How Invincible are the Warriors?
Like many fans, my reaction to DeMarcus Cousins signing with the Warriors was somewhere between “mild outrage” and “terrified ants fleeing a dumpster fire”. It felt more than a little egregious to add yet another Top-20 player to a team featuring 2 of the top 3 or 4 players in the league that also was coming off back-to-back championships.
I do not think that I am alone in saying that I hate Superteams. First, Superteams have always reminded me of picking teams in middle school gym class, when all the jocks would team up so they could destroy everyone else (Author’s note: I am still bitter about this, Jonathan).
Second, and more universally, it just seems unfair. The 2015–16 Warriors won 73 games. Then they lost in the finals, blowing a 3–1 lead in the process, and their consolation prize was Kevin Durant? They won the next two championships and then signed Cousins for next to nothing? What’s next… “Sorry your plane was delayed an hour before the Raptors game! To make it up to you, we invented a time machine and let you sign 1964 Oscar Robertson!!”
While I am being a bit hyperbolic, the Warriors are reviled because there is a perception that they will dominate the league — not because they earned it, but because they managed to assemble a dominant roster. This is the issue with Superteams: several of our favorite sport’s biggest stars decide among themselves to team up and obliterate the competitive balance of the league. By getting Cousins (and Durant) for next to nothing, the Warriors have made this season a foregone conclusion, thereby removing all the drama from the season and the playoffs.
At least that is how it seems on paper.
Of course, we are a quarter of the way through the season and the Warriors are not an unstoppable juggernaut. Green and Durant feuded, Curry has been hurt, Cousins is nowhere close to coming back, and the Warriors are sputtering along at a pedestrian (for them) 14–7, having also lost 6 of their last 9. Sure, the Warriors still look unstoppable sometimes, but other times they are losing to the Mavs or getting blown out by the Thunder.
I am not going to argue that the cracks are starting to form because the Warriors could bounce back from all of these recent setbacks. Instead, I am going to argue that the cracks have always been there because Superteams, no matter how invincible they seem, are never a sure thing. For every Lebron, Bosh, and Wade, there is at least one Kobe, Nash, and Dwight Howard:
If anything, it is kind of amazing that the Warriors HAVE won the past two titles because, historically speaking, Superteams are a lot less impressive than one would think:
- The Lakers created the first Superteam in 1968–69 by acquiring Wilt Chamberlain in exchange for Darrall Imhoff, Jerry Chambers, and some dude named Archie. Featuring 3 of the greatest players of all time (Wilt, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor), the Lakers famously lost in Game 7 of the Finals despite being expected to dominate the league. They eventually won a championship 3 years later, and only after Baylor retired.
- One year after losing in the 1982 Finals, the Philadelphia 76ers took a team featuring Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, and Andrew Toney, and added two-time MVP Moses Malone. The Sixers steamrolled the league on their way to the 1983 title only to be bounced from the first round the following year by Michael Ray Richardson’s New Jersey Nets.
- Two years removed from winning back-to-back championships, the 1996–97 Houston Rockets added Charles Barkley and lost in the conference finals to Stockton and Malone’s Jazz in 6 games. Those Rockets lost in the first round each of the next two years (despite eventually adding Scottie Pippen).
- Prior to the 2003–04 season, the Lakers added first ballot Hall of Famers Karl Malone and Gary Payton to the last of the Shaq and Kobe teams. They famously dealt with internal bickering before getting swept out of the Finals by the Detroit Pistons (also the weirdest champion of the past 30 years — but that is a separate article).
- The aforementioned Kobe, Nash, and Dwight Lakers only lasted one year and got swept out of the first round of the playoffs.
- Even the Lebron-Wade Heat experienced growing pains, losing to the Dirk Nowitzki’s Mavericks in 6 games during the 2011 Finals. The Heat did win back-to-back championships (arguably they got lucky in 2013) before falling to a well-constructed San Antonio Spurs team in 2014. People also forget that those Heat teams benefited from a league made less competitive by James Harden leaving the Durant-Westbrook Thunder and by Derrick Rose getting repeatedly injured.
You get my point — while throwing a bunch of great players on the court together is not the worst way to win a championship, it is far from a sure thing. None of the above teams developed into a full-fledged dynasty like the Jordan Bulls or the Showtime Lakers. If history is any guide then a Superteam is more likely to flame out in the Playoffs than to win a championship. You have to be good but you also have to be lucky.
Now obviously the Warriors are a powerhouse and one of the great teams of all time. They may very well win the next three or four titles. Or Curry’s groin injury could be more serious than it seems. Or the Draymond-KD drama could derail them. Maybe Cousins does not fit. Or maybe someone in the East just wants it more.
Vegas currently has the Warriors at 2:3 odds to win the title. The Raptors have the next best odds at 8:1. Maybe the Warriors have the best chance of any single team, but I refuse to believe that they are that far out in front.
The Warriors have been great but they also have been lucky. They have not dealt with a major injury. Durant fell into their laps after they blew that 3–1 Finals lead. Last year, it took the Rockets missing 27 threes in a row just for the Warriors to make it out of the West. History shows us that eventually a team’s luck runs out. Maybe I am wrong, but this year I am definitely betting on the field.
