San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Warriors join NBA’s elite with another Finals run
They barged into the province of Bill Russell and Jerry West, of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Now the Golden State Warriors and their enduring core — Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — belong in the same realm.
Thursday night’s 120-110 victory over Dallas propelled the Warriors into the NBA Finals for the sixth time in eight years. They became the first team in 24 years to achieve the feat, since Jordan and the Chicago Bulls (199198).
Or look at it this way: These Warriors and those Bulls are the only teams in the past 30 years to make the Finals six times in an eight-year span.
Travel deeper back in time and Golden State became the fourth franchise in NBA history to pull off the six-in-eight trick. The Boston Celtics (between 1957 and ’70) and Los Angeles Lakers (1962-73 and 1980-91) each did it several
TV/Radio: Game 1: Game 2: Game 3: Game 4: Game 5*: Game 6*: Game 7*:
times, including Boston’s staggering run of 10 consecutive Finals trips (1957-66).
The Warriors added a fresh twist because they plunged into sporting oblivion after five consecutive berths in the championship series. They returned to the Finals only two years removed from having the NBA’s worst record (15-50) in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season.
Only three franchises have climbed from a league-worst record to the Finals in two years or less: the St. Louis Hawks in 1956-57, Minneapolis Lakers in 1958-59 and San Francisco Warriors in 1966-67. There were only eight teams in the NBA when the Hawks and Lakers abruptly ascended, and 10 when the ’67 Warriors did. Now there are 30 teams in the league.
Head coach Steve Kerr understands the six-in-eight history better than most, in part because he played on the Bulls teams that reached the Finals (and won the title) in 1996, ’97 and ’98.
“I think the common denominator is just talented players who are fierce competitors,” Kerr said. “Whether you talk about Michael and Scottie (Pippen), or Steph, Draymond and Klay, it takes a special kind of athlete to have both dynamics.
“It’s the skill and athleticism, but it’s also being incredibly competitive and wanting to win so badly. It’s the only way you can have a run like that because you get
The Warriors celebrated earning a spot in the NBA Finals for the sixth time in eight seasons (top), a run that started with a title celebration in 2015 against Cleveland (above).
exhausted, tired and frustrated. If you don’t have that type of competitive desire and skill combined, it’s just not going to happen six times in eight years.”
If NBA history offers context on the difficulty of this kind of run — at least for franchises other than the Celtics and Lakers — a look at other major sports provides confirmation. Consider these tidbits, gleaned through a combination of Chronicle research and the Elias Sports Bureau: No NFL team has reached the Super Bowl six times in eight years. The New England Patriots came close, making it five times from 2012 through ’19.
In the pre-Super Bowl era, three NFL teams advanced to the championship game at least six times in eight years: The Cleveland Browns, New York Giants and Green Bay Packers. The New York Yankees are the only major-league baseball team to make six World Series appearances in eight years (many times), dating to 1921. But even the Yankees have pulled it off only once in the past 57 years, with six trips to the Series from 1996 through 2003. Four NHL franchises have gone to the Stanley Cup Finals six times in eight seasons: the
Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers. Still, the Oilers (1983-90) — led by some guy named Wayne Gretzky — are the only team to do it in the past 48 years.
That’s the instructive takeaway here: the rarity of the Warriors’ accomplishment in
the modern era. It just doesn’t happen often in any sport amid expanded leagues, free agency and relative parity compared to the “old days.”
In the Warriors’ case, their run revolves around three homegrown players in Curry (drafted in 2009), Thompson (2011) and Green (2012). They’re the constants, the central characters alongside Kerr and Andre Iguodala, who has been involved in all six Finals runs but has been injured for most of this year’s playoffs.
“That’s a special story, to be able to make it this many times,” said center Kevon Looney, who has been on the roster for each Finals trip except 2015. “Once you stop making it to the Finals, the team usually goes away. Usually, you have to rebuild a different way with different players.
“We were able to retool around the same three guys and do something special. I think that just shows you how special Draymond, Klay and Steph are as humans and basketball players — their determination, their leadership, to fall down and get back up and claw their way back to the top.
“They have been great leaders. … They set their goals high and they hold everybody to high standards.”
Looney gathered 18 rebounds Thursday night, a tidy bookend to the 22 he corralled in the conference semifinal clincher against Memphis. His emergence, into a reliable inside presence who didn’t miss a game all season, shows how the Warriors have grown over the past eight years, beyond Curry/Thompson/Green.
Still, the core is the core for a reason. Curry was named Western Conference finals MVP. Thompson busted loose for 32 points Thursday night, sinking eight 3-pointers. Green was his typically forceful all-around self, with 17 points, nine assists and six rebounds.
Blend it all together and the Warriors completed a rapid ascent from the depths of that 15-50 mess of two years ago.
“After being counted out, the dynasty is over, all those things — to get back here, it’s fantastic,” Green said.
Let’s be honest: It probably embellishes the core’s legacy to return to the Finals without Kevin Durant. The Warriors made their first two Finals appearances in this run preDurant, with Harrison Barnes as the starting small forward, but the conversation changed when Durant hopped aboard as a free agent in July 2016.
Golden State suddenly became a “super team,” as Thompson referenced Thursday night. The Warriors morphed from an endearing, homegrown cast to the villains who dared add one of the game’s greatest players to their already loaded roster.
But now, with Durant in Brooklyn, the Curry/Thompson/Green trio found its way back to the NBA’s biggest stage. Andrew Wiggins obviously helped — filling the Barnes/Durant spot in the starting lineup — as did Looney and a bench bursting with contributors, from Jordan Poole and Otto Porter Jr. to Gary Payton II and Nemanja Bjelica (at least in Game 5 against Dallas) to rookies Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga.
“When Kevin was here, we were like an unstoppable force,” Thompson said. “I think now we have to be more meticulous with our offense and defense, because we don’t have as much leeway without him. We’re happy to be here, but it would help our legacy a lot if we completed the mission and won the whole thing.”
That chapter of this history book awaits, starting Thursday night.