Warriors are good, maybe too good
Whatever it was, it was not empty.
Steve Kerr suffered through debilitating post-back surgery pain this season, and is simply one of the best humans in sports, and he cried when it was over.
Steph Curry is the most joyful player since Magic Johnson, even in this age where we get used to the dopamine surges faster than in any other era of human history, because every day seems like a lifetime when you’re on the Internet.
Kevin Durant is one of the great scorers of all time, a Jordanesque killer, an evolutionary form. Add Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala, David West: They are all part of what is great about sports.
But it felt empty. The Golden State Warriors won the NBA title, and it felt like nothing.
Hell, Steve Nash gets a ring. He did official and unofficial player development work for the Warriors; he worked with the club the past two years, and the way he played helped shape Curry, just as it shaped James Harden’s MVP-calibre season in Houston. He was also a key factor in Durant choosing to join the Warriors, because he framed it as a chance to grow and evolve as a person, as well as a player. It’s awesome that Steve Nash gets a ring. Wonderful. And, still. Usually when you watch a team win a title you feel something: appreciation, admiration, satisfaction, hatred, something. In this series, the basketball was almost transcendent at times. Game 3 was incredible. Games 4 and 5 were fascinating. TV ratings were the highest for an NBA final in the United States since Michael Jordan was winning his sixth ring.
But of course the Warriors won. They were always going to win.
“I’m not sure there was really that much of a story about our guys not being able to co-exist,” said Kerr, Golden State’s coach, after the game. “I think there’s just a lot of space to fill. I mean, come on, you got a bunch of guys who are talented and can shoot and pass and dribble, and they’re unselfish. There was never any question in my mind that this was going to work.”
Yeah. They played at a 70-win pace with Durant in the lineup and healthy, and never lost back-to-back games. San Antonio losing Kawhi Leonard in Game 1 of the West final, while leading by 26 points, is a tiny asterisk. Cleveland won one game in the final, and nearly two.
But no modern basketball team has ever been this distant from its competition. It was LeBron-to-Miami if Miami won 70 games the year before, rather than 47.
There was a one-time TV money tsunami, Durant chose the Warriors and NBA people knew right away that, barring injury or chemistry problems, this was the road. Remember when LeBron complained in January, after a loss in New Orleans? “We’re not better than last year.” “Yeah, we won (a title), but f---, you know what, let’s see if we can do something.” “We’re topheavy as s--- . . . We need a f---ing playmaker.”
I bet he looked across the country and saw what was coming, like everybody else.
You can’t blame the Warriors. They worked within the rules. They did everything right. They approached the insane grind and pressure of the NBA and made it look easy, fusing talent with cooperation, flair, humour and grace. Du- rant didn’t even necessarily make the easy choice, because surrendering primacy — which was a possibility — is not a natural thing. And if you watched the final, the Warriors did need Durant to win. When they were in trouble he materialized, scoring in ways that could be conjured out of thin air.
Some of us root for pure greatness, and some for underdogs. Last year in the NBA, we got both: LeBron James pulling Cleveland back from 3-1 against a Warriors team that gave him just enough daylight to do it. He might be the greatest player ever, he really might. The point has been made, but adding Durant was as much of a compliment to LeBron’s greatness as anything else. The Warriors thought they needed Durant to beat him, and they did.
This time, well: ESPN’s stats guys noted that LeBron James had never had a five-game stretch with as many points, rebounds and assists as he managed in the 2017 final. Nobody had ever averaged a tripledouble in the final, either. And his guys never really had a chance.
The Warriors played beautiful, swashbuckling, avalanche basketball. They were a force of nature, capable of storms that took your breath away. They played the way teams should play, and worked together the way people should work together, with guys you can root for, or even just admire. Jeez, Steve Kerr: he’s really the best. Golden State did everything right.
And it was like a video game with the difficulty on easy, with somebody else playing. It was like watching a team tip into the uncanny valley, where it seems real but not real enough. The Warriors might get pried apart by the salary cap. Maybe LeBron finds a way to reload in Cleveland, or even leaves again. Things change.
But not until the Warriors broke how the game works. They’re the best team, an admirable team, pure greatness, and now we know how good is too good, too far. They got so good at playing that it felt pointless to play.