It’s 2016, so you know there’s two camps and two camps only.
Records are meant to be broken, but it seems as though some should be preserved forever. The Golden State Warriors bodied teams all season en route to losing a mere nine games on the year, dethroning Michael Jordan’s 1995-96 Chicago Bulls in the process. Except the Bulls won the NBA Championship; the Warriors didn’t. Predictably, social media had a field day with the once seemingly invincible Warriors crumbling like Jenga blocks at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James’ greatness.
For the Haters
And why not?
True character is often revealed in moments of adversity and crisis. The Warriors had not faced much of either in the last 24 months until the final moments of Game 4 of the NBA Finals when Draymond Green took LeBron’s bait hook, line and sinker. As stated on the most recent Preseason Podcast of the Year, all of Golden State’s chickens came home to roost during their NBA Finals implosion, exposing them for the spoiled group that they are.
For two straight years, the Warriors had been writing checks for everything:
• Their amazing health
• The timely injuries of their opponents
• The Splash Brothers roaming the perimeter with impunity
• The uncalled moving screens set by their bigs (led by Andrew Bogut)
• Draymond Green punching, kicking and all around ravaging the ball bags of his opponents without punishment
• Draymond saying the ’96 Bulls “couldn’t have done what they did in this era” (although he clarified this comment later)
• Draymond saying the “Cavs sucked” last year after beating a wounded Eastern Conference champion in the Finals
• Coasting through a difficult Western Conference without facing any real adversity (Luke Walton’s performance as interim coach is evidence of this)
• Every move made by Bob Myers and Steve Kerr working to perfection
• Klay Thompson calling out LeBron James for “getting his feelings hurt” prior to Game 5 and saying his team would beat his dad’s legendary Lakers teams of the ’80s, which his dad actually co-signed
• Maurice Speights sending out this tweet about LeBron, then saying Curry could drop 50 points in Game 7
• The media tripping over themselves to hand the Dubs the “best team ever” crown, even before the playoffs ever started, and naming Curry as one of the 23 best players in NBA history
• Their owner Joe Lacob saying in March the team was “light-years ahead” of the rest of the NBA
• Stephen Curry showing up his opponents all season and busting out the Antoine Walker shimmy after every third three-pointer
• Stephen Curry playing little to no defense and getting away with it every night
• Stephen Curry saying he “hopes the Cavs locker room still smells like champagne”
• Warriors bandwagon fans somehow surpassing the team in the arrogance department, which includes their favorite taunt, “Love & Kyrie are healthy this year, what’s your excuse now?”
• And the Warriors jump-shooting their way to a championship and a 3-1 series lead in a second NBA Finals
Cashing all these checks at once proved to be too difficult a task at Cleveland’s first bank of LeBron James. Once there was a hint of hardship in the Finals, Golden State folded like origami, which is not an endearing quality to anyone. The irony that the Warriors (and their fans) were essentially calling LeBron a baby when Steph was literally throwing his mouthpiece into the crowd as his better half called the league rigged on Twitter was as rich and hilarious as a Solomon Hill contract.
For all the conceitedness this team (and their families) have displayed as recently as a couple of weeks ago, it sure is interesting they’re willing to dismantle a significant portion of their supporting cast to make room for Kevin Durant, a guy they just beat in the Western Conference Finals. Teams that are “light-years ahead” of the competition typically don’t need a shakeup this drastic, right?
Sources say Steve Kerr still has not moved from this position following Game 7.
For The Stans
If we’re being honest, being a stan was pretty understandable. Now more than ever, we tend to gravitate to the new or never before seen; the Warriors fit the bill as a team unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We’ve never seen a team shoot this much, with this much accuracy, from this distance. We’ve never seen “small-ball” flourish to this degree. We’ve never seen a home team this dominant. We’ve never seen an interim coach win 39 of his first 43 games on the bench. We’ve never a team win 73. The frequency and magnitude of the blowouts with which Golden State hammered their opponents was astonishing and left the advanced analytics community foaming at the mouth. And though the quest for immortality ultimately came up short, immortality being on their collective fingertips cannot be overlooked.
Their starting center was out, their primary defender staffed to slow LeBron was hobbled, their All-NBA defender was suspended one a game and their two leading scorers played far below their capabilities, and Golden State still held a 3-1 series lead and a were tied with two minutes left in Game 7. A break here or there and they walk away with back-to-back championships — a feat accomplished by only 11 teams ever (six franchises) — while legitimately cementing their argument as the greatest team in NBA history.
So, Who Was Right?
Validation lies in the eye of the beholder. Everything mentioned above — the good, the bad, the ugly and the ridiculous — is factual information. The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors’ story encompasses all of it.
What’s inarguable at this point is Curry’s place in the register of elite current players firmly behind James. Aside from their statistical performances, the difference in basketball IQ of Curry and James is staggering. Juxtapose LeBron James — on one of the great defensive plays of all-time — unsure of which side of the basket Andre Iguodala would attempt his layup, going up to block the shot with both hands, to Curry’s poor shot selection and careless ball handling in crunch time.
Sidebar: It’s worth noting we’ve seen Curry exhibit the same shot selection and ball handling characteristics in last year’s NBA Finals. Not to mention his propensity for getting into foul trouble in the 2016 Finals (at least four fouls in four of the seven games) and the “Steph has a low basketball IQ” evidence is beginning to mount. Quickly.
We knew LeBron was better, but not this much better. However unlike the “best player in the game” debate, the decision on whether the Warriors were grossly overrated or an all-time great team is much harder to pinpoint. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, but alas, it’s 2016, so you know there’s two camps and two camps only.
You might not believe it, you might not want to accept it, but the Warriors historical mark on the game is extensively colored with shades of gray. The biggest Warrior hater cannot claim absolute victory because the last two minutes of Game 7 went Cleveland’s way. That loss doesn’t automatically eliminate all of their accomplishments. Equally, the guy with the Dubs Nation bumper sticker on his Ford Fiesta can’t say this team is still of GOAT status because teams of that ilk do not collapse in on themselves like a house of cards.
The lesson here is to avoid reading the book before the final chapter is written. Sometimes, Mike Eruzione scores, Buster Douglas wins by knockout and the Cleveland Cavaliers defeat the Golden State Warriors.