If You Like the Warriors, You Are a Bad Fan and You Should Feel Bad, Too
Following the Warriors 118–113 Game 3 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017 NBA Finals, I had a difficult time articulating why the result of an ultimately inconsequential sports contest so infuriatingly rubbed me the wrong way. Then I came home and drank a gallon of vodka and now for some reason have all the answers. They don’t call vodka ‘writer’s fuel’ for nothing.
Before I get started, I should admit that anything I type here will be far more indicative of my failings as a person than shed light on the shortcomings of Warriors fans, though they are myriad. I know I have a predilection to dislike anyone that was born rich, especially if they have no idea what advantages that brought them. I especially despise it when manifest in the utterly soulless execution of fait accompli basketball. Also, I named my dog NBA Champion Kyrie Irving (follow her on Instagram!), so you should know that I am completely biased. Now that I’ve provided a mea culpa, let’s begin, shall we?
Humble Beginnings
The Warriors were initially assembled in a way that could actually make you love them. Steph Curry (7), Klay Thompson (11), and Draymond Green (35!) were all acquired through the draft and — in part because of some historically bad coaching by Mark Jackson — did not succeed in an appreciable way for quite a number of years. In Steph Curry’s first few seasons, the Warriors failed to make the playoffs, going 26–56, 36–56, then 23–43. This, again, was in part due to injuries but overwhelmingly because of Mark Jackson’s mismanagement and criminal inability to get anything of use out of his plethora of talent. Seriously, the guy is garbage. When he says “Mama, there goes that man” on your telecast, just assume that whoever that unnamed man was, he clearly could have done a better job coaching the Warriors squad than Mark Jackson.
Just to be clear, Mark Jackson is bad at life and should feel bad, too.
But this scrappy team eventually turned it around and got into the playoffs, making some noise for a couple of seasons before finally giving ole Mark Jackson the boot and handing Steve Kerr an embarrassment of riches.
In 2015, the first year since 1975 that the Warriors went to the Finals, they faced a depleted Cavs squad that had high expectations but no Kevin Love (dislocated shoulder courtesy of Kelly Olynyk) or Kyrie Irving (fractured kneecap in Game 1). The Warriors triumphed in six games and Andre Iguodala won Finals MVP for defensively keeping LeBron James in check. Which, it bears mentioning, is utter bullshit. LeBron averaged 35.8pts, 13.3reb, and 8.8ast, leading BOTH teams in all major statistical categories while squarely the focus of Golden State’s defensive schemes. The fact that Iguodala won the Finals MVP for “limiting” James to that performance is as laughable as the idea that Chris Brown would make a good boyfriend.
That said, the Warriors earned the win in the 2015 Finals while benefitting from some extremely lucky breaks, as all champions do. The next year is where the trouble started.
The Warriors Gain Some Fans
All of a sudden, Steph Curry jerseys started popping up all over the country. It began with your typical frontrunners — douches like Justin Bieber and his ilk — but soon reached a crazed level of fandemonium. To complicate matters, Steph was hitting 3-pointers at an insane clip. He obliterated the record for three pointers made in a single season with 402. To put that in perspective, I don’t think I’ve made 402 3-pointers in my life. The next closest player is Ray Allen with 269 in a single season. Steph Curry is the greatest 3-point shooter in the history of basketball. This is not something that’s up for debate.
One of the side effects of being in the Bay Area and having an Silicon Valley-based owner that uses the Larry O-Brien trophy as a sex toy, is that a lot of the tech bros started getting in on the act. And much like the aristocratic complaints of “money without class,” these new fans created a despicable category of “fans without context.” They just started liking basketball and — guess what — their favorite team was the best! Their fandom is devoid of the suffering that makes it worthwhile.
It was made all the worse by the shoulder-shimmying rich kid swagger of Steph Curry. He of the chomped mouthguard and pube beard — someone whose entire persona can be summed up by the phrase “my dad bought this for me.” He was a winner without context, an icon without style (seriously, look at his shoes), and a champion without adversity. He was the perfect leader for Silicon Valley’s team.
The Rich Get Richer
The Warriors rattled off a 73–9 season in 2015–2106, which made them the best regular season* team of all time. I say best regular season team, because despite this historic record and having the league’s first unanimous MVP**, they shit the bed in the Finals and lost to the Cavs in Game 7 in what will henceforth be known as THE GREATEST BASKETBALL GAME OF ALL TIME.
