A PLACE IN HISTORY
Warriors need a third title to be considered alongside Lakers, Celtics, Bulls and Spurs
Out of respect for the Warriors and their dedication to the concept of mindfulness — intensive focus on the moment — please don’t tell them about this column.
The Warriors are like an artist with his nose to the canvas, living in the next stroke. The rest of us can step back a few paces and look at the big picture.
Which is: The Warriors are on the brink of history.
While they focus on the challenge of the Rockets in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, let’s do what the Warriors should not and will not do — look ahead. Call it mindlessness.
If the Warriors win their series against the Rockets, then power past whichever team the East offers up, they will have taken a giant historical leap. They will have graduated from the status of a cute and entertaining team that had a sizzling run to that of an epic team, a team that defined and dominated an era of basketball.
Winning two titles in the last three years and making three trips to the Finals? Fantastic and amazing, especially to those of us who watched it from ground zero.
But in the cosmic scheme of things, not quite enough traction to hang with the big boys. That would be the early-NBA Minneapolis Lakers, the Bill Russell Celtics, the Showtime Lakers, the Steve Kerr (and Michael Whatshisname) Bulls and maybe the Popovich Spurs.
If the Warriors want to hang in that exclusive club, they need this title.
Taking fantasy up a notch, if the Warriors manage to blitz to the title, something like last year when they were 16-1 in the playoffs, they will be ushered into the elite club with platinum status, which includes free hors d’oeuvres.
They’ve already lost two games in these playoffs. A championship is a championship, but if they manage to go, say, 8-3 the rest of the way, against a healthy Rockets powerhouse and a geeked-to-themax LeBron, they will be a forever team. Barkley Island, home of the Dubs Hatas, would become a very lonely place, rather than a destination resort.
Even if the Warriors go 8-6 the rest of the way, good for them, but we’re talking about degrees of greatness here. A 16-4 or 16-5 run in these playoffs would be heavy, heavy stuff.
It would mean that the Warriors not only took over the NBA with a new style of basketball, but when the rest of the league copied them and loaded up against them, they were up to that challenge and raised their game.
Then there would have to be a general acknowledgment, even among those who hate Curry’s shimmy and Draymond’s Draymondness, that the Warriors are real.
If the Warriors survive the Rockets test and the next, even the doubters will have to concede that these Warriors were much more than a phenomenal group of crazy-good players, brought together in one locker room with the use of luck and money.
Right now, a lot of people still ask: “How could the Warriors not win, with four (maybe five) Hall of Famers?”
The answer, which would be solidified by another title, is that only one of those guys was a Hall of Famer four years ago.
Kevin Durant was headed for the Hall, even had he stayed on Oklahoma City or gone to any team but the Warriors.
But what about Stephen Curry? He was a wonderful player four years ago, benefiting from maturity and a boost of confidence instilled by Mark Jackson. But Hall of Fame? I don’t remember that kind of chatter.
Draymond Green? On any other team, given a chance (no guarantee there, considering Green’s odd skill set and personality), Green would have excelled. But not to the extent he has exploded with the Warriors, who not only tolerated his abrasive side but encouraged and embraced it. Without the Warriors, no HOF for DayDay.
Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala, who will someday be in HOF discussions, would not be in those talks without being part of this crew.
The point is not that Steve Kerr made it all happen when he arrived, waving his magic wand. The point is that these (future) Hall of Famers, with Kerr’s guidance, made each
other Hall of Famers. It’s their blending, buy-in and brotherhood that has — so far — caused the Warriors to be greater than the sum of their parts.
That’s why the next month is so important. Do you want to be a shooting star or a sun? Do you want to lead the Masters after three rounds or slip into a green sport coat? Do you want any more corny metaphors?
No? Then please bring your seat back and tray table to the upright and locked position for our return to The Moment. Namaste.