Have we come to the end of the golden road?
Thinking about what the Warriors' early exit from the Play-In Tournament means for their future.
A tulmultious Golden State Warriors season came to an end with a 118-94 loss to the in-state rival Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference Play-In Tournament. It was a rough game, especially for upcoming free agent Klay Thompson. Perhaps playing in his final game as a member of the Warriors, Thompson went 0/10 from the field (and 0/6 from three-point range) as the Warriors were eliminated from postseason contention. This resulted in cries of joy and ecstasy for those ready to be rid of the Warriors and declare this dynasty dead and in the dirt.
From my perspective, I’m at peace if this is the end of this Warriors dynastic run. As I’ve jokingly said, the Warriors won four championships in my lifetime, that’s five more than I ever expected. I never ever thought the Warriors would be the premier team in the NBA. I was just hoping for playoff births and good players to root for. The 2007-08 or the 2013-14 stretches of Warriors basketball was all I was really hoping for out of all this. So to have the Warriors win championships, to see a Warriors player be the face of the league, was beyond my wildest dreams.
Don’t get me wrong, I want the Warriors to continue being a force in the league and I still think that’s possible, even likely (more on that later), but if it’s not and this is really the end of something… that is just the way of things and I, as a Warriors fan and a fan of the NBA in general, have had an amazing 10 years of fandom. Yes, the past two seasons have been frustrating because there’s this sense of wasted talent and perhaps not maximizing Stephen Curry’s prime. But given what the past decade has been like… I’m not going to get tot bent out of shape about that.
One thing my time as a Warriors fan gives me is a wider view of things. A little more perspective. I know the differences. Namely, that Joe Lacob and co. are not the Chris Cohan ownership group. What do I mean by that? Well, I don’t think they’ll willingly stay out of the championship conversation if that’s where things end up going.
With Cohan, you felt like any success the team had was accidental and could disappear at a moment’s notice. That group didn’t care about the team and making sure it was competitive. Look how quickly they blew up that We Believe team. Any moment of success felt incredibly fleeting.
Lacob, by contrast, knows that the Bay Area is a market up there with New York and Los Angeles as an important one and that he’s got one of the nicest arenas in the NBA. If the Warriors regress over the coming seasons, I feel confident that this ownership group will make the moves to get the team back on top. If the Warriors are down for a while, I do not believe it will be forever given how proactive and committed to maximizing success this ownership group has been. While the Warriors might not be what they were from 2015-2019 ever again (will any team?) I don’t think they’ll be what they were from 2009-2012 or anything like that.
Beyond all that, I just don’t think this is still the end of this run. Stephen Curry remains an elite, top-tier player. For all of the issues he had, Draymond Green remains a force. There’s promise in the form of young players like Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, Brandin Podziemski, and Trayce Jackson-Davis. They do need to make moves (sadly, for me as the number one Andrew Wiggins defender, moving on from Wiggins at the top of the list) and probably need a true second option to go with Curry (which might mean either moving on from one of their core pieces or their young guys). But I don’t think a team with Stephen Curry as its best player/focal point will be that far removed from contention. They might not be a clear and prohibitive favorite, but they should be at the top of the list.
How (if they do) will the Warriors move on from Wiggins? Will they re-sign Klay Thompson? What happens with Chris Paul? These are the big questions that the team will have to answer this offseason. I don’t think this is the end of Stephen Curry’s Warriors as a contending team. I don’t see it as the end end of something, not yet. But if it is, if it’s the end of the road (or a road), I’m at peace.