Why the Warriors Are Bad for Basketball
My case against NBA Super Teams
The Golden State Warriors are better than every team in the NBA by a long shot*. (*Kind of early to tell, but also like, yeah… they are the best team by far.) This fact does not make them watchable for me.
I live in San Francisco; I am surrounded by Warriors fans on the reg. I have watched them destroy my team (the Portland Trail Blazers) already this year. Typically, when a team this talented eviscerates your team, you still look at them with great respect. Typically, losing by 20+ to a super team isn’t that big of a deal because maybe at least you played them semi tough (trust me, guys, all of my teams lose so I know a thing or two about how to do it). And—typically, you get 2–3 of the best players in the NBA on a team together and people are hyped to watch. “Watching this team is going to be so sick, so exciting! It’s going to be a pivotal part of sports history!!”
This Warriors team is none of those things to me. Not only that, but it’s a reminder of why super teams are terrible for the NBA.
Here is why:
Nearly everyone outside of the Warriors’ bubble knows KD leaving OKC for Golden State was as big a slap in the face as “The Decision” was. Cue Kevin Durant’s tweet criticizing Lebron for that move, yada yada old news right? Wrong.
The Kevin Durant that tweeted that infamous tweet was the kind of guy you wanted on your team. He was the kind of guy that could have created a legacy in OKC with Russell Westbrook.
Kevin Durant ditched that opportunity to join a team that has 73 wins the season prior… and we are supposed to be excited about watching that. Um.
Ready for a hot take? The current talent distribution in the NBA rivals the wealth distribution in America.
Imagine a world where KD had stayed at Oklahoma City: there is another contender in the West. We see competitive and intriguing games up until the Western Conference Final. We have the Spurs (always an unstoppable force), OKC (because Russ + KD), the Warriors (equipped with two Splash Bros, one of which is a unanimous MVP), and plenty of “bubble” teams (we will call them) that will provide good games for fans and viewers.
IRL rn in the West instead? We have the Warriors—who, if they DON’T win a Nattie Champ are the biggest embarrassment in sports history (lol dramatic, but…) — and the Spurs who are always amazing regardless. THEN we have teams like the Mavs, the Zers, Clip Show, the Rockets etc etc. None of this is competitive; none of this is viewer-friendly.
Here are a few more problems I have with all of this. The NBA seems to have abandoned all pride and loyalty. YOU GUYS, I KNOW I sound like your dad saying we millennials don’t understand the value in overcoming adversity and sticking to our guns. But maybe he has a point, at least in the NBA — it seems to be all about the ring, and KD showed us that it doesn’t matter what you have to do to get there.
F. Scott Fitzgerald knew what was up: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Ipso facto: Draymond will continue to deliver the cheap shots, while Steph, Klay, KD and friends continue to deliver sick outside shots, and annihilate opponents into oblivion and we as viewers will grow more and more indifferent about professional basketball. The Russell Westbrooks will fall by the wayside (even though he is a dreamboat and exemplary human who follows Zara on Instagram). The bad guys will prevail once again.
But, to the mes and the Dads of The Relish readers out there, worry not: There are still players in the league that care about sticking to their guns.
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