Consider how tough the NBA’s Western Conference has been for two decades.
Back in the early 2000s, the Sacramento Kings built an all-time team around Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic. That team never made the NBA Finals, because the West also had a Lakers team with peak Shaq and a rising Kobe Bryant.
The Kings were succeeded by the Steve Nash-led Phoenix Suns, who were incredible for six seasons ... and never made the NBA Finals, primarily because of the the dominant San Antonio Spurs. The Rockets had Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, and struggled to get out of the first round.
The Mavericks were extraordinary in that decade, but were only eventually redeemed by winning the bizarre, amazing 2011 NBA championship. The Thunder rose from the dust to become a short-lived power that made all of one NBA Finals. The Spurs then returned to strangle the rest of the conference. The Clippers and Grizzlies had moments, but could never truly break through. The Blazers have bobbed up and down.
In this millennium, there have been so many really, really good teams in the West relegated to the dusty corner of our memory because they couldn’t break through and make the NBA Finals, let alone win it. The Lakers and Spurs dominated the conference the first 15 years of the 2000s: those two franchises represented the West in 12 of the first 15 NBA Finals of this millennium, six for L.A. and five for San Antonio. Dallas picked up two appearances, and Oklahoma City grabbed the last one.
And then came the Golden State Warriors.
The Warriors, who made the playoffs once in the first 13 years of the new millennium. The Warriors, who hadn’t been to the NBA Finals since 1975, who hadn’t even been to the conference finals since 1976! One of the most tragic, poorly run franchises in all of sports, sitting in a gold mine market with a crazed, loyal fandom that rarely had any reason to cheer.
If you were looking for the next West team to rise up into the void created by the self-immolation by the Lakers and the shrinking of the Spurs, you were not looking at the Warriors as an option. Yet here they are, making their fifth straight NBA Finals appearance, aiming at their fourth title this decade.
As you’ve surely been told by now, no other NBA team has been to five straight Finals since the Celtics’ historic streak in the 1960s. Not the Lakers of the Magic and Kareem era, not the Celtics of the Bird era, not the Bulls of the Jordan era, not the Lakers of the Shaq and Kobe era, not the Spurs of the Duncan era, none of the LeBron teams (in fairness, both only had him for four years this decade, not five). To run off this streak in such a competitive conference is just wild. The Warriors survived the end of the Spurs’ dominant stretch, perhaps the best of the Thunder, definitely the best Clippers teams ever, James Harden’s ascendance, the Rockets’ surge, and every other challenger that stood in their way.
Yes, the Warriors have one of the most stacked rosters ever. The core of it that made those first two NBA Finals and have finished the job in the West this season was entirely homegrown, with value picks from the NBA draft and smart free agent pick-ups. The two previous NBA Finals runs were helped by one of the biggest free agent coups of all-time in Kevin Durant, but this is part of the magic, too. The Warriors, who spent decades running out Todd Fullers and Marc Jacksons and Mike Dunleavys and Speedy Claxtons and Troy Murphys, a franchise whose biggest stars since Run TMC were Antawn Jamison, Jason Richardson, and Baron Davis — that team being good and well-run enough to land Kevin Durant in his prime is a miracle.
While there are rational arguments to despise the Warriors because they added Durant to a 73-win team, there’s no denying what a remarkable achievement this Finals streak is given all the context of the West’s excellence and the franchise’s history of mediocrity. It could all crumble any minute, especially given the heavy foreshadowing that Durant will leave this summer, but this is all a miracle.
Bemoan the Warriors, dislike them, root against them. But you can’t deny what an incredible thing they have achieved.