Who will rid me of this meddlesome team?
On the fame of the Lakers (eternal) and Warriors (conditional, dying).
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
Stained glass window depicting Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, England
Sometimes I wonder when the world will fall out of love with the Golden State Warriors.
The Los Angeles Lakers: that’s a long-term love affair; in every era I’ve been on the internet, the Lakers have been a dominant figure in the discourse, on the lips of so many fans both casual and hardcore. The Dallas Cowboys of the NBA, though more often good than not (unlike the Cowboys, which as a non-NFL follower I have perceived as largely mediocre since the ‘90s, whether that’s accurate or not). The Lakers will be a hot topic after LeBron James goes away, after LeBron James Jr. goes away. Their fandom and haterdom are immense, global and without peer. The Lakers will always be here.
The Warriors, though: this is a newer phenomenon.
My basketball coming-of-age was during a post-Run TMC spell in which the Warriors — a semi-local team for me — were largely a joke. Todd Fuller. Mike Dunleavy Jr. Troy Murphy. These were the Warriors of my formative years. There were also Latrell Sprewell (and that whole thing) and Antawn Jamison (who I loved) and Jason Richardson (who I loved). Eventually the world woke up to the We Believe! Warriors, who shook up Baron Davis’ Hollywood hipster energy and Stephen Jackson’s dangerous bravado and Monta Ellis’ country cool and Don Nelson’s genius stoner vibe and the Bay Area fandom’s ecstasy, and turned all that into something briefly special.
Briefly. All too briefly. Two good seasons. One playoff run. One playoff series win, actually. That’s it. This seminal team, this formative collection of basketball chemicals, played 11 total playoff games, won a single damn playoff series.
But my god what a series.
(Excuse me a brief tangent to this tangent [two additional tangents are imminent]: it is extremely We Believe! Warriors and extremely 2000s Utah Jazz that the Jazz won the subsequent series 4-1, but the Warriors have the signature and sole memorable play of that beatdown:
)
It all fell apart in the aftermath. Steph Curry was the seventh pick in 2009. He didn’t win Rookie of the Year. Keith Smart coached the team for a while. The front office turned over. The team was sold by legitimately one of the worst owners in the NBA.
Preceding that, Boom Dizzle (this is what we called Baron Davis, the blog era was wild) snuck off to his hometown Los Angeles in the opening seconds of free agency in 2008, aiming to join Elton Brand and finally make the Clippers relevant. That same night, Brand decided to sign with the Sixers, aiming to finally make the Clippers a part of his past. We had cell phones and Bluetooth earpieces back then, so I’m not sure what happened. But I do know that the Clippers did not become relevant just yet. Davis’ contract was so onerous that L.A. traded an unprotected first to get off of it in 2011. The unprotected first became Kyrie Irving. (This remains one of the most unbelievable trades of my lifetime. It’s largely forgotten because of the next sentence.) Then David Stern killed the Chris Paul-Lakers trade, and traded CP3 to the Clippers instead, and Boom Dizzle got his wish: the Clippers finally became relevant.
On a parallel path, up north on 101, the Warriors became relevant again, too. More relevant than ever. Steph to a large extent, with some help from the other initial parties to the 2015 title team and the 2016 73-win team, became the most relevant team. Kevin Durant’s arrival in July 2016 amped that relevance, that fame, that centrality to unknown heights for the franchise. That fame is not quite as high as it was in 2017, 2018. But it’s quite high because of what Steph represents, because of what the franchise represents in Steph’s image, because of — frankly — 2022, when Steph proved that which most of us already knew, which is that there were no smoke and no mirrors before KD’s arrival, and there would be none in his wake. He proved that he is, in fact, one of the greatest modern players to grace the sport and he could (can?) still run the league if the stars align.
This allows us — the discourse, broadly — to wonder aloud and at regular intervals whether the stars will align again.
The Lakers are on our lips in perpetuity whether they are relevant in a championship sense or not. The Warriors’ centrality is conditional. The condition is Steph. Golden State fell out of the conversation in 2019-20 due to the absence of Steph (in the wake of KD’s departure and Klay Thompson’s injury). The Lakers have had teams as bad as the 2019-20 Warriors, but still register in the consciousness. The Warriors did not. When Steph goes away — everything and everyone does go away eventually, it is our nature — the Warriors likely will, as well.
So the thought I began this essay with — wondering when the world will fall out of love with the Warriors — is actually simple to answer: when Steph is no longer a central part of the Warriors.
Steph is still here, and based on how good he’s looked into his mid-30s, he may be on a LeBronian path to relevance into his 40s. That ensures that we will continue to, in all likelihood, spend more time talking about and writing about and thinking about the Warriors than better squads.
And to be clear: none of this should be considered a lament. The Lakers nor the Warriors are likely to be top seeds in a vicious Western Conference, but they do feature two of the greatest players ever, they are two of the few teams to have championships in this decade, they do have interesting line-up choices and trade options and contract considerations. Perhaps “are the Lakers/Warriors good enough to win the West?” is a boring and useless question right now. But if you’re mad about the Lakers being overexposed to the casual NBA fan, welcome to a lifetime of disappointment. If you’re mad about the Warriors being overexposed to the casual NBA fan, just wait until Steph trades the sneakers for golf shoes. The team will then, in all likelihood, be once again out of your hair.