*I will never tire of mentioning this
**Which is ridiculous. Let’s be honest, LeBron James has been the MVP of the league since 2007 when he did this. Seriously, the only reason he lost in 2010–2011, is that we were all still pissed at him for going to Miami, and every time since then, we just basically got sick of him being the best. This is why we now have weird definitions of MVP like “best player on the best team” or “most memorable season” or “some bullshit Bill Simmons uses to justify not voting for LeBron.” MVP stands for Most Valuable Player and if you think there has been anyone else worthy of shouldering that mantle other than LeBron in the last ten years, you are utterly delusional. Steph made the best case in 2016, but despite his historic shooting, you’d still want LeBron on your team more. LeBron was, and is, the most valuable player in the NBA. I don’t begrudge Steph for winning, but that there was no other #1 vote tells us how complacent we’ve become with LeBron’s dominating greatness.
I should also make it clear that Warriors fans insisted Steph Curry was injured in the 2016 Finals despite no evidence whatsoever to back that up. The Cavs spent the entire Finals putting Steph into shitty switches where he actually had to defend the ballhandler until eventually Steph’s legs gave out and his shot left him. This wasn’t some phantom injury, this was simply good game planning on the part of the Cavs.
Regardless, the Warriors loss was more of a coin flip than a referendum on their team. They had a bright future with all their major stars locked into long-term contracts. They would undoubtedly be back in the Finals the next year.
Then Kevin Durant happened.
Kevin Durant’s OKC Thunder team lost to the Warriors in 7 games in the Western Conference Finals. Instead of taking the opportunity to grow his team and get better, hopefully advancing to the Finals the following year, KD jumped ship for his rivals.
How crazy is this? Imagine if peak LeBron, instead of bolting for Miami to build a superteam, simply joined the one who beat him that year in the playoffs: the Boston Celtics. It would be unfathomable. If you added LeBron to Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen in 2010, the world would have collectively lost its shit orders of magnitude more than it did for the (terribly executed) Decision. That’s how insane this is. I can’t begrudge the Warriors. They played by the rules in a system the NBA setup to cater toward superteams. That system is quickly going to fail the NBA as the Warriors run roughshod over the league for the next few years, driving competition and ratings down. We’ll have a dynasty, but the NBA will have lost the drama and the draw. I know the NBA didn’t want the NFL’s mostly infuriating parity, but a happy medium would have served everyone better. The sad part is, the only way an NBA season will be interesting until the Warriors break up is if one of their stars is injured for a season. When you’re banking on injury for interest, you’re fighting a losing battle.
Don’t think it’s lost on me the parallels of Middle America losing its capital to the coast. The rich elitists get richer, then ridicule the poor flyover states for not being better. They are oblivious to the fact that their wealth is built on the backs of those from whom they’ve pilfered. They accumulated their riches easily, looked down their noses at people poorer than them and wonder why the rest of the world wants them to lose. Those people that dislike Warriors fans aren’t haters, they are normal people who understand the concept of common decency and are sick of seeing the game rigged in favor of people who already have enough. Of course Bay Area Warriors fans don’t understand this — their whole lives have been awesome, why shouldn’t their basketball team get to be awesome, too? But much like America’s bifurcated political class, this move will have damaging effects for years to come.
As much as this move made sense for everyone else involved, I just can’t understand it from Kevin Durant. He’s clearly cemented his legacy as not the guy. He will end his career with multiple championships, sure, but on a team that didn’t need him to win one. He won’t have faced any adversity, won’t have thrown a team on his back to win anything, and won’t have proven himself as a singular talent. He’ll be Scottie Pippen but never Michael Jordan. He might be fine with that. Many players think championships are a surrogate for legacy, but they’re not. Ask Robert Horry. Legacy requires leadership, committment, and overcoming insurmountable odds. Players have a different definition of legacy than fans, but in the end, it’s the fans’ version that matters. There are more of us. Collectively, we decide whose career mattered. Adding a superstar to a team full of them doesn’t improve that superstar’s standing in the pantheon of basketball greats. It renders his successes inevitable, and anything less a colossal — and hilarious — failure.
