On “Dubs Talk,” hosts Bonta Hill and Monte Poole analyze the Warriors’ offseason needs and if adding Giannis Antetokounmpo could maximize Steph Curry’s final years with Golden State.

Ever since Andrew Bogut and Zaza Pachulia were tucked into their retirement beds, the annual pleas of Dub Nation and numerous NBA analysts for the Warriors to get bigger and brawnier have been heard but gone unheeded.

More size? Why? People said we were small in 2022, and we won a championship.

Now that the Warriors have been bullied from the 2025 postseason, one year after missing the NBA playoffs entirely, there is internal concession to what had been disregarded.

The front office, gazing into the offseason, has given itself the reality check needed to compete at the highest levels of the league.

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“That’s always, I know, around here the buzz word is ‘size.’” general manager Mike Dunleavy said. “I’d love to have an ability to play bigger with Draymond [Green] and Jimmy [Butler III] in the frontcourt, and we can always go to our ace in the hole with Draymond at center, which we did basically from February 8 on.”

Green as a 6-foot-6 center and Butler as a 6-foot-7 forward, with Moses Moody as a 6-foot-5 forward, worked well enough as Golden State’s frontcourt to make an impressive late-season push winning 24 of its last 32 games.

As the stakes were raised, that group’s shortcomings, pun intended, were exposed.

In the season finale, with a guaranteed playoff berth at stake, the Warriors were outrebounded 42-25 while getting roasted by the Los Angeles Clippers.

Ivica Zubac, LA’s 7-foot center, grabbed 17 rebounds – three more than Golden State’s entire starting lineup.

The Warriors outrebounded opponents only three times in 13 postseason games (NBA play-in tournament included). Moreover, their defense invited penetration into the paint.

The point-of-attack defense was poor, but there also was precious little deterrence at the rim.

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Kerr admits Warriors were ‘dead in the water’ before the Butler trade

Of the 49 field goals made by the Timberwolves in clinching Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals in Minnesota, 31 were dunks or layups.

Their 13 3-pointers mattered, but feasting at the rim drove 62.8-percent shooting from the field that ended Golden State’s season.

“They shot 63 percent,” coach Steve Kerr said after Game 5, punctuating his comment with a revealing admission, “and we couldn’t stop them.”

The Wolves were too big, too aggressive and too athletic.

Even as the Warriors beat Houston in seven games in the first round, their weaknesses gave the Rockets openings they couldn’t properly exploit.

The Warriors squeezed about all they could from Kevon Looney, 6-foot-9 and 240 pounds of infinite fortitude. He’s 29, but every step is a chore for his remodeled body.

So deficient was Golden State’s interior presence that Kerr installed 6-foot-9, 250-pound Trayce Jackson-Davis, previously out of the rotation, into the starting lineup against Minnesota. The move made sense, results were negligible.

The Warriors saw enough in the playoffs to know 7-foot rookie Quinten Post was overwhelmed by the brighter lights and elevated competition.

He should improve, but his greatest asset, 3-point shooting, takes him away from the paint on offense.

“I thought Quinten had a great rookie season,” Kerr said.

“He showed the impact he can make, and I think he’ll make a lot of improvement. He gives us positional size and shooting. Those are the kinds of things we need.”

Post and Jackson-Davis, both second-round picks in the last two drafts, are examples of the Warriors recognizing if not prioritizing their relative lack of size.

They prioritized size in the 2020 draft, selecting James Wiseman, an athletic 7-footer who was traded 27 months later and has been dogged by injuries.

The Warriors now have sufficient data to show they’re no longer built to withstand size deficits – and that they have neither the athleticism nor shooting to offset it.

“You can get bigger, more athletic, more skilled in terms of shooting, passing, defending,” Dunleavy said.

“We can improve in a lot of areas while at the same time knowing we’re shored up and good in some areas. We’ll look to do those things. For sure you can do that.

“We’ll look at trades. We’ll look at free agency.”

The NBA free-agent market is shallow in big men who might be affordable and fit Golden State’s win-now timeline, with Steven Adams, Clint Capela and Brook Lopez topping the list.

Lopez, 37, is a solid defender whose shooting can space the floor. Neither Adams nor Capela, both 31, generate much offense.

Getting back into the championship picture means taking note of the four teams in the conference finals.

All have a presence in the paint. The New York Knicks: Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson.

The Indiana Pacers: Myles Turner, the league’s best floor spacer/rim protector.

The Oklahoma City Thunder: Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren.

The Timberwolves: Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle – and the luxury of a 6-foot-9 two-way wing in Jaden McDaniels.

Golden State’s current roster did not have solutions for these problems.

What matters most is that it is acknowledged more explicitly than in the past.