Best for Basketball
I was wrong, the Warriors are good for the NBA.
I first realized I was wrong about the Warriors a little over a month ago. James Harden signed his Supermax, the richest deal in NBA history, and Paul George was traded to the Thunder shortly before. Kyrie wants out of Cleveland and the Celtics nabbed the number three pick and and a superstar in one easy swoop. An incredible NBA offseason had captured my attention in a way that the regular season just didn’t.
Before I get into what the title “Best for Basketball” implies, I think I should go back to Independence Day 2016.
July 4, 2016
The day NBA fans had been waiting for. Kevin Durant was rumored to finally make his decision on where he would play basketball for the foreseeable future. The Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Golden State Warriors were all in play. A few outsiders lurked, but most thought there were only three true contenders for Durant. In my head I wanted him to return to the Thunder to fight for Western Conference supremacy against the Warriors. Or, I wanted him to go to the East and play LeBron for the right to play the Warriors in the Finals.
As it turns out, Kevin Durant wanted to play for a 73 win team and win a title. I was pretty disappointed at what was about to happen. I couldn’t fathom the Warriors getting that much better so easily. Durant would replace Harrison Barnes and immediately make the Warriors scarier.
The idea that a team that just won 73 games was going to add a top five player disappointed me. It made me feel like the regular season wouldn’t matter (it didn’t) and that the Dubs would win the title easily (they did).
Frustrated, I called Nathan Page to vent and about everything I said came true. The regular season theoretically didn’t matter that much in terms of the seeds, and the Warriors won the title going 16–1. It was easy enough to see coming and was pretty unsurprising. The unsurprising nature of this past NBA season is what I didn’t want to happen. Fast forward to a year later…
NBA Free Agency Summer 2017
The NBA offseason was going just as the NBA brass had hoped. Teams were making wild trades and moves to either challenge the Warriors, or move to the bottom and plan for the future. To name a few of the insane offseason moves at this point in the offseason:
- Celtics trade number 1 pick to Sixers
- Indiana Pacers trade Paul George to Thunder for a candy wrapper and a spare bobby pin
- Zach Randolph, George Hill, and Vince Carter to the Kings; c’mon its fun
- The Denver Nuggets sign Paul Milsap
- Minnesota Timberwolves trade for Jimmy Butler and give up a torn ACL jump man and some change
- Celtics sign Gordon Hayward, and trade Avery Bradley for Marcus Morris
- Houston Rockets trade for Chris Paul
- Kyrie wants out of Cleveland
Simply one or two of these things would have made the offseason worth it. Now, my main point in this piece is that the Warriors’ greatness makes the NBA great because it makes other team’s do out of the box things. You could argue that some of these moves would have happened anyway, even if the Warriors didn’t just go 16–1 and bring back what could have been the best team ever.
But even if these moves happen without the Warriors, how we perceive each of these moves is very different because of them. Each move above is viewed in a different light due to the astronomical challenge that the Warriors present for each team attempting to overcome them.
Paul George to the Thunder and Jimmy Butler to the Timberwolves doesn’t make a dent in our perception of the NBA’s Western Conference, because each of those teams will be a mid-level seed and not bother the Warriors challenge for third title in four years.
The Kings and Nuggets off-seasons were really positive, but the question that is asked in response to the moves is what it does for them in 2021. The assumption is that the Warriors will dominate the league for the next 3+ years.
Chris Paul and Gordon Hayward’s moves were really nice, positive moves. However, both moves were immediately followed up with wondering who the next guy the Rockets and Celtics could get. Because the perception (and reality) is that it takes at least three superstars to win a title in the current day NBA. Even then, you’re still challenged because of the Warriors current roster construction. They’ve been able to build for today and three years ahead simultaneously. The Celtics are really the only other team that are able to do such flexible things with their roster, and it still isn’t in the same stratosphere as the Warriors.
So I arrive at my point. In my head I thought the Warriors were bad for basketball because it was literally going to be somewhat unfair. Now, unfair was a bit of a petulant word prescribe the situation. However, the play on the court was a bit one-sided for the majority of the season.
What makes this dominant version of the Warriors good for basketball, isn’t so much the on-court play. Unless you subscribe to the belief that watching perhaps the greatest team every makes basketball naturally great because of the level of play, even if they don’t have a challenger. It’s good for basketball because the different weird, confusing, and odd ways that other NBA teams are trying to climb to the top of the mountain and dethrone the Warriors. Conversely, even how teams are deciding to run away from the mountain is interesting. The Warriors have caused a mad dash to the top (or the bottom) of the basketball mountain, and that’s incredibly entertaining.