LeBron has publicly stated that he’s attempting to match or surpass Michael Jordan’s greatness against all odds — a near impossible task made all the more difficult by the level of talent in today’s league. On top of all this, LeBron is an outspoken advocate on social issues. He has faced real adversity (growing up poor in Akron) no to mention blatant racism (even in this year’s Finals). Through it all he’s handled himself with maturity and grace. That’s why LeBron will not just be remembered as one of the greatest athletes ever, but also one of the most important. The only thing we’ll ever get to see Durant compete for is championships. While he has the talent to challenge the basketball gods, he never will. He’s robbed fandom of seeing that battle play out in real time. LeBron is at least striving for immortality. He may fail, but he is struggling on our behalf. He knows the fans deserve to see someone try. KD has decided that the fans don’t need to see him face the same arduous challenge. Because of that, he will never be in the conversation as greatest of all time. He’s fine with that because when you’re a Warrior, you have enough for yourself and who cares about anyone else?
What Type of Terrible Fan Are You?
You may take issue with my hard line stance against the Warriors. It may seem like sour grapes or that I just have an afinity to dislike what’s popular. You’d be correct on both counts, but it also doesn’t diminish the fact that there are certain standards of taste when it comes to rooting for a franchise. While those tastes evolve over time, there are still some hard and fast rules by which sports fandom abides. Without objective standards, nothing matters. Not in sports, not in art, not in life. It’s like saying the newest Fa$T & 4uriou$$ movie is good just because it made a billion dollars. You might be right by a financial standard (which really only rewards the studio and producers), but in the wider landscape of film, it is a hunk of garbage. The Warriors are that movie. They are great deal of good for a tiny amount of people (the owners and their tech douche fanbase) and a substantial amount of objective bad for the wider world.
You are Drake
If you are a Warriors fan right now, this is probably you.
After the 2016 Eastern Conference Finals when Cleveland beat Drake’s hometown Toronto Raptors in 6 games, Drake tried to enter the Cavaliers locker room to party with the winners. They did not let him inside because Drake is a frontrunning shitbird.
Most Warriors fans fall into this bandwagon category. All of their Warriors gear was purchased in the last 3 years. Next time you see a piece of Warriors clothing, take note of how clean it is. You will not see one Chris Mullin or Baron Davis jersey. They’re all Curry or Durant. Seriously, you can’t even find a Warriors fan who is willing to buy a Draymond or Klay jersey because those guys aren’t widely accepted as the best player on the team.
This includes a wide swath of Lakers fans who’ve abandoned the team during these rebuilding years. Actually, scratch that. This includes that large group of fans who used to like the Lakers until the Clippers were better, then liked the Clippers, and now like the Warriors. You think I am kidding, but I shit you not. I live in LA and the number of new Dubs fans is staggering.
The sad part about this is that it betrays that particular fan’s lack of understanding about the sport. In the absence of any knowledge, they simply go with who the crowd says is the best right now. In a few years they’ll all be wearing Giannis or Anthony Davis gear. These people do not understand sports, but desperately want the approval of people who do.
You are Erlich Bachmann
No, I don’t mean TJ Miller. I mean the character he played on Silicon Valley who is a money-grubbing, trend-chasing, tech-bro who adds no real value to society constantly fails upward. So… slightly different than TJ.
This type of Warriors fan only likes the Warriors because their favorite VC (who is probably a Drake-type fan) has courtside seats. They figure if they share this common bond, then they might get their hands on some of that VC cheddar. They neglect to understand that superficial sports bonding is the cheapest form of friendship precisely because so many people share your same sentiment. Sports friendships only becomes a true asset after you’ve argued about that team over the course of years. Anything outside of that is pointless smalltalk.
The worst of these Warriors fans will jump ship the second they post a losing record and will likely be so tone deaf that they will even make fun of the team to actual fans. These Warriors fans are as terrible as they are numerous. Are you sensing a trend yet?
You Are an OKC Thunder Fan
No, I don’t mean that literally. Just like I didn’t mean you were actually Drake a few paragraphs ago. What I’m getting at is that there are probably a lot of actual Warriors fans that grew up in Oakland and like the team. But my argument is that maybe you shouldn’t?
It’s not that you shouldn’t like the team. You have every right as a Bay Area native. But you should definitely feel at least a little bad about it.
