Made to Rule Part 1: Golden State Warriors

This is part 1 of the project Made to Rule: Dynasty Throwdown. To read the preface to this project, click here.

The Team by the Bay

There has never been an NBA team that has been as polarizing and hard to gauge as the Golden State Warriors. Their story is one of infinite enigmas. Historically dominant, playing the highest form of basketball ever seen, light years ahead of their rivals. This is Golden State. Finals chokers, signing mercenaries, two timelines strategy. This is also Golden State. The organization that pioneered the modern basketball that conquered the sport with the juggernaut death lineup is also the organization that drafted James Wiseman 2nd overall and paid for the most expensive NBA roster in history. That roster was not good enough to participate in the playoffs, and many were the articles and proclamations on the internet proclaiming the Warriors dynasty over. The Warriors dynasty is over, but the better question is how did it end, when did it end, and how did it begin?

The Warriors were until very recently the one indisputable dynasty of the 2010s across all sports, embodying the ultimate standard of excellence. The story of the Bay Area franchise helmed by their leader and GOAT Stephen Curry is one of extraordinary and unlikely triumph. This is what I find the most interesting aspect of the Warriors. The Warriors faced long odds to make the playoffs, let alone win championships. When Mark Jackson took over as GSW’s coach for the 2011-12 season, he assumed responsibility for a team that had made the playoffs once in 17 years. Upon becoming coach he guaranteed GSW would make the playoffs that year. The Warriors went 23-43, and Jackson was ridiculed for his unfulfilled promise.

Entering the 2012-13 season, the Warriors were seen as a long shot, a team too dependent on the health of Stephen Curry and his ankles. According to Bleacher Report in their season preview “The real problem with this Warriors team is that they are banking on the health of Andrew Bogut and Stephen Curry, which is not all that wise. Neither player is particularly durable and will likely miss at least some portion of the season.” Curry’s most important teammates included Andrew Bogut and David Lee, who arrived as part of a trade for Curry’s former backcourt partner Monta Ellis. The Warriors went on to have their best season in decades, as they went 47-35. This was year 1 of the Splash Brothers, as Curry and Klay Thompson quickly established themselves as the league’s deadliest 3 point shooting duo. Both were 40%+ 3 point shooters, and a team that was tied for the 21st best title odds at +15000 would go on to upset the Nuggets in 6 and give the Spurs all they could handle in a very competitive 6 game series. The Spurs would go on to win the West and lose the Finals in 7 games to the Miami Heat.

That year would establish Curry as a top 10 player, and the Warriors as a legitimate playoff team. But expectations had been raised, and after the Warriors went 51-31 and exited in the first round of the 2014 playoffs the pressure mounted on Mark Jackson. The fans and media saw the immense potential in their star 3 point shooting maestro, and Jackson was blamed for what was perceived as a disappointing 7 game loss to the Clippers. Jackson had been praised in 2013 for his “button pushing” that brought the best out of his players, but now he was surrounded by persistent skepticism and scrutiny surrounding his coaching. He was let go in the 2014 offseason, and TNT broadcaster Steve Kerr was brought in to become the new coach of the Warriors.

Kerr had been a 3 point specialist as a player who had contributed to Chicago and San Antonio championship teams, and now he was expected to bring out the best from the league’s two best sharpshooters. Kerr almost never got the chance to coach Curry’s splash bro, if one of the league’s most notorious trades that never was had been realized. This was the summer that the Timberwolves decided to trade their star forward Kevin Love, and the Warriors were one of the teams that were exhaustingly linked to the All-Star. Minnesota’s asking price for K-Love was clear: Klay Thompson. It would be either Klay Thompson or Kevin Love for GSW. This was the dilemma.

The way this would-be league shattering trade was nixed has become almost the stuff of legend among NBA writers and Warriors fans. Jerry West, the NBA legend and former Lakers executive celebrated for constructing past Laker dynasties, threatened to resign if the trade was consummated. Supported by Steve Kerr, West prevailed and the Warriors exited the Love sweepstakes. The Splash Brothers were kept together, and K-Love ended up with the Cavaliers where he would form the NBA’s newest Big 3 along with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.

This episode to me marks a true crossroads, as far as thinking of how dynasties are born. Many dynasties are born through acquisitions, big moves that create headlines and shake up entire rosters. This was the opposite though; the move that made the dynasty was a trade that was never made. The foresight exercised by West and Kerr was phenomenal, demonstrating how patience and internal development can be the best move for a young burgeoning team to make in its path towards success.

Kerr’s first season as coach of the Warriors was a smashing success. Kerr brought his experience with the Bulls and Spurs and molded a team that could generate high quality looks for its generational point guard and his backcourt splash bro. The team went 65-17, and Curry won his first MVP over James Harden. The Warriors got through the West with relative ease; their toughest challenge was in the second round against the Grit n Grind Grizzlies, prevailing in 6 games.

