Oakland bids long goodbye to Warriors
Move to San Francisco provokes pain, evokes history.
Mistah OAKLAND, CALIF. —
FAB’s Dope Era store sits in the heart of Oakland’s up-and-coming Uptown District.
The clothing shop, nestled near the corner of Broadway and 17th Avenue, is a symbol of the community where the rapper grew up. Fab, born Stanley Cox, like the rest of the Oakland community, is bracing for the Warriors’ last season in The Town, while reconciling a future reality that hasn’t existed for more than four decades: a city without professional basketball.
“It’s disheartening,” he says. “To watch your team leave like that. And even though they’re just going across the water, it’s still something prideful about the city of Oakland that we love and that the passion that has been here in the city for the Oakland Warriors and what we like to say in Oakland.”
The Warriors, who settled into the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1971 after failed efforts to build arenas in San Francisco and even San Diego, began their final season at Oracle Arena last week.
“It’s gonna be devastating not playing in front of Oakland,” Warriors star Kevin Durant said. “But we’re right across the bay, man. I think it’s a 20-minute ride, it might be 10 minutes. I know it sucks with the Raiders and the Warriors leaving, being that they have been here so long. But we’re just going across the bridge.”
When Durant signed with the Warriors as a free agent in 2016, he looked at four potential residences and chose to live in Oakland because, like Durant’s hometown of Washington, D.C., it had a thriving, multicultural, left-leaning epicenter. “The people here reminded me of home, so it made my transition smoother,” he said.
Draymond Green, a native of Saginaw, Mich., chose to live in Oakland for similar reasons. “Same mentality,” Green said. “In Saginaw, they act just like people from Oakland. It’s just that same mentality, that get-it-out-the-mud mentality. I feel like, the way I am, you know my demeanor, it’s just like them. Real recognize real.”
Regina Jackson, a longtime director of the East Oakland Youth Development Center, has had a unique view of what it means to have the Warriors in Oakland. On a spring morning in 2015, Abusheri Ohwofasa of the Warriors foundation called her and asked her to bring two young people to the Warriors’ headquarters at the Oakland Marriott. So Jackson packed up two students and made the 12-mile drive to the hotel. Upon arrival, they were met with cameras, lights and a large media contingent — for Stephen Curry’s MVP ceremony. Shortly after Curry’s speech, EOYDC was presented with a 2015 Kia Sorento.
The EOYDC also benefited from the Warriors Foundation’s renovation of the center’s aging gym.
“It’s just gotten better and better and better,” Jackson said. “The quality of the relationship has been richer and deeper. And it’s not just been about money. It’s been about access: access to staff, access to players, even access to the general managers and the owner. It’s been incredible.
“We know it won’t be able to be the same just by virtue of the distance. But we also just don’t know what it means and that it’s a little scary. It’s especially daunting, and we’ve had mad love for this team before they started winning. And certainly, I will always be in love with the Warriors.”
Fans like Jackson are perhaps the only consistency during the Golden State’s time in Oakland. From 1977 to 2012, Golden State reached the playoffs just six times. Still, spectators packed The Arena during the team’s playoff run in 2007, when the Warriors, featuring Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, made a run to the second round of the playoffs.
Even during the 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 seasons, when the team finished no higher than ninth in the Western Conference, the building was sold out every game.
As a youth, Cox would sneak into the Coliseum Arena, rushing the turnstiles with his friends and finding seats in the barren arena. Soon after, Warriors forward Donyell Marshall began supplying Cox with tickets. In 2010, Cox became a mainstay at Oracle, regularly sitting behind the scorer’s table next to the opponent’s bench.
This summer, the Warriors hosted roughly 45 percent of their current season ticket base to renew their packages. Of that group, 80 percent of the fans from Oracle Arena pledged to renew their packages for Chase Center. Cox, however, remains undecided on whether he will make the move. For now, it seems as if the Warriors’ impending departure is another part of his hometown that is going away.
“It’s been real,” Cox said. “Thank you for the championships before you left. We appreciate you. It gave the city hope. The parade. Just the parade alone gave the city hope. Going through the city of Oakland, parading, winning the championship in Oakland, the underdog finally on top. It’s been real.”