Fertitta, stop playing games
With the Warriors returning to mere mortals, teams in both conferences look to fill vacuum
Rockets owner needs to either fire or extend D’Antoni and get down to business.
The NBA is a dynasty league. Though we spend a significant amount of time analyzing a team’s place in history while it is in the middle of making history, a true measure is best determined when the run is over.
Maybe this is a good time to discuss where the millennial Warriors rank. Yes, their run is over. Well, at least their big, bad bullying run is done.
Perhaps they will put together enough to make another charge, and they will be among the NBA’s best, but no longer will teams just succumb to Golden State’s will. Especially, if as expected, Kevin Durant leaves as a free agent this summer or next.
Toronto toppled the beaten down and injured Warriors in six games to claim the NBA title and end the reign.
Kawhi Leonard, the Finals MVP, didn’t even make a field goal in the fourth quarter of the Raptors’ clinching victory. He didn’t have to.
By Game 6, Golden State was running on fumes.
The Warriors’ last week as a dynasty started with Durant undergoing surgery on a torn Achilles and ended with Stephen Curry missing a potential game-winning, series-extending 3-pointer in the waning seconds.
The Warriors lost three home games in the series, the last three games at their beloved Oracle, the 49-year-old arena that has long hosted one of the more rabid fan bases in the
NBA.
The most memorable name from the final game at the Oracle is Fred VanVleet.
To add more injury to insult, in the third quarter, Klay Thompson landed awkwardly after a drive to the rim and tearing his ACL to put his 2019-20 season in jeopardy. Durant likely will sit out next season no matter what team he is on.
Thompson played 104 playoff games in the past five seasons. That’s a full season and a quarter of additional wear and tear. A half a season more than the Rockets’ James Harden played in those years.
It was a brutal finish to one of the more impressive five-year runs we have seen.
Seeing the Warriors defeated without two of their all-stars on the floor reminded me of when Magic Johnson and Byron Scott limped off the court against the Pistons in the 1989 Finals. That was near the end of a stretch of nine NBA Finals appearances (five championships) in 12 years for the Lakers.
The Warriors’ five consecutive trips to the Finals and three titles is impressive any way you look at it, but it is hardly historic. Another demerit on the Warriors’ résumé is the relative lack of competition they have faced.
They finished off each of their championship seasons with wins over the Cavaliers. Granted Cleveland was led by LeBron James, but none of those Cavaliers teams was historically special.
Weak competition isn’t the Warriors’ fault, but the Cleveland teams Golden State beat in the NBA Finals won 50, 51 and 53 games during the regular season.
The Warriors’ two Finals losses came to the 57-win Cavs and the 58-win Raptors.
Here is another stunner: Of the 16 teams the Warriors beat in the playoffs en route to their championships, only two — the 2017-18 Rockets and 2016-17 Spurs — won 60 games. Just four of the 16 won 55 games.
The Warriors didn’t keep any deserving teams from winning an NBA title, and they lost to the best two teams they played.
Still, Golden State changed the game; took it to another level.
The Warriors have been the most enjoyable championship team to watch since the Lakers in the early 2000s, and maybe even since the 1990s Bulls.
It’ll be interesting to see other teams try to play the way the Warriors have with lesser talents. There aren’t a lot of Splash Brothers walking around. There are very few Draymond Green types available, and not another Kevin Durant on the planet.
With the Warriors’ era of dominance at an end, perhaps the NBA will be more like the NFL for a couple years. Anybody can win it.
That won’t automatically be more exciting than the Warriors winning three of the previous five championships, but with the door now open perhaps next year’s regular season will be more interesting than free agency.
The West is again stacked with worthy contenders. After the Rockets shuffle pieces around this offseason, they should remain a team that will post a win total in the mid-50s and battle for a top seed.
Denver, a surprise to some this season, will be in the mix, as should Portland. One or both of the Staples Center duo of Lakers and Clippers could vault to near the top.
The Eastern Conference, which has now won four of the last eight championships, isn’t as deep as the West, but it is strong at the top.
The Raptors’ victory might be just a blip, if Leonard leaves town after the victory parade and never comes back, but the Bucks won 60 games with the presumptive MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo, leading the way. Philadelphia, which took Toronto to seven games in the playoffs, and Boston are both young and talented.
The pack was already rising and now the Warriors have come back to it.
You can almost see NBA stars standing outside the new arena in San Francisco clanging bottles together chanting “Warriors come out to play.”
The Warriors who come out won’t be anywhere near as good as the ones we have seen in recent years.