Groundhog Day: Don't expect anything new (or young) from the Warriors next season.

Looks like they are sticking with the core players; young guys can ride the bench

With the Warriors’ season over, everyone has questions.

Will the team sign volatile Draymond Green to a multi-year contract extension?

What about Klay Thompson? Is he coming back?

And what in the world are we going to do with manic Jordan Poole?

I also have a question. It may sound a little out of left field, but if you’ll stick with me I think I can make a case. I think it kind of explains the whole Warrior ethos at present.

My question is:

What was the point of Ty Jerome?

Understand, this space is a Jerome fan. We followed him in college, when he led Virginia to the National Championship. And on the Warriors he was steady and dependable.

He got some significant run this year, some 18 minutes a game, and was lauded by Steve Kerr as a mistake-free substitute.

But he was a two-way player. That meant he could only play 50 games with the Warriors. And he wasn’t eligible for the playoffs.

All year I kept thinking there was some kind of secret plan. The team would find a way to convert him to the full-time roster. Somehow he’d become eligible for the post season.

Nope.

Jerome played his allotment of games with Dubs (45, actually, not 50) and then peeled off his uniform and was done for the year.

So what was the point?

The team wasn’t prepping him to be a roster member. There was no payoff for his average of 3.0 points per game. The team wasn’t so hot that it was impossible to replace him. They were .500 most of the year. He was just an interchangeable piece that we saw for a while and then he was gone.

The problem is, when Jerome was on the floor he was taking minutes from young draft choices Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga.

And the kicker is that, once the playoffs arrived with no Jerome, Kerr had to play Moody. And by all accounts the young guy did well.

Which is no surprise because Moody got some significant minutes in last year’s playoffs. It looked like he’d turned a corner.

But nope, Kerr relied on veteran two-way players — Anthony Lamb was another — rather than give the young guys some run. When questioned, Kerr generally falls back on how Moody “would only be a junior in college now.” Think you’re getting minutes in the league in your first few years? “It doesn’t work that way,” Kerr says.

And yet, it does elsewhere. Sacramento’s Keegan Murray, a well-deserved member of this year’s First Team All-Rookie team, had a bumpy start to his first year, but former Warriors coach Mike Brown stuck with him and he improved dramatically with some playing time.

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Meanwhile, in Dub-ville, questions about why the young guys aren’t playing are becoming a regular feature of Kerr pressers. It goes all the way back to #2 draft pick Andrew Wiseman, who Kerr said he couldn’t give him “enough runway,” and was traded to Detroit. (He averaged 12.7 points and 8.1 rebounds in 24 games there.)

And now there are reports that Kuminga and Poole are grumbling about lack of playing time. Moody must feel that too although he doesn’t seem like a grumbler.

All of which is a long way of saying, the Warriors are giving you the answers to those early questions. They are standing pat, leaning on their core players and running the statue quo until, as Steph Curry said after the Game 6 closeout loss to the Lakers, “the wheels fall off.”

The problem is, the trajectory is sub-optimal. One season ago, with the help of pixie dust, grit and the transcendence of Curry, they won the NBA Championship. It might have been the most impressive title of them all. They willed themselves to the trophy.

But this year they generally played .500 ball. They barely squeaked into the playoffs, including barely dodging play-in games. Then they scraped past the inexperienced Kings in seven games and then were pretty convincingly thumped by the Lakers in six.

I don’t think it is a particularly hot take to say the Warriors need to get bigger, younger and faster. Sacramento’s DeAaron Fox made them look slow and L.A.’s Anthony Davis made them look small. They need an infusion of something new.

But if the past is prologue, they’re not going to do it. The obvious solution would be a quality draft choice. But name a draft choice that has made a significant difference in the last six years? Kevon Looney arrived in 2015.

The exception is Poole. As erratic as he is, when he’s not all wrapped up in his head he can be valuable. But as you recall, he had to go through a lengthy period of bench-sitting before he was deemed “ready” by Kerr to get significant time.

And now Poole is listening to rumors that he may be dealt. Anything to keep the championship core together.

That will mean Green, who at this point we can just pencil in for +16 technical fouls a season and an automatic suspension. He is undoubtedly valuable as a defensive strategist, but he lost his leadership role when he punched Poole. As someone said to me recently, “If one of my co-workers punched me in the face, I would never forgive him.”

Well, you’re not on the Warriors because Green is again being touted as an emotional leader, despite his blowups.

Klay, of course, is going to be Klay — although even more so. He has redefined the concept of a “bad shot.” He hits so many crazy ones — how many corner threes did he knock down while falling out of bounds sideways — that he believes he can hit from anywhere.

He can’t. And when he’s off he just keeps shooting. The only was to stop him is to wrap a blanket around him and usher him off the court. That’s just part of the package.

Curry — incredibly — continues to lead the NBA in laugh-out-loud moments when you can’t really believe he did that.

But the dings and bruises are accumulating — especially in games (or series) when Steph is the entire show. It has to be exhausting. And despite the cliche, age (he’s 35) is not just a number.

But if the pattern holds the team will sign some journeymen vets, add a couple of two-way players and hope the pixie dust kicks in again.

But keep an eye on those wheels. They are starting to wobble. And then what?

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Twitter: @cwnevius