On July 4, 2006, the Golden State Warriors were coming off a 34-48 season, their 12th in a row missing out on postseason play since being swept in the first round by the Phoenix Suns in 1994.
This version of the team was led by the supremely talented yet enigmatic Baron Davis, two-time dunk champion Jason Richardson, and rebounding machine Troy Murphy. The supplementary pieces were a combination of youthful potential stars and solidified NBA role players. Monta Ellis was showing supreme scoring prowess for a rookie drafted in the second round. Mickael Pietrus was a pleasant surprise out of France and Latvian big man Andris Biedrins looked like he could still live up to his lofty expectations as a lottery pick.
Mike Dunleavy, Derek Fisher, and Adonal Foyle were the prototypical role players. Coach Mike Montgomery was unable to galvanize this group of players to produce a consistent winning environment even with perhaps the most rowdy fan base in the league packing Oracle Arena on a regular basis. Fast forward 10 years to July 4, 2016 and THIS happened. So how did the Warriors become the ultimate video game dynasty that nobody could have envisioned a decade ago and everyone will dissect and debate moving forward. Let’s look at a season-by-season breakdown of their path towards world dominance.
2006-2007 Warriors
Starters: Baron Davis, Monta Ellis, Mickael Pietrus, Matt Barnes, Andris Biedrins
Key Reserves: Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Kelenna Azubuike.
On offseason that brought in the versatile Stephen Jackson, enigmatic Al Harrington, and feisty Matt Barnes completed a talented collection of athletically gifted and eccentric hoopers. This iteration of the Warriors brought a lot of excitement to Oracle on a nightly basis but the results in the regular season were inconsistent. Sneaking into the postseason with a 42-40 record would portend a likely first round exit at the hands of the top seeds in the West, the consistent Mavs with Dirk Nowitzki at the helm. However, Game 1 forshadowed the rest of the series. Don Nelson played only eight guys, the Dubs running and gunning for all 48 minutes of the game while getting a monster performance from Baron Davis, who put up a 33/14/8 line. The Warriors would go on to pull off one of the biggest first round playoff series upsets in the history of the league, and have a heck of a time doing it. The fun and games would be stopped in the second round by a Jazz team that was more efficient on both ends of the floor with Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer perfecting the Jerry Sloan pick-and-roll and Andrei Kirilenko doing everything else, but not before one iconic playoff moment. The future seemed bright. The shocking first round upset would sustain Don Nelson’s position within the organization for a few more years.
2007-2008 Warriors
Starters: Baron Davis, Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, Al Harrington
Key Reserves: Mickael Pietrus, Andris Biedrins, CJ Watson, Kelenna Azubuike, Austin Croshere
Don Nelson took essentially the same roster from the previous season, modified the lineup to go even smaller and run even more. This group was first in the league in pace, first in scoring, and dead last in points allowed. They sure were fun to watch with many an explosive night, and the results were increasingly positive. They improved on the previous season’s record and finished with a fantastic 48-34 record. Unfortunately, they missed out on the postseason in one of the most fluky Western Conference regular season’s ever, as eight teams won 50 or more games. Essentially this was one of the best teams in NBA history that didn’t get a chance to compete in postseason play. One of the most exciting seasons finished with the ultimate anti-climatic ending.
2008-2009 Warriors
Starters: Jamal Crawford, Anthony Morrow, Kelenna Azubuike, Corey Maggette, Andris Biedrins
Key Reserves: CJ Watson, Monta Ellis, Marco Belinelli, Stephen Jackson, Anthony Randolph, Ronny Turiaf
The misfortune of the previous season was compounded by a major roster overhaul. Baron moved on to the Clippers, Barnes moved to Phoenix, Al Harrington crossed the country to the Big Apple, and Pietrus moved to Orlando. Two summer league rookie revelations, Anthony Randolph and Anthony Morrow, immediately contributed. Don Nelson continued to focus on running and gunning and the team finished second in scoring but dead last in points allowed again. All that pace combined with an inexperienced roster resulted in lots of close losses and a very disappointing 29-53 season. Throughout all of this, the fan support was extraordinary and the team finished ninth in the league in attendance.
