WARRIORS CHASE THIRD TITLE WITH A DYNASTY IN MAKING
James considers Cleveland’s familiar NBA Finals rivals Golden State among the best teams
Stephen Curry and coach Steve Kerr’s Golden State Warriors have repeatedly said they want to build something special for the long haul, to compete for championships year after year.
LeBron James considers his familiar NBA Finals opponent among the best teams ever.
Where the Warriors stack up if they win a third championship in four years will make for a dynasty debate. And their domination doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon, so if they keep winning Golden State will have its place in history.
“As a fan of the NBA, you could go down the list of the teams that won multiple years and just dominated the league for stretches of time,” Curry said.
The Warriors are trying to join Bill Russell’s Celtics, the Bulls led by Michael Jordan and the Lakers’ trio of title runs fueled by George Mikan in the 1950s, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the ‘80s, and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant nearly 20 years ago as the only franchises in NBA history to capture three championships in four years. The Warriors are halfway there, holding a 2-0 lead against the underdog Cavs as the series shifts to Cleveland for Game 3 on Wednesday.
“Listen, Golden State is one of the best teams I’ve ever played. It’s one of the best teams that’s ever been assembled,” said James, who is playing in his eighth straight NBA Finals and fourth in a row against Golden State.
Curry, sharp-shooting Klay Thompson, fiery Draymond Green and 2015 Finals MVP Andre Iguodala make up an All-Star-studded squad trying to repeat after James thwarted that quest two years ago when the Cavs stopped the defending champions. Kevin Durant bolted from Oklahoma City to join the cast last season.
“You look at it, they’ve got four Hall of Famers on their team in Klay, Dray, Steph and KD. They’ve got a Finals MVP that comes off their bench,” James said in reference to Iguodala. “... I don’t know where they will fall in my book, but they will have a nice chapter.”
Not everybody is ready to crown the Warriors as a dynasty,
not just yet anyway. Not even if they win the title this year.
TNT analyst and former player Charles Barkley said: “We don’t have any dynasties. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a dynasty.
“The Bulls won six, the Spurs won five. We’ve had a lot of really good teams. I think the only dynasty is the Spurs. They’ve been great for 20 years. The Warriors are not going to win. Winning two in four years is not a dynasty.”
Golden State would love nothing more than to continue building momentum as the franchise approaches the opening of its new San Francisco arena, Chase Center, in summer 2019 if all remains on schedule. That leaves one last season at Oracle Arena.
Curry was around for all the losing: 26 wins his rookie season of 2009/10, 23 two years later then gradually building to more victories each season thereafter.
He is proud to be part of a transformation — one the twotime MVP hopes they contend for titles for years to come.
“What we’ve been able to do here ... kind of taking a small step every year until 2015, winning our first championship, it is a sense of pride around that,” Curry said. “Being the elder statesman here and seeing what has all gone into being on this stage every single year — when it comes to the guys that I get to suit up with every single night, from Bob Myers down to the coaching staff to the ownership — it’s just a transformation that I got to see firsthand and all the details that went into it.
“So at some point, when this is all said and done, I hope to kind of just sit back and really truly appreciate, from start to finish, all that went into it. But there is an awareness of where we were to where we are. And I appreciate it.”