The Warriors could fail to win a single playoff game, and I would
be content.
Certainly the players would be disappointed with anything
short of a championship, after the dominant regular season campaign they turned
in. I’m sure a large portion of the fan base would be dejected, too, after
having their hopes and expectations raised so high. But for me, no ending, no
matter how tragic, could take any of the sheen off what has been a remarkable
campaign.
Warriors fans have had plenty reason to vocalize their frustration
in the past, and when given the opportunity to voice their displeasure with the
men ultimately responsible for the Warriors fortunes they have taken it,
thoroughly.
Most publicly and most recently, current Golden State
Warriors owner Joe Lacob was booed mercilessly during a jersey retirement for
former Warrior great Chris Mullin in March of 2012. While Lacob has proven to
be able to capably run a franchise in the time since, he had committed a
multitude of sins prior to the 2012 incident that earned him that shower of
boos.
After Joe Lacob’s run in with
the boo birds in 2012, ESPN writer Bill Simmons wrote a column that chronicled,
much better than I ever could, every transgression committed against the
Warriors fanbase by the long run of incompetent ownership and management that
had plagued the team since the 70s. It’s a great piece, a near exhaustive documentation
of how, for 35 years, the Warriors were the basketball version of Murphy’s Law.
However, Simmons failed to mention or was unaware of a previous owner-involved
booing incident Warriors fans had participated in, one even more deserved and more
poignantly symbolic than Lacob’s.
In February of 2000, the Golden State Warriors and the then-recently
renovated Oakland Arena hosted the NBA All-Star Game and All-Star Weekend. The
Warriors were in the midst of what would become a 19-63 season that sadly was
only two wins worse than their previous campaign, and would actually be two
wins better than the next season’s effort. The team hadn’t made the playoffs
since 1994, and this all-star game put a magnifying glass on everything the
Warriors and their fans were missing. Amongst the All-Star’s that year were: A
former Warrior (Chris Webber), two players drafted with picks the Warriors
traded away (Gary Payton & Vince Carter), three players the Warriors passed
over in the same draft in favor of Joe Smith (Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed
Wallace, & Kevin Garnett), one player passed over in favor of Todd Fuller
(Kobe Bryant), and a player who went to both high school and college in the Bay
Area (Jason Kidd).
During a timeout in the fourth
quarter of the All-Star Game, Chris Cohan walked onto the court to present an
award to Michael Jordan. After watching all the players that could have and
should have been Warriors, the fans in attendance thunderously booed Cohan from
the instant his name was announced through the entirety of the award
presentation. Chris Cohan never made a public appearance as owner of the Golden
State Warriors again.
The earliest I can recall actually watching the Warriors
play is when I was seven years old. It was game three of the first round of the
1994 playoffs against the suns, and my first Warriors memory is watching
Charles Barkley single handedly knock them out of the playoffs as he went for
56 points and shot 74 percent for the game. Chris Cohan assumed power of the
Warriors the following season. My basketball life started at the dawn of Golden
State’s dark ages, and my formative years were spent watching the worst
basketball the NBA had to offer. Cohan’s ownership was just as terrible in the 6
years following the All-Star Game incident, had a brief respite during the We
Believe season of 2007, and then promptly returned to business as usual by running
the team back into the ground in a matter of 12 months. During this time, the
message to the fans was clear: You can’t have nice things.
Now, the Warriors are the best team in the NBA. They have a
win total and point differential that puts them in company with some of the
best teams of all-time. They could conceivably have the Coach of the Year,
Defensive Player of the Year, and the MVP, while also having dark horse
candidates for 6th Man of the Year and Most Improved Player. On top
of all that, they play the most fun style of basketball in the entire league,
running up and down the court and shooting three-pointers like madmen.
And none of it makes any sense. Things aren’t supposed to
fall so perfectly into place, not for the Warriors. This team, which for years
aspired to mediocrity at best, is now the favorite to win the championship. My
brain can’t process this, not when my first positive Warrior memory didn’t
happen until I was 20. Death, taxes, and the Warriors making me miserable:
three certainties I was prepared to live with for the rest of my life.
Which is why absolutely nothing that happens from here on
out can ruin this season. The Warriors gave me an experience I’d never had the audacity
to even dream about: rooting for a truly great basketball team. The Warriors
packed more fun and memories into this season than the entirety of my
basketball life prior. Whether they win the title or not is irrelevant. After
nearly 20 years of making every team they played look like the Jordan-era
Bulls, after being abused to the point that they booed two different owners off
the court, Warriors fans got to watch them go out and have the best regular season
any team has had since those legendary Bulls teams. They got to see greatness.
Compared to the boos, that’s a championship in itself.
You can reach Andy on
twitter at @AMOhoop34
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