2009-2010 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, Reggie Williams, Corey Maggette, Ronny Turiaf
Key Reserves: CJ Watson, Anthony Morrow, Devean George, Anthony Tolliver, Andris Biedrins, Anthony Randolph
Entering the 2009 NBA draft with the No. 7 pick, the Warriors knew the choice would not be completely in their hands, as they would have to wait and see which players would get selected in the first six picks. Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, and Ricky Rubio went off the board with the first five picks. Then-Timberwolves GM David Kahn inexplicably selected another point guard with Jonny Flynn at No. 6. This afforded the Warriors brass an opportunity to select baby-faced Davidson sharpshooting NCAA tournament prodigy Stephen Curry. Could he actually run an offense and play point guard? Could he fill out his scrawny body and become strong enough to survive in a physical league? Would his shooting translate against bigger and faster defenders? Could he play a lick of defense? These were only some of the concerns of many NBA scouts. Jerry West and Don Nelson didn’t seem phased and immediately plugged Steph into the starting lineup. Immediate chemistry was hard to find with Monta Ellis being a ball-dominant undersized guard as well. Even though both Curry and Monta showed a lot of promise individually and provided many highlight plays, the guard-reliant Warriors once again were second in scoring, last in defense, first in pace, 11th in attendance, and a very poor 26-56.
2010-2011 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, Dorell Wright, David Lee, Andris Biedrins
Key Reserves: Acie Law, Reggie Williams, Vladimir Radmanovic, Ekpe Udoh, Lou Amundson
A new ownership regime would begin with the Warriors on July 15, 2010 when the Joe Lacob – Peter Gruber group won the bidding war with Larry Ellison, dishing out $450 million to obtain ownership of the franchise. At the time, perhaps the price tag seemed like a slight overpay, but the ownership group was confident and optimistic that with the strong core base of Bay Area fan support their investment was worth making. Being able to transform the franchise into a winner would be a whole other task, one that was met with plenty of skepticism even among the most vociferous of Warriors fans – who would come to a near tipping point a couple years later during Chris Mullin’s jersey retirement. With the sixth pick in the draft, the Warriors completely whiffed on Ekpe Udoh, who showed nothing in his rookie season to expect anything promising from his career moving forward. Curry and Ellis continued to impress individually but not together. David Lee’s arrival from the Knicks was successful, as he showed flashes of chemistry with Curry in the pick-and-roll. Biedrins was now a veteran and did not seem to have improved much since his rookie season. The Warriors were still dysfunctional and Don Nelson wasn’t going to shoulder any of the blame this time around since he had been replaced by Keith Smart. The team’s pace slowed down to fifth, scoring was seventh, defense improved slightly to 27th and yet attendance continued to hold strong in 10th place. Through all this misery, fans were showing up to Oracle and showing continued supporting a team that would win only 36 games.
2011-2012 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Brandon Rush, David Lee, Ekpe Udoh
Key Reserves: Nate Robinson, Monta Ellis, Dorell Wright, Andris Biedrins
Coming out of a mid-major program, Klay Thompson dropped to 11th in the draft, and the Warriors gladly picked him with rumors of the Spurs trying to trade up to get him. Ironically, the Spurs’ consolation prize via trade up was another mid-major talent that ended up quite okay, Kawhi Leonard. Mark Jackson was brought in to change the culture of the team, but unfortunately his prized young point guard would succumb to several unfortunate ankle injuries and Nate Robinson would be heavily relied on. Monta Ellis was continuing to put up large scoring numbers, but chemistry continued to be lacking and the wins were non-existant. It was a foregone conclusion that Monta was set to be moved at the trade deadline, and by the time he was shipped out for Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson, few were surprised. All these changes resulted in a very disjointed season with poor results. The defense was porous, 28th in the league, while the offense dropped to 12th. All in all, it is hard to imagine that the season could have gone any worse with only 23 wins to show.
2012-2013 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, David Lee, Festus Ezeli
Key Reserves: Jarret Jack, Draymond Green, Carl Landry, Andrew Bogut
Newly promoted GM Bob Myers was now at the helm of the franchise. Only 12 months ago he had joined as Assistant GM after several seasons as a sports agent. All these losing seasons resulted in yet another high draft pick: Harrison Barnes, a late first: Festus Ezeli, and early second: Draymond Green. We wouldn’t know until a few seasons later that the latter of the three would turn out to be one of the draft steals of the decade. This season would finally suggest future success for the Splash Brother chemistry between Curry and Thompson. Steph would put in a full healthy season and Klay was beginning to be a successful two-way player. Barnes was locked in as starting SF and playing admirably. Bogut’s health was still a problem and Ezeli was thrown into the fire immediately, and although wide-eyed he did clean up the glass and play defense. The team would win 47 games and finally enjoy a taste of postseason play again. In the first round, they would dispatch the competitive yet unbalanced collection of players on the Nuggets and move on to face the mighty Spurs in the second round. In a heartbreaking Game 1 loss, Steph Curry showed all he was capable of with a monumental 44-point performance. The Warriors would go down in six games to the eventual champions, but their performance clearly proved that if they stayed the course moving forward a brighter future awaited. This was their best postseason performance in 36 years and management finally had a clear direction and roster to mold moving forward.