In 2007, the owner of the Seattle Supersonics moved the team to Oklahoma City using a wide variety of shady tactics and collusion from the then-Commissioner of the NBA, Beelzebub… er, David Stern. If you were a resident of Oklahoma you were probably really psyched to get a team, especially since they got really good really fast! But the problem is, every piece of joy you experienced as a Thunder fan was a little stab wound to every Sonics fan. Your happiness sprang directly from the pain of someone else.
You had every right to cheer for your team, but as a decent human being you also had to carry the knowledge that you were doing so at the expense of someone who was probably more deserving of feeling good than you.
This is what I’m saying about Warriors fans. You can feel good about your team, sure, but you should probably also lament the screwed up situation that got your team here. This is especially true since this Warriors team has faced no real adversity and hasn’t earned, in the classical sense, all their accolades. These championships have fallen in their laps. All their victories are hollow and pre-ordained.
Jordan struggled and overcame the Pistons. Magic and Bird had a decade-long slugfest. LeBron even had to overcome the Celtics to finally win it all with Miami. What’s the analogous story for the Warriors? There isn’t one. So while you true Oakland fans cheer your team, also remember that the deck was stacked in your favor and any decent human being would probably feel at least a tinge of regret.
I understand that this is a delicate point that probably won’t land as well as it should on someone whose euphoria has completely clouded their sense of decency. If you are a Dubs fan from Oakland, it bears mentioning something else:
The Warriors Do Not Give a Fuck About You
The Warriors are doubling down on their ties with the tech snobs by moving away from Oracle Arena to the Chase Center in downtown San Francisco, a city so overpriced that cardiologists can’t afford to move there. The Warriors have decided that they are sick of their fans in the Oakland (collectively know to the Warriors front office as “the poors”) and want to get away. Never mind that these are the fans who paid the bills through thick and thin, these are also the fans who can’t afford courtside seats. The Warriors are the Warriors fans of sports franchises: a bunch of frontrunning asshats who only like what is cool at the moment (and for them, what is cool is money).
So even if you are that hypothetical lifelong Warriors fan from Oakland, keep in mind you should feel either a little bit bad about this team, or a little bit angry that despite your lifelong devotion, this team doesn’t care about you in the way that you care about it. They are like all those other Warriors fans because they ask, “what have you done for me lately?”
The Warriors Are the Donald Trump of Basketball
There’s a great quote that goes, “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” I don’t care what you think about Donald Trump’s politics — actually, wait. Yes, I do. He’s objectively terrible for the institution of democracy and the country. And he exemplifies this quote.
Trump is not a self-made man. He was born with a silver spoon so far in his mouth that his butthole was a commodity exchange. The Warriors are the same. Through a combination of luck, savvy draft picks, the terrible coaching of Mark Jackson, and an exploding salary cap that enabled the Kevin Durant signing, the Warriors have had it all handed to them. If you think I harp on this point too much, consider this:
America is a country of underdogs. We rebelled against the greatest global superpower known to man at that time and won our independence. Literally ALL of our movies are about people overcoming insurmountable odds to triumph in the face of adversity. Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey doesn’t start with some rich prince becoming emperor without any hard work. That story holds no drama and doesn’t embody the American spirit. Rudy didn’t go from the country club to Notre Dame and the Denzel didn’t coach the Titans to a championship without facing significant adversity on and off the field. These Warriors don’t capture the spirit, overcome anything, or expand what’s possible for the rest of us. These Warriors are fucking boring.
The Warriors are the fantasyland America that Donald Trump sold us. They bizarre idea that nonstop winning is possible without giving up any concessions. That we don’t have to play by the rules because the world will still want to be friends with us no matter how many times we kick them in the nuts. That it doesn’t matter how you win because winning is cool and good is dumb. You cheer loudly and obnxiously (“Waaaaaaar-yers!”) and spend more time ridiculing those you beat then appreciating the significance of the achievment. The one championship Cleveland won means more to that city than all of the championships in the world would mean to the Bay Area. When your life is good, this is just another Tesla in a garage full of them.
So be a Warriors fan. But recognize that you are bad and you should feel bad, too. You are either a bandwagon fan, a nouveau riche tech douche with no understanding of the game, or a rampaging nihilist who cares not for the institution, but only for your own wellbeing. Be a Warriors fan. But if you want to be a human, recognize that you should feel at least a twinge of remorse about it.
That’s the new America, where nothing matters on this wretched hell world and the Warriors are your NBA Champions. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseam or until all of their starters finally start asking for max contracts.