The Warriors got to their first Finals in 40 years, their opponent being the Cleveland Cavaliers led by LeBron. The Warriors were the favorites in the series, but there still existed skepticism regarding whether a “jump shooting team” like the Warriors could win the whole thing. The Warriors would catch a break after Kyrie went down in Game 1, and the Cavaliers would be forced to play Timofey Mozgov and Matthew Delladova significant minutes the rest of the finals.

Lebron and his crew did their best, but ultimately succumbed in 6 games. The Warriors celebrated their first championship in 40 years at Cleveland’s court, their death lineup featuring Draymond Green at center imposing their will upon the Cavs and the whole league. Andre Iguodala, credited for his defense on Lebron, famously won Finals MVP over Curry. This would become a topic for discourse over the years to come for the NBA media.

The following season proved to be an even bigger hit for the Warriors. The death lineup seemed better than ever, an unstoppable force, and a historic 24-0 start would herald the 73-9 record for the Warriors. The most dominant regular season of all time, nobody could question their prowess. All that was left was to cement the back to back; as the 96 Bulls would say “It don’t mean a thing without the ring”.

The 2016 playoffs was something else. If the Gods and Titans of Greek mythology were to come down and settle their scores on a basketball court, surely it would resemble the colossal battles of that postseason. The 2016 playoffs would forever alter the league, its aftershocks still felt to this day. There were countless worthy teams, but we will focus on the Cavaliers, Spurs, Thunder and of course Warriors.

2016: The Mother of All Battles

It is difficult to explain, 8 years later, just how brutal, how unforgiving the very top of the NBA was in 2016. The fate of the league would come down to those 4 superpowered teams and their larger than life superstars. The Cavaliers, pursuing their first ever championship that would break Cleveland’s infamous sports drought and fulfill Lebron’s promise of delivering the trophy to his hometown team. The Spurs, the model of perennial success and stability, with their legend Tim Duncan in his final postseason before retirement and a young Kawhi Leonard looking to take on the mantle as the new face of the Spurs. The Thunder, looking to finally break through and win as the doomsday clock of Kevin Durant’s impending free agency ticked ever closer. And of course the Warriors, hunting the ring that would cap off the greatest season of all time and announce them as the sports world’s newest dynasty.

The Cavaliers had a relative cakewalk in the East, but the West was an absolute murderers’ row;the Spurs won 67 games in a historically dominant season, but it was only good enough for the 2 seed as the Warriors won 73 games. The Thunder won 55 games in what was seen as a disappointing season amid all the angst of Durant’s looming free agency. The 3 seed Thunder faced the 2 seed Spurs in the second round in what was widely predicted by the experts as a comfortable win for the Spurs. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook proved the experts wrong, winning in 6 and sending Tim Duncan into retirement. The stage was set for Warriors-Thunder.

The Warriors had not had the smooth path people thought they’d have, with Curry going out with an ankle sprain in the 1st round. Nevertheless they got past the Rockets and Blazers, and with Curry back in the fold the matchup was set. The Warriors-Thunder matchup was one that had featured several notable moments in recent seasons. Kevin Durant’s career high of 54 points came against the Warriors(a personal record only broken in 2022) and Andre Iguodala and Russell Westbrook had traded epic game winners in the 2013-14 season. The most famous moment came in Curry’s instantly viral half court game winning shot in a February 2016 game at OKC. After hitting the shot Curry did the shimmy on the Thunder court. But now the stakes were higher than ever. The Western Conference lay in the balance, the mother of all battles set to commence.

In the interest of transparency, yours truly has been a Thunder fan for more than 15 years. Every game, every possession of this series had me on the edge. I could write endless pages of how those 10 or so days impacted me as a basketball fan, but since the Oklahoma City Thunder are not the main subject of this project, I’ll be succinct and mention the fact that the Thunder were not able to hold a 3-1 lead. Warriors in 7, and the rematch with the Cavs was set. We’ll leave it at that.

Cavs-Warriors 2016 is today seen as the modern NBA’s crowning moment, a heavyweight showdown that changed the league forever. But this mother of all battles got off to an inconspicuous start; if you had checked in after game 4, with the Warriors holding a 3-1 lead and set to close it out in 5, you would have thought “business as usual”. But then Lebron and Kyrie Irving summoned an otherworldly tide and went full supernova; three Ws, a chase down block and game winning 3 later, the Cavs had pulled off the impossible and won the championship in the most watched NBA game since Michael Jordan’s last Bulls game.

Lebron had won the 2016 Finals, the victor of the mother of all battles. He had fulfilled his promise to deliver a championship to Cleveland. His legacy was stronger than ever, and suddenly it seemed that no feat was out of the King’s reach. The Warriors had lost the mother of all battles, they had choked a 3-1 lead and their would-be dynasty laid in tatters.