2013-2014 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Andrew Bogut
Key Reserves: Steve Blake, Jordan Crawford, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Jermaine O’Neal, Mareese Speights
Andre Iguodala, a member of the Nuggets team that the Warriors dispatched in the previous postseason would decide to join Dub Nation. One of the best wing defenders of his generation, the versatile offensive play-maker would add a dimension of ball handling the Warriors had lacked outside of Curry. The Splash Brothers were reaching new historic heights with the threes they were nailing, and the big man duo of Lee and Bogut were looking like a solid complement to each other’s skill-sets with Lee focusing on scoring while Bogut protected the paint on defense. Draymond Green was stuck coming off the bench but continued to show improvement in particular on the defensive end, where he was able to guard on the perimeter and in the post. The 51-win regular season would end up overshadowed by the disappointing loss to the Chris Paul-led Clippers. The duo of Paul and Blake Griffin was too much for the improved Warriors team defense to handle this time around in a best-of-seven series. The disappointment with spiraling rumors about dissonance and lack of communication between the coaching staff and the front office would lead to the surprising dismissal of Mark Jackson as head coach. Was this another franchise with a bright young core spiraling into dysfunction, or would management and ownership get back on the right path towards building a contending franchise?
2014-2015 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut
Key Reserves: Shaun Livingtson, Andre Iguodala, Leandro Barbosa, David Lee, Mareese Speights, Festus Ezeli
Enter coaching rookie Steve Kerr as the man in charge of leading the Warriors. With a new head coach and a new starting lineup, one could expect friction between the players and a learning curve in terms of chemistry between the coaching staff and the players on the floor. Instead the veteran Iguodala accepted his new role as sixth man, Barnes was willing to be the fourth option on offense when the starting lineup was playing, and Draymond Green became one of the most versatile two-way players in the whole league. This resulted in NBA shooting records being set by the Splash Bros, as Steve Kerr urged the players to push the ball and take open threes. An offense that placed first in pace and first in scoring was too much for the Western Conference to handle. The Warriors finished 67-15, sailed through the first few rounds of the playoffs, a minor hiccup against the feisty Grizzlies defense notwithstanding. In the Finals, they would face the Lebron James Cavaliers, where again down 2-1 in the series, Steph Curry was finally able to get the shifty Dellavedova out of his shorts. The Warriors would run away with the last three games and bring the Warriors their first title parade since 1975. Less than three years removed from winning 23 games, the Warriors had brought a title to the Bay.
2015-2016 Warriors
Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut
Key Reserves: Shaun Livingtson, Andre Iguodala, Leandro Barbosa, Mareese Speights, Festus Ezeli
Why change something that is working? Coming off a season where many questioned whether jump shooting teams really can win titles (Yes they can, Chuck), the only question critics felt was unanswered was whether the Warriors were lucky that Kyrie Irving got hurt in Game 1 of the Finals. The Warriors started off the season by answering the question with their play as opposed to their mouths. They would start the regular season 24-0, a feat no team had come close to approaching previously, and they finished the regular season 73-9, the only team to ever win 73 games. Steph Curry would be named the first unanimous MVP in league history and based on all the advanced metrics of his regular season performance, the eye test, and the team success, it would be really hard to argue for any other player in the league to receive first place votes. Things couldn’t have gone better for them as the roster had gelled even better than that of previous season’s championship glory. Draymond Green had emerged as a complete player that was posting triple-doubles left and right. Harrison Barnes was shooting consistently and taking the opportunities that were presented to him when Curry and Klay were double-teamed. Curry and Klay were setting NBA records for threes, breaking their own marks set only a season before. The bench was a well-oiled machine, in particular Livingston, Iguodala and Barbosa. Another title was a near-certainty until injury misfortunes would befall their unanimous MVP in the playoffs, leaving him with little recovery time and coming into the Finals not completely healthy and lacking rhythm. With their MVP playing well below his regular season form, the Warriors still raced out to a 3-1 series lead as a disgruntled LeBron James stepped over Draymond Green, prompting a controversial swipe in the direction of James’s nether region.