Lonzo Time
Lonzo Ball will reportedly play in the Bulls’ preseason game against the Wolves on Wednesday, his first on-court NBA appearance in 34 months. The last on-court memory we have of Ball is on that scintillating run-and-gun Bulls team from the early part of 2021-22 season. That team is gone, primarily because Ball is going to be much different now and DeMar DeRozan is in Sacramento.
But Lonzo had become quite a fine player by that point as a “young vet.” He found his three-point shot after leaving Los Angeles (shooting 37% in New Orleans over two years and hitting above 40% before getting injured in Chicago). Always committed too many turnovers and doesn’t finish enough possessions otherwise to look good in advanced metrics. But there’s something interesting there, especially with the relatively high defensive potential (before the injury, at least).
Chicago might be the best mediocre team in the East — survey’s out on Toronto and Atlanta and dare I say Detroit — and Ball just might factor into that play-in race. Hoping for the best for him.
More Preseason
Zach Edey is a problem. Unless you’re about to hit the “Grizzlies are winning the No. 1 seed” button, in which case Zach Edey is a Herald of Great Things. THE HALF-HOOK IS BACK!
While still on the Grizz tip, can I share how much I love watching Yuki Kawamura in this context? Pizzazz! Hope he makes the team.
Giannis Antetokounmpo will not rest until he is feuding with every Central Division team.
I will not be sharing a video but Paul George injured his knee in the Sixers’ Monday game. A bone bruise that will have him re-evaluated the week of opening night.
A game-winning block by Branden Carlson.
Links
De’Aaron Fox is not taking a Jalen Brunson discount this summer for the Kings. Good: he shouldn’t, unless the Kings find a way to trade for own of his beloved college teammates, like uh, Bam Adebayo.
In which Victor Wembanyama says he was surprised at how little certain players he grew up admiring work on their game.
No preseason whatsoever for Kawhi Leonard.
Joel Embiid says he will likely never play back-to-backs again.
Adam Silver stands by his op-ed a decade embracing legal sports betting. That op-ed and strategic decision from the NBA to embrace legal sports betting was a huge step in the thawing on the topic from the sports leagues. Really important to our current moment, whether Silver likes it or not.
Michael Malone is Michael Malone-ing.
"Played that starting unit the whole third quarter to try to push their envelope a little bit," Malone said. "That was probably a little bit hard on some of those guys. In practice I think we can get up and down more. I think so often as coaches and modern-day NBA, the league has gotten so soft. Everybody's afraid to condition and run. Well, we have to."
If only NBA teams had some sort of camp before the preseason where teams could make the players train under their guidance. In any case, that was Sunday night. On Tuesday night, Malone didn’t play Nikola Jokic or Jamal Murray and didn’t play the other key nuggets more than 27 minutes or so. In related news, the Nuggets got destroyed by the Thunder … who played their key players about 20 minutes each.
Speaking of the Nuggies,
gauges whether they are still a top-tier contender.David Thorpe at
on five player-centric what-ifs from the preseason including questions about Desmond Bane and Julian Strawther.Schedule
Apologies for not dropping the schedule in on Monday. It’s still preseason for Your Boy, too! All times Eastern.
Cavaliers at Pistons, 7, NBA TV
Nets at Sixers, 7
Hawks at Heat, 7:30
Timberwolves at Bulls, 8
Ratiopharm Ulm at Blazers, 10
Be excellent to each other.
Hi Tom! First: thanks for your amazing nba coverage and dedication!
I found today’s topic particularly interesting, regarding how and why teams fame is perceived, and how long it can last. I think an interesting case to compare with the Lakers and especially the Warriors is that of the Chicago Bulls. As a European NBA fan, I recall how present in the discourse the Bulls were (merchandise, logo, etc.) thanks to MJ’s fame. Now, how much recognition have the Bulls had post-MJ? Some for sure during the Rose years, but they still seem to remain in the collective imagination regardless (and I say this from Europe, where the NBA is popular but not as much as in the States). They’ve been permanently marked on the map from the MJ era: would be the same for Golden State? Cleveland and Miami, with LeBron—who has been probably the most popular player on the planet post-MJ, alongside Kobe and Steph—are perhaps another kind of case, having had LeBron for a few seasons, so not as an absolute icon (and they’ve won less as well). San Antonio? That’s another different case, given the media (scarce) presence of its stars and their victories spread over time. But Wemby is here, so that could shift things I guess...
Anyway, thanks again, and warm regards from Italy!
I got into the NBA again around 2013 after a LONG hiatus that started right when Michael Jordan retired from the Bulls the last time. The company I work at had just hired a new guy around my age who liked basketball, and we became friends, and he thought I'd like it more than football, which I was falling out of love with thanks to CTE and the entire reaction to Colin Kaepernick's protests. I didn't live in a basketball hotbed, so I just didn't know anything about the NBA since, with precious few exceptions. One of the things I didn't know was if the Golden State Warriors existed anymore. I remembered them from Chris Mullins and Tim Hardaway, but I'd just not heard anything about them in the decade-plus since, and in the conversation I was having with him I learned that the Charlotte Hornets didn't exist anymore. Because my friend is much smarter than me, he said that they'd been rough for a long time but they had some new shooters that looked like they were going to be really good.
As a fresh-faced, brand-new NBA fan looking to root for a new team, I was down to two options, and I decided not to become a Warriors fan at that time, and instead decided to rep the closest thing I had to a hometown team: the Washington Wizards. Two roads diverge in a forest, etc.
I think I would like the Warriors and the Lakers more if their local announcers did not drive me up the wall.