at his best) everyday player the Giants have lacked in the Zaidi era.

And Snell now gives the Giants an elite No. 2 pitcher to follow Webb in the rotation. That righty-lefty 1-2 might be as good as any in baseball this upcoming season.

Despite being a reigning Cy Young winner and a two-time winner of that award, Snell was on the market until Monday because his underlying metrics didn’t align with his on-field performance. This guy led baseball in both ERA and walks last season — a wildly impressive combination of stats.

He was successful because he limited homers. Of all qualified starters last season, Snell was fourth-best in baseball in home runs per nine innings, allowing three home runs every four games.

Teams’ concerns were that that kind of home-run suppression is hard to maintain year over year, even with Snell’s high-fastball, low-breaking-ball arsenal. With Snell’s walks, any regression could be a problem—especially away from San Diego’s nighttime marine layer.

But if Petco Park’s thick air was Snell’s secret to success (there’s certainly more to it than that, but it helped), then Oracle Park should prove to be a superpower.

This fly-ball pitcher is headed to a fly-ball pitcher’s dreamscape.

It’s something of a dream scenario for the Giants, too.

If just one of the Giants’ young starters develops into the kind of pitcher San Francisco thinks them to be — the Giants were so bullish on them, the team seemed willing before Monday to bet the season on multiple young starters providing above-average performance over 30 starts — the black and orange might have one of the better rotations in the National League, as Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray wait in the wings.

Adding Snell relieves some of the pressure that was placed on Kyle Harrison’s shoulders. He might be the man one day, but that day does not have to be today. Keaton Winn can just be a back-end-of-the-rotation starter — the Giants don’t need anything more from him than that.

This pitching staff makes much more sense with Snell in the fold.

And this lineup — which still has some question marks — looks so much better with Chapman and Lee in the lineup every day.

No, this is not a Giants team that can seriously compete with the juggernaut Dodgers in the National League West, but they should be able to play with everyone else in the league.

They should be able to beat everyone else in the league.

This is a team that should win.

The Giants haven’t done enough of that since Zaidi took over — even accounting for the 107-win 2021 season.

And for all the talk about plans and systems and vision, winning is all that matters. There’s no downside to winning.

So bringing in two big-time, team-changing, game-winning players on deals with no downside is a big deal.

It’s exactly what was wanted. It was exactly what was needed.

And for the Giants, it caps off an “offseason” that, with the regular season just days away, is enough to excite you about the possibilities this summer.

Mock draft season.

We’ll be doing more than a few of these over the next few weeks, but with the Niners still showing big holes on both sides of the ball, we should identify some top targets now, five weeks before the NFL Draft.

As of publishing, the 49ers have three picks in the first three rounds, Nos. 31, 63, and 94.

And while it’s always imperative to nail your draft picks, that need is increased given those holes mentioned above, the team’s wide-open Super Bowl window, and the need (which has been present for a few years) to increase overall depth.

So, if things break just right, here’s where I see the Niners heading today:

31. Ennis Rakestraw. CB. Mizzou

The 49ers want to return to the team’s Cover-3 roots this upcoming season, and Rakestraw is the kind of No. 2 cornerback — opposite Charvarius Ward and outside of Deommodore Lenoir— who fits that mold.

Is he the biggest, strongest, or fastest? Nope.

(That’s not to say he’s not big, strong, or fast.)

But he plays the game with an edge. You’re not running to his side of the field, and any receiver he lines up against will know he is there. His physicality, toughness, and competitive streak separate him. Cornerback is a tough position — playing it’s almost a fool’s errand. Rakestraw doesn’t suffer fools — he’s out to make something happen. You can’t teach that kind of temperament, and it’s necessary to be effective in that position in the NFL.

Combined, the three “cornerbacks” in the Niners’ base nickel defense would be as physical as any group in the NFL, save for the Chiefs, who pushed the Niners’ receivers (especially Deebo Samuel) around in the Super Bowl.

Rakestraw might not have that massive upside, but he’d immediately fill a hole on this 49ers’ roster. And seeing as Day One picks should really be playing on day one of the season, that’s a huge win.

63. Ruke Orhorhoro. DT. Clemson

Is he the 330-pound grizzly bear I think the 49ers should add to help stop the run?

No.

But Ruke Orhorhoro is the type of defensive tackle the 49ers love for their one-gap scheme: Explosive and slippery.

I haven’t talked to defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, but I can already tell you this is his guy.

The Niners seem keen to shore up their faltering run defense by returning to their tried-and-true tactic of bursting into the backfield to stop a run before it really starts.

That’s all Orhorhoro did at Clemson.

There’s room for him to be a bit larger, but all you need to know about him is that he is an elite tester at the Niners’ favorite draft test for defensive lineman: He broad-jumped 116 inches, which is in the top 5 percent of all defensive tackles tested ever.

If he’s sitting at 63, I imagine the 49ers will broad-jump out of their draft-room chairs to pick him.

94. Zak Zinter. OG. Michigan

This guy was arguably the best guard in the country this season. Looking back at my notes from the college football season, I wrote down his name and “Dude” three separate times. In short, whenever I watched Michigan, I noticed how good their right guard was. (I know, I’m a dork.)

But I’m hardly alone in praising Zinter: he was a first-team All-American and a finalist for just about any award he could win. Frankly, he should be an option for the 49ers at pick No. 31.

So why is he available here? Well, he had a gruesome leg injury in the Wolverines’ game against Ohio State — breaking your shin will raise some concerns.

Let other teams worry about it. The 49ers don’t need Zinter to start immediately and can afford to bring him along slowly if needed.

But with guards getting $20 million a year on the free agent market and serious question marks at all three interior offensive line spots, the possibility of Zinter at No. 94 is too good for the Niners to pass up.