In a vacuum, the play may not have seemed a big deal, but due to Green’s rap sheet from previous incidents, most recently kicks at Steven Adam’s iron balls, the additional technical received from this play resulted in an automatic suspension for accumulated technical points. The rest as we tend to say is history. The Warriors didn’t close out the Cavaliers without Green in Game 5 at home, the Cavs responded with a victory at home in Game 6, and one of the most dramatic NBA Finals Game 7’s would come down to the wire, where the Warriors were simply not destined to complete the historic season with the Larry O’Brien trophy.
LeBron’s iconic block on Iguodala followed by Kyrie’s contested deep-three swish in Steph’s face, culminated in a fantastical display of perimeter defense by Kevin Love on Curry to seal the fate of two franchises. The Cavaliers had won their first NBA title, uplifting a whole depressed fanbase in Cleveland. Meanwhile, the Warriors were the first team in NBA history to throw away a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals. It was nothing short of a miracle. Almost as big of a miracle as the 3-1 deficit the Warriors had overcome just to make the Finals, where in the face of ultimate adversity, Durant and Westbrook playing at the peak of their powers, Klay Thompson had an out-of-body three-point barrage in Game 6 on the road to keep the Dubs alive. I would be remiss to not mentioned the improbability of the events that unfolded over the span of these two series. Going down 3-1 in the WCF to blast their way back to a 4-3 series win and then find themselves up 3-1 only to drop the last three games in a row and face potentially one of the longest, most gut-wrenching and depressing offseason’s digesting what had just transpired.
But inevitably there was one more truly epic twist to this still-developing story of a franchise on the rise, so lets recap what the Warriors franchise did right and wrong over the span of July 4, 2006-July 4, 2016.
What they did wrong:
Let Don Nelson run a system with no focus on defensive principles for far too long
Drafted Ekpe Udoh with the sixth pick. Other poor high draft picks include Biedrins, Patrick O’Bryant, Anthony Randolph, Ike Diogu. (O’Bryant, Biedrins, Diogu were drafted before July 4, 2006)
What they did right:
Drafted Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli
Acquired Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, Andrew Bogut
Traded Monta Ellis, Fired Mark Jackson
Developed chemistry and positional versatility on both ends of the floor
Focused on figuring out a way to fix Curry’s seemingly chronic ankle issues
Developed a culture in the locker room and within management where the players, coaches, management, and ownership had proper communication, trust, and a common belief in how the team was going to play. The players love playing together, the players respect and communicate with the coaching staff, and everyone within the organization trusts the process and ultimate goal of competing for NBA titles as a team. This has created an unselfish style of play predicated on ball movement in search for the best shot while focusing on pace and space due to the prodigious range and shooting abilities of Curry and Thompson.
Enter Kevin Durant, unquestionably one of the smoothest, most prolific scorers in the history of the game, he also plays an unselfish style of basketball. A seven-foot small forward with range to the half-court logo, the proven ability to play point forward and guard perimeter players like Kobe as well as power forwards. Essentially, Kevin Durant is a player that would fit in ANY system in the NBA. Therefore when he was making decision in early July the question wasn’t who wanted him, everyone did, but who did he want. Kevin Durant wanted personal growth, a team he could enjoy playing with, as well as one that consistently contended for NBA titles. In 2006, that team would have been the San Antonio Spurs. In 2016, that team is the Golden State Warriors. That seismic shift cannot be understated. For more than a decade the San Antonio Spurs organization was the shining example of what a team can do when all the pieces within the organization function at optimal levels. The Spurs have continued to improve and are still exemplary. Yet over the past 10 years, and in particular the last three years, the Warriors have taken the Spurs model and developed one of their own. This is the definition of progress, and Kevin Durant’s decision is a clear sign to the rest of the league regarding what organization in the NBA is the most successful and desirable to work for right now.
2016-2017
Projected Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia
Key Reserves: Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala, David West, Ian Clark, Patrick McCaw, Damian Jones, Kevon Looney, James McAdoo, Anderson Varejao
Good luck to the rest of the NBA. But more importantly, watch and learn. If this is progress in 2016, one can only anticipate what progress will be made over the next decade. The following words of Winston Churchill are applicable not only to the Warriors that are left to pick up the pieces of a traumatic Finals experience by adding one of the greatest talents to grace NBA arenas, but also to the rest of the league that will now be playing catch-up to a Warriors franchise seemingly entering dynastic dominance:
“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
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