June 13, 2017 at 4:34 p.m.
Warriors among all-time teams
Rays of Insight
I don’t like the Golden State Warriors.
The reason for that is pretty simple. They’re the team standing in the way of Cleveland winning championships. And they’ve now beaten the Cavaliers in two of the last three seasons.
That’s frustrating to a Cleveland fan. But as a basketball fan, it’s impressive to sit back and consider what Golden State has done over the course of the last three seasons.
No, this will not be some nonsense-filled discussion about whether or not Kevin Durant is better than LeBron James. Nor will it compare Steph Curry to Michael Jordan. (Some silly piece I saw this morning pointed out that Curry now has as many championships at age 29 as MJ did. It’s true, but also completely irrelevant.)
Rather, this will be a look at what the Warriors have done as a team.
Golden State’s success in the regular-season since it lost in the opening round of the 2014 Western Conference playoffs is unmatched.
Over the course of the last three years, the Warriors have won 67, 73 and 67 games. No other team has ever come close to matching that.
The Showtime Lakers of the 1980s won 65 games in 1986-87, but never surpassed that total. Their main rival, Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, hit 67 wins en route to the 1986 title, but that was the only time they surpassed 65 during the era.
The 1999-2000 Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, won 67 games. But they never even reached 60 in their next two championship seasons.
Even Jordan’s great Chicago Bulls squads, those of six championships in an eight-year span broken only by a sabbatical to play baseball, did not sustain Golden State’s level of regular-season success. They won 72 games in 1995-96, Jordan’s first full year back, and 69 the following season before slipping back to 62.
So, Golden State has racked up 207 regular-season victories in the last three years. The 1995-98 Bulls are next at 203. Everyone else lags well behind.
Yes, there are those who are critical of Kevin Durant’s “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” move to go to the Bay Area despite being paired with one of the game’s best players — 2016-17 MVP Russell Westbrook — in Oklahoma City.
That’s a valid criticism of Durant. But not of the Warriors.
They were already a great team without him. They set the regular-season wins record of 73 without him. They won an NBA title without him.
Many Monday night and this morning were already discussing the possibility of an extended Warriors dynasty. Given the core of great players — Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Durant and Curry — that’s certainly a possibility.
But there are also all kinds of unforeseen factors that can change the path of sports history.
Would Jordan and Pippen have won eight championships in a row if the former hadn’t retired (the first time)? Would it have been more than that if he hadn’t retired (the second time)?
How many championships could the Lakers have won if O’Neal and Bryant could have co-existed? What if they hadn’t imploded in 2004 against the Pistons?
Would we even be talking about Golden State right now if Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love had not been injured for the entirety of the 2015 Finals? Or might Cleveland have been on the verge of a three-peat?
These are all sports questions to which we’ll never know the answers. Sports what-ifs are fun, but ultimately mere fantasy.
We can only judge by what actually happened. And in reality, Golden State has been an incredible force for three consecutive seasons.
The only thing holding back this run of Warriors teams from being argued for as one of, if not the, greatest of all time is that it lost in the 2016 NBA Finals to Cleveland.
I’m glad my favorite team made that comeback from a 3-1 deficit last season. Still, I’m not blind to what Golden State has accomplished.
They are not, yet, atop this list of greatest teams of all time. But they’re at least in the conversation.
The reason for that is pretty simple. They’re the team standing in the way of Cleveland winning championships. And they’ve now beaten the Cavaliers in two of the last three seasons.
That’s frustrating to a Cleveland fan. But as a basketball fan, it’s impressive to sit back and consider what Golden State has done over the course of the last three seasons.
No, this will not be some nonsense-filled discussion about whether or not Kevin Durant is better than LeBron James. Nor will it compare Steph Curry to Michael Jordan. (Some silly piece I saw this morning pointed out that Curry now has as many championships at age 29 as MJ did. It’s true, but also completely irrelevant.)
Rather, this will be a look at what the Warriors have done as a team.
Golden State’s success in the regular-season since it lost in the opening round of the 2014 Western Conference playoffs is unmatched.
Over the course of the last three years, the Warriors have won 67, 73 and 67 games. No other team has ever come close to matching that.
The Showtime Lakers of the 1980s won 65 games in 1986-87, but never surpassed that total. Their main rival, Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, hit 67 wins en route to the 1986 title, but that was the only time they surpassed 65 during the era.
The 1999-2000 Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, won 67 games. But they never even reached 60 in their next two championship seasons.
Even Jordan’s great Chicago Bulls squads, those of six championships in an eight-year span broken only by a sabbatical to play baseball, did not sustain Golden State’s level of regular-season success. They won 72 games in 1995-96, Jordan’s first full year back, and 69 the following season before slipping back to 62.
So, Golden State has racked up 207 regular-season victories in the last three years. The 1995-98 Bulls are next at 203. Everyone else lags well behind.
Yes, there are those who are critical of Kevin Durant’s “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” move to go to the Bay Area despite being paired with one of the game’s best players — 2016-17 MVP Russell Westbrook — in Oklahoma City.
That’s a valid criticism of Durant. But not of the Warriors.
They were already a great team without him. They set the regular-season wins record of 73 without him. They won an NBA title without him.
Many Monday night and this morning were already discussing the possibility of an extended Warriors dynasty. Given the core of great players — Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Durant and Curry — that’s certainly a possibility.
But there are also all kinds of unforeseen factors that can change the path of sports history.
Would Jordan and Pippen have won eight championships in a row if the former hadn’t retired (the first time)? Would it have been more than that if he hadn’t retired (the second time)?
How many championships could the Lakers have won if O’Neal and Bryant could have co-existed? What if they hadn’t imploded in 2004 against the Pistons?
Would we even be talking about Golden State right now if Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love had not been injured for the entirety of the 2015 Finals? Or might Cleveland have been on the verge of a three-peat?
These are all sports questions to which we’ll never know the answers. Sports what-ifs are fun, but ultimately mere fantasy.
We can only judge by what actually happened. And in reality, Golden State has been an incredible force for three consecutive seasons.
The only thing holding back this run of Warriors teams from being argued for as one of, if not the, greatest of all time is that it lost in the 2016 NBA Finals to Cleveland.
I’m glad my favorite team made that comeback from a 3-1 deficit last season. Still, I’m not blind to what Golden State has accomplished.
They are not, yet, atop this list of greatest teams of all time. But they’re at least in the conversation.
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