The Unpredictability of the Warriors Story

In seven days the Warriors will tip-off in the NBA Finals. Okay, now take a moment to breathe.

Fittingly, as summer movie season commences, day-by-day the tale of the Warriors seems more a movie. Like so many films, this one began with an enduring struggle.

From the end of the Rick Barry era (1978) to the beginning of the Splash era (2012), the Warriors had 8 winning seasons – that’s two less winning seasons than the Lakers had championships during the same time. To illustrate this level of suck, I’ll defer to my favorite new comedy: HBO’s Silicon Valley. In episode six of this season, tech executives had this conversation as an attempt to understand just how bad something (in this case, a new product) was: “is this Windows Vista bad…I’m sorry…it’s Apple Maps bad”. For the better part of 40 years, the Warriors were Apple Maps* bad.

*Other contenders: “Google Glass bad”, “Amazon phone bad”, and “Twitter stock bad”.

Now, after 40 years of waiting, the Warriors are in the NBA Finals. They’re led by an everybody-doubted-him superstar, play a style once dismissed by the “experts”, and represent a fanbase whose continued support might just be the most amazing part of this whole story. The journey seems worthy of Hollywood, or at least an ESPN 30 for 30. By now, we all know the leads and supporting actors in this film: Steph Curry, Draymond*, Klay Thompson, Steve Kerr, and Joe Lacob.

*Draymond’s slowly gaining the Brazilian soccer player trait, in that his first name is all you need to say to identify him.

Yet, I don’t want to concentrate on what the stars did to propel the Warriors to this magical place -we hear that story everyday. Instead, I want to focus on the people who indirectly allowed for all of this to happen. People who may not be a part of Dub Nation, but played a hand in enabling this magical season. Call these people the Warriors’ team of Indirect All-Stars.

Surprises from the Beginning: Ownership

Indirect All-Star: Larry Ellison.

On July 15, 2010 Chris Cohan* sold the Warriors to a group of investors led by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber for $450 million. This was shocking because of the man of who lost in the bidding, then Oracle CEO (now he’s chairman) Larry Ellison. For years Ellison’s been in that elite category of you don’t need to scroll down to see his name on the Forbes list of the wealthiest humans. The man’s currently worth $54 billion, bought a Hawaiian island for $300 million in 2012, spends hundreds of millions on yachts, and yet he somehow got outbid for the Warriors.

*If it weren’t for a certain southern California racist, Cohan would have a valid claim for worst NBA owner of the past couple decades.

Hypothetically who knows what Ellison would’ve done with the Warriors had he bought them, but in reality he couldn’t have done much better than Lacob has. In five years Lacob’s turned the Apple Maps of basketball franchises into a team statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight predicted to win 2x the amount of titles of any NBA team over the next 5 years. The Joe Lacob reign has been as close to perfect as a new owner can get -something we might not enjoyed had Larry Ellison simply bid $50 million more (AKA increased his bid by less than .10 percent of his current net worth). Larry Ellison is to the Indirect All Stars, what FDR was to Keynesian economics -without their actions (or in Ellison’s case, inaction), this movement may have never happened in the first place.

The Franchise Changer: Steph Curry

Indirect All-Stars: the Clippers, mopeds, and Hawaii.

The two seem so distant from each other, but the We Believe season and the Warriors drafting Steph Curry were only 2 seasons apart. How did the Warriors fall off from beating the West’s number in 2007, to being awarded the 7th pick in 2009? Well, The drastic fallout began with the Clippers signing Baron Davis in 2008. That coupled with Monta Ellis (whose sports doppelgänger is clearly DeSean Jackson) only playing 25 games because of a moped accident, and Don Nelson beginning to have visions of his Hawaii retirement home as he coached the 2008-09 Warriors, resulted in a 29 win season. This atrocity yielded the 7th pick, and a player who reinvigorated Warriors basketball like Kevin Feige reinvigorated Marvel movies.

A few quick thoughts on Steph Curry…

Let’s face it, the Warriors don’t have a 2nd “star”; instead, they’ve got three ideal third best players in Bogut, Draymond, and Klay. This would make Steph one of the few to win a title without a true 2nd star.
Harden and Steph are both NBA glitches -the only difference is, Curry’s glitch is just way more fun!
Vine should pay Steph royalties for the nightly highlights he brings them.
Steph’s muscle memory is absurdly good. Three-point shooting and golfing are two of the most muscle memory dependent activities. Steph’s the best shooter ever, and in his spare time he’s a scratch golfer -that’s insane.

A Shrewd Supporting Cast

Indirect All-Stars: ping pong balls, Jerry West, Milwaukee, and Utah.

It seems fitting to reflect on the 2012 draft, the morning after a game that will (okay, could) be remembered by four words: playoff Barnes & Happy Festivus. What’s often forgotten about the 2012 draft, is that the Warriors had a 28 percent of falling below the 7th pick and therefore losing their pick to Utah. Instead, the Warriors kept the pick and emerged with Harrison Barnes. Shoutout to ping pongballs.

Speaking of drafts, the presence of Jerry West around the Warriors sometimes can sometimes go unnoticed. A quick recap of West’s résumé from his time as the Lakers’ GM: 6 championships, from the Showtime Lakers to the Shaq-Kobe era. It isn’t surprising that since West joined Golden State as an advisor, the Warriors’ drafts have been some of the league’s finest: Klay in 2011 (who West was a huge advocate of), and HB, Festivus, and Draymond in 2012. OKC’s 2007-2009 draft classes (netting Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, and a distractor from the reality that the NBA absolutely ditched Seattle) are often viewed as the best string current of top picks; the Warriors’ 2011 and 2012 classes are about as good as any team can do without a pick higher than 7.

*Fun Jerry West side note: on Tim Kawakami’s “TK Show”, West said that everyday he watches basketball from 4:30-11:30. 7 hours, everyday. No wonder the man’s the logo.

Finally, none of this would have been possible without two of Golden State’s defensive juggernauts: Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut. As such, a big thank you from Dub Nation to Utah and Milwaukee for making these acquisitions possible.

The Franchise’s Backbone: Dub Nation’s Commitment

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece called, “Why Warriors Fans Get To Say We”. Months later I still find Warriors fans to be the most incredible part of this entire journey. Outside of the religion this is European professional fútbol, it’s hard to find a precedent of fans sticking with a team like Dub Nation has with the Warriors. Bill Simmons once created a scale for grading crowd noise. The top level was, “everyone loses their $h*!”. There’s no higher level than “everyone loses their $h*!”. It’s a combination of sports pandemonium, bliss, and emotion. Oracle loses its $h*! like no other. It’s why in his MVP acceptance speech, Steph Curry pointed to the fans at Oracle home games as the reason he kept hopes alive for the future during the hard times.

For me, the arena/stadium of a sports franchise is like the front porch of a city. It’s a place where a community gathers, and enjoys their lives together. Warriors fans have created a front porch that made new neighbors want to stay and be apart of the journey.

Finally, the Indirect All Stars wouldn’t be complete without mentioning chief jinxer, Lil B The Based God.

At long last, “NBA Finals” and “Golden State Warriors” are antonyms no more. Enjoy these next couple weeks!