Villains? Warriors scoff at suggestion
If this is life as an NBA villain, every superstar should try it.
Days before the Golden State Warriors season would officially start, Stephen Curry was sneaking through the backdoor on Pier 35 just as the sun set. There were nearly 1,000 of his most loyal fans inside, all of them there to celebrate the launch of his latest Under Armour shoe. None of them were aware the man himself would be joining them.
There were the two courts full of young players in “SC” jerseys who showed off their skills throughout the day to fans in the nearby bleachers, a portable Curry-themed barbershop, a fresh graffiti painting of a Curry crossover, a 360-degree photo booth where they tried the Curry dribble and — of course — the new Curry 3 shoe display. But when the back-to-back MVP came in —
left side of the hardwood in the middle of a pickup game, nodding with approval at the three-pointer that swishes as he arrived — the place went bonkers.
Before long, just as all those cellphone cameras were going back in the pockets, chaos resumed. Karim Kharbouch, better known as rapper French Montana, made a surprise appearance and performed an impromptu concert on the court. Curry was dancing again, just like he did so often last season before the music stopped in Game 7.
The Warriors, make no mistake, plan on dancing again.
LESSONS LEARNED
For all the recent media focus on the past — what went wrong four months ago, the Draymond Green dynamic, etc. — the Warriors are obsessed with their future. How to integrate and maximize Kevin Durant. How to apply those lessons learned the hard way last season, when their historic push toward 73 wins ended in such hollow fashion. How to get their hands on the championship again, wresting it away from LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers in a predetermined Finals rubber match for the ages.
The villain dynamic is downright silly.
For starters, the No. 1 target of all this (Durant) is about as good a guy as you’ll find in the league. Works hard, good teammate, stays out of trouble, active in the community and all that sort of stuff that actually should matter. And while it’s natural for Oklahoma City Thunder fans to be disappointed that he left after eight years or to wish he’d stop rubbing it in by saying how happy he is all the time, the indignation everywhere else is — as Warriors coach Steve Kerr deemed it — absurd.
A 28-year-old free agent exercised his free will, not only for basketball reasons but because he wanted a new landscape that couldn’t be more different than the old. As the Warriors T-shirts that Kerr had made and distributed to players show — “Super Villains,” they read near the team logo — the basketball world’s story line is the Warriors’ punch line, especially considering the love-fest that so often surrounds them.
We should all be so lucky to be so hated.
They will be booed in visiting arenas throughout the season, if only because jealousy tends to bring out the worst in some. But they have rock-star status at home, where one of the league’s most loyal fan bases has grown at such a ridiculous rate over the last few seasons. And love them or not, fans across the globe will be dared not to watch.
A day after Curry’s black suburban left a swooning crowd behind at his shoe event — one middle-aged woman hollered, “I almost touched him!”; another young girl was ecstatic that she “was only 4 feet away!” — Durant had made his way to the Kanye West concert at Oracle Arena. These are the kinds of off-court options that he’s enjoying, right up there with all the technology pursuits in nearby Silicon Valley that he’s making a major priority. (West’s current tour, for what it’s worth, does not include a stop in Oklahoma City.)
The videos that went viral painted a picture of pop-culture chaos: West walking above a center-court structure at Oracle, Durant and Green amid the mash of dancing bodies below. The newest Warrior bopped and smiled for the cameras, Durant enjoying himself in the kind of way that showed this scene suits him well.
Yet as the Warriors embark on the season, knowing full well that falling short again would only add to their infamy, the prospect of managing this spotlight will be a more difficult dance.
It will take a special kind of focus to not get snared by their own hype, to remember that the only thing that matters is what happens in June. It will take the checking of egos, too, what with one ball to share among Curry, Durant, Green, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala. Along the way, Kerr, who has made it clear that he will rest players much more this season than last, will tend to it all with a nitpicky style.
“We’ve gained some confidence in terms of playing together, guys are getting used to one another,” Kerr said. “We weren’t very good in our first game (a preseason loss to the Toronto Raptors), but ... I think we’ve had … four out of those six (since then) we were active defensively, pretty sharp with the ball, the turnovers got better as we went, for the most part. We have a ways to go, but we’re getting where we need to be.”
While facing expectations that could not be higher.
“Listen, I don’t start the Warriors at (a record of ) 0-0,” ESPN analyst and former coach Jeff Van Gundy said on a Monday conference call. “I start them at 82-0, and the few games that they’ll lose, we’ll just mark it down as they go along. (But) this idea that it will take a while for chemistry, I disagree with that. Great players like Durant, they can fit into any team. They know how to play; the players he’s going to play with know how to play.
“I think they have a legitimate chance to break the (73-9) record. I think they have a legitimate chance to break the hallmark record of 33 in a row. I think they’re going to get on multiple runs, even if they aren’t playing guys huge minutes. I just think they’re going to be overwhelming talentwise.” HUNGRY FOR TITLE Inside the Skylight Power House in San Francisco, the warehousestyle event space inside Ghirardelli Square where Curry was holding a VIP party on his shoe launch day, Under Armour banners hung from the rafters that reminded his guests what took place last season. One read “73-9,” their regular-season record that eclipsed the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ as the best of all time after the Warriors won the championship in 2015. Another read “Unanimous,” a reference to Curry becoming the league’s first unanimous MVP. But as his commercial coming out two days later would clarify, he was hurting over the fact that none of them said, “Back-to-back NBA champs.”
“73-9 and no ring?!” a Curry fans says in the spot. “Missed championship? ... Ah, he mad now. I made him mad now.”
Curry chimes in: “Missed championship? That’s fresh … ”
Their fresh start is finally here. Only time will tell if they can own the dance floor again.