ANN KILLION: ENJOY THE WARRIORS’ TIME ON THE THRONE — WE DON’T KNOW WHEN IT WILL END.
Season Five: The NBA Finals for the fifth consecutive time.
Episode Four: The fourth playoff round.
Appointment TV. Viewing parties. Speculation about how this thing ends.
As many of us have found out recently, compelling episodic dramas sometimes can have unsatisfactory endings. The wishes of the audience can be betrayed by a clumsy plot line. Favorite characters may vanish before their time should be up.
So how will “Warriors on the NBA Throne” end? Will there be a Season 6, taking place in Westeros-of-Oakland, also known as San Francisco, in a brand new palace? Is there any way for the dynasty to continue for several more seasons?
Or are the main characters near their end? Will the ending be too abrupt, too rushed? Will heads roll? Will Joe Lacob go full Drogon and set fire to the whole thing?
“We’re well aware it’s not going to last forever,” Steve Kerr (Hand of the King in this tortured analogy) said before this season, adding, “This may be the last time we have this current iteration of the Warriors.”
We know that Season Five will take us beyond the Wall, to the North. It’s a plot twist that really wasn’t expected until Saturday night, when the Toronto Raptors closed out the Milwaukee Bucks in six games. In another script departure, the Warriors will start this quest for another championship on the road.
There’s inevitably debate about what makes a dynasty. Three championships in four years is a lock in most minds. But a fourth title in five years and a three-peat would be an inarguable, historic exclamation point on the Warriors’ dynasty. They would achieve something that hasn’t been done since Bill Russell’s Celtics.
They would reach a pinnacle that eluded Magic Johnson’s Lakers, Larry Bird’s Celtics, Michael Jordan’s Bulls, Gregg Popovich’s Spurs, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers. Those reigns all were truncated, ending before their public hoped they would.
However the Warriors complete this season, they will enter the most critical free-agency period in the history of the franchise and the most challenging juncture in the tenure of general manager Bob Myers. Nine of the 15 current Warriors are free agents and though some who could depart might not significantly change the fortunes of the Warriors, several could.
Free agents at the end of this season: Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins, Kevon Looney, Quinn Cook, Jordan Bell, Jonas Jerebko, Alfonzo McKinnie and Andrew Bogut. You never know which character’s loss will change the entire plot.
The primary focus is, of course, on Durant. The Daenerys Targaryen of the Warriors. An irreplaceable savior who also has the potential to bring down the whole thing. Could Durant’s departure — the betting money is still on his exit as a free agent — mean the end of the dynasty? Or could this trip to the North and his injury frustration in recent weeks, change Durant’s path?
Could the Warriors be creative and find a way to fill the gap Durant would leave? That seems unlikely. Salary-cap restrictions mean the Warriors will almost certainly have a less talented team next season if Durant departs.
As we’ve found in the past five playoff games, the Warriors might be able to survive the loss of Durant and thrive. For a while. The loss of Thompson would be far more symbolic in terms of the end of a reign. Though that truly would be an unexpected left turn in the script.
Dynasties usually die because players get old, sometimes helped by unforeseen events. The Celtics of the 1960s were finished when Russell retired. The Bulls were over when Jordan retired. The 1980s Celtics were out of the title hunt when Bird got old and were simultaneously hurt by the death of Len Bias, their top pick in the 1986 draft. Johnson’s Lakers stopped competing for titles when he retired after contracting HIV.
Kobe Bryant bridged two different versions of a Lakers team, which is a model that the Warriors could hope to emulate.
The key player in the Warriors’ dynasty is Stephen Curry. The one who was there in Season One, Episode One. The one who has continued to be there through it all. And likely the story of this dynasty will end with him. He set the culture, the tone. All story lines of this drama begin and end with Curry.
If Durant leaves, could the team find creative ways to fill in around Curry, now 31? Because of Curry’s mind-set, one could imagine him willingly taking a diminished role as he grows older, sacrificing whatever it takes to keep this thing rolling.
A wise man once said, at the end of an unsatisfying episodic drama, that there is nothing more powerful in the world than a good story. And who, in the NBA in recent years, has had a better story than the Warriors?
Nobody. So, enjoy it while you can. Because it’s going to end sometime, and probably not the way you hoped. Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion