Thursday, June 2, 2016

On the Golden State Warriors

In the nascent stages of my appreciation for professional basketball, I was just old enough to be aware of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. I knew the major players and how obviously dominant they were, but not much more than that. It really wasn't until the 2004 Finals-winning Pistons that I really developed my interest in the National Basketball Association. I've gone back and consumed books and documentaries about the 1989/90 Pistons to the point where it feels like I was there for it. I watched some consistently solid Lakers, Spurs, and Heat teams over the years. But the fact remains, for someone like me born in the early 90s, there has not been an NBA franchise as exciting as this year.

All year long, the Golden State Warriors have captivated my attention and that of millions of other people around the globe. Since winning the championship in 2015, the Bay Area fan base has noisily grown to an enormous level. It's actually difficult to not like them. They're not my favorite NBA team, of course, but I'm continually interested in their success. Can it be considered a bandwagon if they are simply fun to watch? When I watch the Warriors, I'm not necessarily excited for them as a team, I'm excited for the sport of basketball itself.

Next to the Pistons, there was no other team I watched more this year than the Warriors. Like many people, it started with last year's Finals. I knew the names--Curry, Thompson, Green--but I hadn't seriously watched them until the playoffs. In fact, I knew more about Draymond Green from watching him at Michigan State. I actually watched the 2015 Finals with more of a vested interest in the Cleveland Cavaliers. My attention shifted sides the more I watched.

Starting with the 2016 season, there were a lot of questions about the Warriors. They were very slight favorites to win the Finals, and indeed, several outlets didn’t even pick them to repeat. They responded by winning the first 24 games in the season. It was the first time I experienced an actual “can’t miss” NBA team, where I was seeking out every game on TV. I’m still kicking myself for not acting more quickly on getting tickets when they played the Pacers in December. Even after they lost, I don’t remember being more excited to watch a team that wasn’t my own. On the last day of the 2015-16 season (competing for attention against Kobe Bryant’s last game), the Golden State Warriors won their 73rd game of the season, breaking the Bulls’ record for most wins in a season. It will go down as a classic game in NBA history, and I’m glad to have watched it live.

The first two rounds in the West were uneventful. The Houston Rockets had no business being in the tournament, and Steph Curry rested much of the series against the Blazers. The Western Conference finals was the series to watch. Since the All-Star break and maybe even before then, this series was highly anticipated, perhaps even more so than the Finals themselves. For most of the season, three of the four best teams in the league were in the West, and it looked very likely that the Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs would meet in the conference finals. Not so. The Oklahoma City Thunder surprised the Spurs with their youth, speed, and size. Now, instead of the Spurs, the Warriors had to face the streaking Thunder, where they promptly lost three of the first four games, including the opener in Oakland. Did I think they would come back and beat the Thunder? It's easy to say in retrospect, but after the Oklahoma could not close out the series at home, I thought Golden State would ride the momentum. A drive that has only grown stronger after the win and now carries them into the Finals.

In a sport where stories seem can seem too good to be true, how incredible is it that we get the same teams in the Finals two years in a row? Time and again, sports prove to us that real life can be just as good as storytelling. As I said earlier, I’m not concerned with who wins, I just want to see some good basketball. On one hand, we have LeBron's Cavaliers, whose troublesome past includes zero championships and a very public and probably very regrettable departure. On the other, an historic Warriors team winning an almost untouchable 73 games in the regular season. As for predictions, both teams are so good, that I’m really not sure. I will say that I was nervous about Cleveland’s chances going into the series; now that the Warriors have had to face elimination for three games, the Cavs are going to have to defend against a new determination. Whatever the outcome, the 2016 Finals will be a memorable one.

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