Scott Ostler:
Slow start in quest for mystical higher level of team play
The search for the Golden Gear began Tuesday night. Slowly.
We’re not talking about “gear” as in Warriors’ souvenirs, like the wedding-gown-white “Backto-Back Ring Ceremony apparel” (Ch-ching!) the marketing team broke out for Tuesday night’s season opener, but rather a mystical transmission gear the players will be seeking for the next eight months or so.
The Golden Gear is a higher level of performance, higher than mere NBA championshiplevel play. The Warriors have won two titles in a row and three of the past four, along the way putting their stamp on the sport forever.
But there is something bigger out there. A sustained level of play where the Warriors’ magnificent machine shifts into a mystical higher gear.
Head coach Steve Kerr has said the closest the
Warriors came to that level of synchronicity was during his second season, when the Warriors lost in the Finals to the Cavaliers.
Gear-wise, the Warriors didn’t get even to overdrive Tuesday. Not that anyone expected that. Too many new pieces being worked into the tapestry, especially the new three-center rotation. Should have been easier, considering that the opposition was the Oklahoma City Thunder, without Russell Westbrook.
There is no timetable for the Warriors to find that perfect groove, but while that search is on, there is basketball to be played.
The Warriors got out of the gate slowly, scratching out a 108-100 win. The pregame ring-presentation ceremony could have been the excuse, but for the Warriors, that business is as common as a trip to the corner quickie-mart for a six-pack and a lottery ticket.
Klay Thompson opened the action with a turnover on a sloppy hook pass, but a minute later, Stephen Curry said hello with a corner three, off a pass from Kevin Durant, off a pass from Draymond Green.
It’s almost like the Warriors are a team loaded with All-Stars who love to pass the ball. Curry, the leader of the pack, hit his first five three-point attempts.
Then he went cold from deep, as did the Warriors, missing 10 threepoint tries in a row near the end and finishing 7-for-26 from beyond the arc.
What should have been easy got hard, the Thunder forcing the Warriors to earn the first of their possible 82 regular-season wins.
It was a slow start in the Warriors’ quest for excellence above and beyond the imaginations of mortals. The Warriors entered the season as the mostfocused team in the history of sports, or at least since “focus” became a thing, sometime between George Mikan and Michael Jordan.
These Warriors have a chance to become the most philosophical sports team ever. During training camp, they talked a lot about being constantly aware of the cool run they have been on for four seasons, appreciating how special it is.
They are a team of seekers, the group equivalent of the cartoon cliche guy seeking wisdom at the mountainside cave of the bearded wise man.
Kerr, of course, plays the role of the wise man, although with less facial hair and more wisecracks. Kerr has a gift for translating the hoodoo-voodoo Zen of his mentor Phil Jackson into a more accessible form of spiritual appreciation for the moment — Zen for the modern NBA superstar.
These Warriors have all come to the shores of the Great Bay for more than a paycheck. Example: David West, recently retired but courtside Tuesday for the big ceremony. The past two seasons, he played for a fraction of his earning potential just to be part of the Warriors.
Durant left Oklahoma City not for rings, but in search of a higher level of basketball. Thompson has practically signed an imaginary contract as a Warrior for Life.
Thompson made it clear whose team this was when he said a couple of weeks ago that this isn’t anyone’s team, it’s everyone’s team.
One tangible goal of this team team is a fifth straight trip to the Finals, something no team has achieved since the Boston Celtics went 10 years in a row, from 1957 to ’66. Of course, that was when there was only one team in the Eastern Conference and one in the West (editor: actually there were 10 teams in the NBA when the Celtics began that run, 12 when they finished it).
For their time, there’s no denying the Celtics had some serious higher gear they could shift into for long stretches. Like seasons at a time.
But for sheer beauty and poetry, the Warriors have an even higher potential, if they can match the old Celtics’ unity thing. The Warriors have a chance, but there is much hard work and deep thinking to be done.