If you’re the Warriors and you’ve recently committed to jump-starting a new era with much more youth and energy, it might seem enormously contradictory to ponder adding a 41-year-old who has played more games than anybody else in NBA history.

And if you’re LeBron James and you’ve spent more than a decade battling against Stephen Curry’s team — and you know the Warriors can’t pay you anything close to a max salary — it might seem entirely bizarre to even consider coming to this franchise.

LeBron to the Warriors? I’ve typed those words many times over the last decade or so. Most years, it seemed (and was) absurd. Once or twice, if you ask top Warriors executives, the idea might’ve had the wink of a glimmer of a distant chance, but it was never really plausible.

But now … LeBron leaving the Lakers to join the Warriors seems like something everybody should at least toss around a bit. It’s not likely, but not impossible either. And it could be an extremely practical solution as the Warriors and LeBron both face the summation of a lot of things.

The practicality is the whole point, really, if you go through this set of potential circumstances:

• LeBron’s upcoming free agency might not get the response he wants from the Lakers because the Lakers understandably are prioritizing the roster formulation around Luka Doncic and also have to re-sign Austin Reaves.

• The Warriors, along with Cleveland, the Knicks, and maybe a few other teams, would probably be on LeBron’s very short list of potential destinations at this stage in his career.

Playing for the Warriors and in this major market has always intrigued LeBron just a little bit, playing with Curry and Draymond Green has always intrigued him more than a little bit, he’s won a gold medal with Steve Kerr, and the Bay Area is obviously a short flight from LeBron’s established base in Southern California.

• If they maneuver their roster and payroll just enough, the Warriors could offer LeBron the $15.1 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception, which is monumentally short of the $52.6 million he made this season but is more than some other possible teams could pay him.

And, very importantly, the Warriors would not have to trade anything or unload any major salaries to do it. This would be a direct add.

Again, I don’t think LeBron ending up with the Warriors is the likeliest scenario. I think it’s set up for him to return to the Lakers; they’re the one likely option that could pay him a lot more than $15.1 million. Also, LeBron could retire.

But what if LeBron wants to play and he and the Lakers can’t figure out what the salary number should be? Or what if the Lakers want to erase his entire salary slot to get way under the cap and add a younger star who fits Doncic’s timeline? What if LeBron and the Lakers go through a relationship reevaluation similar to what Kerr and the Warriors just went through, but in this one, the two sides decide to split?

Well, now. If all that happens, I think the Warriors would be a very live option. Check that: I think the process has already started and the Warriors are a live option.

Because the Lakers might not be able to get significantly better if they keep LeBron. And the Warriors might not be able to get significantly better unless they add LeBron.

That’s not the romantic ideal of wooing an all-time great to your side. It wouldn’t be as momentous as Kevin Durant signing with the Warriors in 2016 and sealing the dynasty. LeBron-to-the-Warriors in 2026 would be sensible. Functional. Transactional. Maybe it’d feel a little clunky and forced on both sides.

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It’d definitely be a late-stage marriage of convenience. A weary merger of two titanic brands that need some boosting. And maybe it wouldn’t be beloved by anybody.

Yes, I get it. At this point, Warriors fans are bellowing: How would signing LeBron make the team younger and healthier? My answer: LeBron is old but actually remains quite durable; he registered 1,989 minutes this regular season, more than every Warrior except Brandin Podziemski. (More info: LeBron has averaged 2,195 minutes over the last five seasons.)

And adding LeBron wouldn’t conflict much with Kerr’s flat statements that the team isn’t championship worthy anymore and has to get younger. If the Warriors sign LeBron as a $15.1 million free agent, they would get the immediate upgrade without having to trade any future draft picks or ruin their cap situation.

The Warriors are determined to think more about the future, but that doesn’t mean they have no interest in being as competitive as possible while they rebuild for the future. Clearly, any team with Curry isn’t going to completely ignore the present.

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“The goal is always to win a championship — I think Joe’s very clear about that,” Kirk Lacob said last month on “Warriors Plus-Minus” with Marcus Thompson and me. “I think you can also be realistic. How good a chance do you have in a given year? And that changes over time. …

“At the end of the day, you’ve still got Steph Curry, still got Draymond Green, you've still got Steve Kerr … you’ve got a chance. We’ve got to help all of them as best we can to give ourselves an even better chance. And that’s going to be the goal this summer as it was the goal last summer. … It’s about finding the correct path to get there. Give ourselves the best odds possible.”

If the Warriors put together a lineup of Curry, LeBron, Jimmy Butler, Draymond, and whoever else (and land an athletic wing like Nate Ament with the 11th pick) … it might not scare the Spurs and Thunder, but it also might be pretty fun to watch in a first- or second-round playoff series.

If LeBron is onboard, don’t you think it would be easier to re-sign either Kristaps Porzingis (for enough of a discount to keep the Warriors’ payroll flexibility) or Al Horford and add some cheaper, younger, defensive-minded players to fill in the open roster spots? Yes, I think it would be.

There could be a few other ways to do this, too.

A lot of the same logic would apply for any Warriors consideration of Kawhi Leonard if his contract is voided whenever the league gets around to ruling on the Clippers’ cap-circumvention case.

Or if the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade market collapses and Milwaukee is interested in anybody from the Warriors’ roster not named Curry and isn’t asking for more than one first-round pick.

It just so happens that these brand-name players could be available for down-market values just when the Warriors have decided that they’re no longer interested in paying up-market prices.

No, the Warriors are not in an all-out chase for the final pieces to win a title right now. They almost certainly won’t be interested in the kind of multiple-pick deal that, say, Orlando made for Desmond Bane last summer. Or that it might take to land Trey Murphy III this summer. Or what the Warriors would’ve given up for Lauri Markkanen two summers ago.

And future first-round picks are even more valuable now — even if teams get stuck in the middle for a few seasons, the new lottery reforms have increased the value of those first-round picks.

So if the Warriors aren’t trading a bunch of picks and they’re not doing a total rebuild as long as they’ve got Curry, Draymond, Kerr, and Butler, why not see if they can add a late-career legend at a very low cost?

Could the Warriors put together an old, old version of what the Knicks are bringing to the NBA Finals against the Spurs, starting Wednesday?

Just play this out:

Kerr and Mike Brown, of course, are good friends, former victorious colleagues, and maybe the closest spiritual equivalents to each other in the league.

Curry, even at 38, still is at least on a parallel level to Jalen Brunson.

Draymond, at 36, still can be a different version of Josh Hart.

Butler is 36, coming off an ACL tear, and isn’t too similar to Mikal Bridges, anyway, but he still might affect playoff games just as much next season.

Obviously, there are major health and sign-ability questions with Porzingis, but couldn’t he, at his best, approximate Karl-Anthony Towns?

Couldn’t LeBron do some similar things to OG Anunoby and anybody else you want to list for the Knicks?

And like the Knicks, the Warriors’ market status means they’re a higher choice for middle-rung players who have a choice of teams.

True, it’s all still not likely enough to knock off the Spurs and Thunder, if those two teams are at full power next postseason. Also, Curry could get hurt again. So could Butler. LeBron could finally hit the wall. It’s all so fragile at this stage for everybody involved.

But the Warriors won’t get many more chances to make another run with Curry; and they almost certainly won’t have a better shot at adding another legend essentially for free than they’ve got right now.