Where do Dubs rank among Bay Area dynasties?
The Warriors have three titles in four years, but the 1970’s A’s, 1990’s 49ers and 2010’s Giants can also lay claim as the region’s ultimate sports dynasty
A few hours before the Warriors won their third title in four years, a reporter from Nigeria put this puzzler to coach Steve Kerr:
Would you rather celebrate on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ home court or return to Oakland and finish the series while hearing cheers from your own fans?
Kerr smiled wide.
“They both sound awesome to me,” he replied. “I’ll take either one.”
I thought of that exchange a few hours later when an editor asked for a comparison of this Warriors juggernaut to the other Bay Area sports dynasties.
Would you rather have Stephen Curry leading a fast break with Kevin Durant or have Joe Montana throwing long to Jerry Rice?
Would you rather hand the ball to Catfish Hunter in a big game or would Madison Bumgarner get the call?
They all sound awesome to me. I’ll take either one.
At a certain level of greatness, the trophies shine about the same. It can come down to personal preference. You’re not going to go wrong on a ballot that includes the A’s of the 1970s, the 49ers of the 1980s, the Giants of the 2010s and the Warriors, apparently, for light years to come.
The toughest part of ranking them is deciding which multiple-championship winner belongs in last place. And, as Mark Twain once wrote, “comparison is the death of joy.”
Then again, Twain never needed website clicks. So here’s a look at connective tissue of the Bay Area’s most memorable teams:
The 49ers’ glory years
DYNASTY DEFINED >> Five Super Bowl titles from 1981-94.
TROPHY CASE » Early in my sports writing career, Bill Walsh, then an executive with the 49ers, showed me a videotape of a team meeting from his coaching days.
He pressed play on the VCR and, to my surprise, the white-haired professor I’d seen on television was standing at a chalkboard and blasting players with a profanitylaced tirade. Walsh was angry at players for spending too much time whooping it up for the crowd when they should have been focusing on the guys in the huddle.
“You play for each other!” Walsh reminded them. “You play for the guy next to you!”
This was the original Strength in Numbers.
Those 49ers, like these Warriors, had a roster overflowing with talent but also required a level of selflessness. Roger Craig says Walsh taught players to “play as an extension of each other.” The 49ers had mostly ego-free stars throughout their two-decade run. The arguable exception is Jerry Rice, who thought the best way to win was to get the ball in his hands. And he wasn’t wrong.
When the 49ers won their first Super Bowl, after the 1981 season, they were hardly a super team. But they had the seeds for long-term success. They had Joe Montana at age 25 (Curry was 26 for the Warriors’ first title season) and a rookie defensive back named Ronnie Lott.
But what they mostly had was a blueprint for success, and over the years an influx of players such as Craig, Rice and a backup quarterback named Steve Young set the standard for the NFL. In their 14-season run (1981-94), the 49ers went 5-0 in Super Bowls, 5-4 in NFC title games and 19-7 in the playoffs (.731).
Bored by the NBA Finals? The 49ers won their Super Bowls by an average of 19.8 points.
When Durant and Curry played down the Finals MVP debate late Friday night, it made me think of a favorite quote from offensive lineman Jesse Sapolu, who changed positions multiple times for the better of the team.
“If individual awards were important to me,” Sapolu said, “I would have signed up for tennis.”
The Swingin’ A’s
DYNASTY DEFINED » The A’s won three consecutive World Series from 1972-74.
TROPHY CASE » LeBron James spoke admirably of the Warriors’ teamwide IQ as the NBA Finals came to a close. “How do you put together a group of talent but also a group of minds to be able to compete with Golden State?” the Cavs’ superstar said.
He would have loved the Swingin’ A’s. Because for all of their colorful personalities and lyrical nicknames, Catfish, Blue Moon, Campy and Captain Sal, etc., they were sticklers for the most boring of fundamentals.
“That was the hallmark of our team,” pitcher Ken Holtzman told me at a reunion of the ’74 team. “People say, ‘Well, you had this guy and you had three 20-game winners.’ But go and look at the film.”
