Warriors embark on run at history
Unbeaten streak put on line during 7-game road trip
As early-season problems go, 29 NBA teams would give anything to be the defending champion Golden State Warriors right about now. But as the unbeaten Warriors prepare to embark on a seven-game road trip beginning Monday in Salt Lake City, issues need to be resolved nonetheless.
Quandary No. 1: Figuring out who gets credit for these wins. They’re 18-0 after Saturday’s rout of the Sacramento Kings, having already eclipsed the best regular-season start (16-0 previously).
Because those wins have come under interim coach Luke Walton with head coach Steve Kerr out indefinitely while recovering from a spinal fluid leak he suffered in the offseason, there’s a debate to be had on the bookkeeping front. The NBA, rest assured, is on the case. While protocol dictates the head coach gets the credit or the blame while he’s out, the uniqueness of this situation has prompted league officials to take another look at whether that’s the right way to go. And with coach of the month honors to be announced soon, there’s a real chance Walton winds up getting his name attached to this hoops perfection. The part that’s unclear, though, is how such a change might work.
Might the NBA institute a minimum games-coached threshold or perhaps use other parameters to avoid scenarios such as this one?
And while Kerr has been critical of the current model, telling ESPN.com it’s ridiculous that Walton isn’t already racking up the victories for his coaching résumé, the other side of that interim coach coin must be debated, too.
Should an interim take over for, say, a sad-sack group such as the Philadelphia 76ers, it might not seem fair to saddle him or her with all the losses, especially when interims are often unofficially required to stick with the coaching philosophy/rotations etc., of the head coach.
We should have clarity soon on whether the Warriors are coached by Luke Alton or Luke WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWalton.
Quandary No. 2: What’s the status of the winning streak?
When the Los Angeles Lakers set the record for winning streaks at 33 games in 1972, they did it the old-fashioned way: all within the same season.
But the NBA has two categories for winning streaks, recognizing the overall kind, which can be split between two regular seasons, and the single-season variety.
And so because the Warriors won their last four games of the 2014-15 regular season, they can claim a 22-game winning streak. It’s already the third longest in NBA history by that measure, with the 2007-08 Houston Rockets having reached that mark and the 2012-13 Miami Heat winning 27 consecutive games.
Yet from this vantage point, the Warriors won’t truly unseat the Lakers unless they get to 34-0.
The fact that this is even a discussion is a testament to the Warriors’ dominance, but there’s a huge difference between going unbeaten for more than two months while the pressure builds and tacking on regular-season wins from six months prior.
Nonetheless, here are a few key dates to remember as the Warriors try to stay perfect.
This road trip (through Utah, Charlotte, Toronto, Brooklyn, Indiana, Boston and Milwaukee) is a doozy in terms of the dearth of downtime. It’s seven games in 13 nights.
Should the streak continue, the Warriors would enter the Finals rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Christmas Day at Oracle Arena with a 28-0 mark (and a 32-game winning streak in the multiseason variety). Beating LeBron James and Co. on that winter evening would tie the lesser of the two marks, with the possible tiebreaker to come three days later in a home game against the Sacramento Kings.
As for the conventional version of the winning streak, the Warriors’ Jan. 2 home game against the Denver Nuggets would be the chance to improve to 33-0. Two days later, they host the Charlotte Hornets in what could be the 34-0 moment.