On Wednesday, they summoned the ghosts.

For a couple of intoxicating hours against the Clippers, they weren’t a play-in team fighting for their lives. They were the “champions” again, leaning on the same muscle memory and unyielding pride that hung four banners.

Two nights later, they were just the 2025-26 Warriors.

Injured. Overmatched. And now, eliminated.

The silence that follows an elimination is always deafening.

Whatever far-fetched potential this squad had left to squander is officially gone, leaving behind a heavyweight question that will define the franchise’s immediate future:

What next?

You tell yourself this can’t be the coda. Not for this opus. Not for the greatest show basketball has ever seen. Right?

But like everything else with this latest vintage of Golden State basketball, we are left to wait in the purgatory of the offseason.

While the 16-team tournament — once famously dubbed the “Warriors Invitational” by Draymond Green — tips off this weekend without them, the Warriors will part amid dejection.

This summer will be a time for introspection, reflection, and, if they can manage it, extension.

Steph Curry isn’t walking away. Said it after Friday’s loss, the exhaustion practically radiating off him: He wants to play multiple more seasons. He wants the extension.

And Green? He scoffed at the very notion of retirement. How could he not, after the defensive masterclass he put on Wednesday? He reiterated that if the Warriors want him, No. 23 is in the building. He has a player option this summer, but given his tenure and roots, that’s just paperwork. The decision will need to be mutual.

The true mystery lies with the man on the sideline.

Steve Kerr’s contract is, for all intents and purposes, history. He turned 60 in September. He says he needs a few weeks to decompress and figure out his priorities before reaching a “collaborative” decision with team CEO Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr.

“I’ll be nothing but grateful for the most amazing opportunity that any person could have to coach this franchise in front of our fans in the Bay, to coach Steph Curry, coach Dray,” Kerr said. “It may still go on. It may not. I don’t know at this point.”

Kerr has played coy about his contract situation for a year now, a masterclass in leverage. Surviving the pressure cooker of the NBA is a grind, but doing it under Lacob adds an entirely different layer of stress. Lacob is well-intentioned, sure, but he’s also relentlessly demanding.

By embracing a lame-duck year, Kerr shifted the power dynamic.

Don’t want to do things my way? That makes leaving this summer all the easier.

But read the tea leaves. Kerr wants to come back. He acknowledges that at some point, this locker room will need a new direction and a new voice, and he won’t grip the steering wheel when that time comes.

That time isn’t today. There’s no passing of the torch yet.

Not while No. 30 is still lacing them up in blue and gold — a reality that, even if strictly for cynical, capitalistic reasons, will remain true for the 2026-27 season.

And if Curry is here, Draymond is here.

And if those two are in the building, it’s incredibly hard to picture Steve Kerr sitting on a beach in San Diego.

Let’s be clear about the front office, too. For all the flak Lacob and Dunleavy catch — much of it valid — they aren’t arsonists.

There is heavy-handed management, and then there is organizational sabotage, and they aren’t guilty of the latter.

But the question remains: Are they capable of building a roster that doesn’t have to claw through the play-in muck a year from now? Can they give Curry a shot, even a microscopic one, at ring No. 5?

The gap between true contention and what the Warriors put on the floor this year was a chasm. It became a downright abyss after Jimmy Butler tore his ACL, a blow that even the trade-deadline acquisition of Kristaps Porzingis could not partially absorb.

If they can bring Porzingis back, and if a 37-year-old Butler can miraculously find his top gear post-surgery, maybe — just maybe — there is a path through the NBA’s punishing salary cap to build something truly competitive.

(This, of course, rides on the two most important words for the Warriors: health permitting.)

Because this year’s squad? It wasn’t close.

Friday night proved what we already knew: The tank was empty.

Wednesday’s turn-back-the-clock masterpiece cost them whatever legs they had left. Against a young, hyper-kinetic Suns team, Curry was noticeably limping, his jumper heavy, his shots at the rim consistently short.

Green found himself playing free safety against two, sometimes three guys at once as Phoenix ran circles around the defense.

It was a rerun of the same agonizing episode we’ve watched all season.

Curry’s supporting cast simply couldn’t carry him when he didn’t have his cape.

Then came the moment that cuts right to the bone: The game slipping away, the season flatlining — Kerr pulled his two pillars, Curry and Green (who would be ejected moments later), into an embrace on the sideline.

The microphones caught the raw, unvarnished truth of a coach pouring it out for his guys:

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I love you guys to death,” Kerr told them. “Thank you.”

If this really is the end of the road for the trio, Dub Nation won’t be allowed to say goodbye.

But one last ride in 2027?

That feels just.

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