A’s players credit Dick Williams, the A’s manager from 197173, for making sure even the superstars played with discipline and purpose. Think now of Kerr, who slams down his clipboard whenever the Warriors get sloppy with turnovers or forget to box out on the defensive end.
Holtzman said the most important play of the A’s dynasty came in the 1974 World Series with the A’s (ahem) trying to protect a 3-1 series lead. In the top of the eighth inning, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Bill Buckner hit a ball into the right-center field gap, where it got past center fielder Bill North.
“But Reggie Jackson backs him up,” he said. “He picks up the ball, fires a strike to Dick Green, the cutoff man, and Greenie turns around and fires a strike to Bando. … It completely killed the inning and the rally. To me, that was the signature play of Oakland A’s of that era.”
And you think Draymond Green yells at people on the court? These A’s would come to blows in the locker room on a regular basis. Still, they are the only Bay Area team to win three straight titles. They bookend those (in ’71 and ’75) with trips to the ALCS.
The only team to win three straight World Series since is the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.
“All the bad things are gone,” North said at the ’74 reunion, “and you remember the joy and the intensity and the efficiency that these guys played with.”
Warriors ground
DYNASTY DEFINED » NBA titles in 2015, ’17 and ’18.
TROPHY CASE » If the Warriors ever need a soundtrack to their title run, they should consider Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – the one that includes “Ode to Joy.”
These guys play with so much exuberance that it’s no wonder Durant came over to find out what the fuss was all about. And one of the sweet things after Game 4 was hearing Durant explain how much he owed the game of basketball instead of the other way around.
“I just feel indebted to the game. I feel like it saved my life, it changed my life,’’ Durant said. “It took me out of an environment that I didn’t think I’d ever be out of. I thought I was going to live in Maryland my whole life. But to travel the world and meet different people, and go to different arenas and different cities and countries around the world, I’m just forever grateful for this opportunity.”
Happiness is tough to measure, so let’s try it with assists. The Warriors have led the league in that category for four consecutive seasons, a testament to their willingness to share.
“All of us,’’ Durant said. “We all want something that’s bigger than ourselves. I think we love to see each other succeed. We love to come together and figure stuff out on the basketball court. … It makes the environment great.”
This dynasty is still going strong. These Warriors now have the highest postseason winning percentage (65-20, .759) over a fouryear span in NBA history. That’s a hair better than the best four-year stretch the Chicago Bulls had with Michael Jordan, from 1991-94 (5117, .750).
The even-year Giants
DYNASTY DEFINED » World Series titles in 2010, ’12 and ’14.
TROPHY CASE » There’s much fuss over Curry never winning the NBA Finals MVP trophy. If he wants to start a support group, he can call Buster Posey, the face of the Giants, who doesn’t have any postseason hardware, either. (He never has been the MVP of the World Series nor the NLCS).
But the Giants’ version of the Baby-Faced Assassin helped change San Francisco baseball upon his arrival in 2010. On their way to three titles, the Giants had three different second basemen, three left fielders and three center fielders. They had two different starters at first base, third base, shortstop and right field.
And they had one catcher. “You hear people say they’re blown away, that it’s incredible what the Giants achieved,” pitcher Jake Peavy told this paper after the 2014 title. “Is it really incredible when you have Buster Posey, one of the best players in the league, running the game?”
Posey and manager Bruce Bochy (an ex-catcher) helped set a tone akin to what’s happening with the Warriors’ power combo of Curry and Kerr (an ex-3-point shot specialist). They are the understated leaders, the calmest in the most frantic moments. Although they pick their spots for emotion. Buster hugs. Curry shimmies.
Posey and Curry don’t need individual trophies to prove their value to their role in a dynasty. Nor do they need the word “dynasty.”
“That’s for you guys,” Posey said after the Giants’ third title. “I know guys play their whole career and don’t get to experience what I’ve experienced. And I don’t take it for granted.”
That phrase — like the Bay Area’s best seasons — is worth repeating.
“I just know what we’ve been able to accomplish is really meaningful,” Curry said Friday night, “and something that not many players have been able to experience.”