Two blown 3-1 leads had defined the postseason. Twitter was awash with 3-1 memes. The Warriors and Thunder had committed the cardinal sin, and now they looked set to pay the price. A reckoning was coming in the offseason for both teams, one way or another.

Kevin Durant and Golden State: A Faustian Bargain

If the 2016 playoffs was the mother of all battles, the 2016 offseason was the NBA drama to end all dramas. The NBA and the social media ecosystem it inhabits will have a hard time replicating what went down in those summer days. NBA offseason drama is often its own breathing ecosystem, but in this particular summer the offseason would play a decisive role in the years to come. The NBA had just had a league-altering postseason, and now the chickens would come home to roost for the Warriors, Thunder and Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers sat atop their perch overlooking the NBA landscape. Triumphant they stood, led by their all-conquering king, unbothered by the rest of the league. What was there to fear? They had beaten the greatest team ever, and turned their 73-9 record into a punchline. Who could look Lebron in the eye? The reigning two-time MVP and the four-time scoring champion had each blown 3-1 leads. Both had been beaten by Lebron in the NBA finals. It seemed Lebron was set for a triumphant golden age.

From the perspective of a Thunder fan, the experience of that 2016 offseason was not one I would wish upon my worst enemy, but I would be lying if I said that Kevin Durant’s My Next Chapter came out of left field. The signs were there, the red flags impossible to miss. The indecision, the weird comments, the opaque scuttlebut leaking out. Lebron’s triumph only added to this, because every NBA fan knew how aware Durant was of his comparison to Lebron. “I’m tired of being second,” Durant had told Sports Illustrated in 2013. Lebron getting another ring certainly couldn’t be good. They say misery loves company. Durant had blown a 3-1 lead. Who else had blown a 3-1 lead that postseason? The very team that finished 2nd to Lebron.

I truly believe that had Golden State not blown the 3-1 lead, Durant to Golden State would have never materialized. Even then, back then I refused to believe that the NBA’s greatest scorer(and my NBA idol) would actually do the thing. He could go to the Celtics or Wizards. Maybe even the Knicks. But GSW was truly something else. I could go on about what My Next Chapter means to me as a Thunder fan and sports fan in general. Let’s just say the vibes that 4th of July were off.

This is where every discussion regarding the Warriors dynasty inevitably leads to. Much like the Astros’ sign stealing scandal, it is the crossroads that marks a before and after for a historically great team. The Warriors had enjoyed a transformative 4 seasons: a championship, two trips to the Finals, the 73-9 season, and two MVPs for Curry. Yet all of that achievement was superseded by the new reality of Kevin Durant’s arrival. The Warriors now had at their disposal the second and third greatest players in the league, their new shiny toy acquisition coming at the expense of their rival in Oklahoma that were within minutes of snatching their Western conference crown. The Warriors had added Kevin Durant to the team that won 73 games; they were the first team to blow a 3-1 lead in the Finals, but now they had assembled the NBA’s death star.

Much has been written about the story of Kevin Durant’s decision and the ramifications for Durant, Golden State, and the league as a whole. At its core it was a faustian bargain, one born out of convenience and mutual self-interest. Everything lined up for the marriage; the playoff results, the cap spike, the Bay Area’s off-the-court appeal. Golden State represented basketball nirvana for Durant; the opportunity to play in a tailor-made offense where he could fit in seamlessly, beat Lebron, and finally finish first.

As for the Warriors, they essentially reaped the rewards of what should have been a crushing defeat for their dynasty hopes. They blow the first ever 3-1 lead in the Finals, yet in doing so one can argue they lost the battle but won the war. They cheated death by having Kevin Durant fall into their lap as a result of pure circumstance.

In less than a month's time they had overcome the ghost of the 3-1 lead, and assembled a lineup so potent that no other team could dare hope to compete against. Outrage and indignation prevailed, but the Faustian bargain had been done. There was no going back.

Light Years Ahead

The Warriors would go on to dominate for the next 3 years. In 2016-17 they went 67-15 and lost only 1 game in the playoffs on their way to retaking the ring. They got revenge on the Cavaliers with Kevin Durant hitting a pivotal 3 point shot in Game 3. In 2017-28 GSW went 58-24 and stumbled through the playoffs, failing to sweep either of the first rounds before being pushed to 7 games by the Chris Paul-James Harden Rockets. GSW then swept the severely outmatched Cavaliers in the finals, with only Game 1 going down to the wire. The Warriors beat the Cavaliers back to back years. Kevin Durant won Finals MVP both years.

Entering the 2018-19 season, there seemed to be an air of stagnation and disenchantment, as if the Warriors themselves were bored of their own inevitability. As the season progressed, more strife came to the surface, much of it centered around Kevin Durant. The Warriors finished with a record of 57-25, but more cracks kept showing as they dropped multiple games to the Clippers and Rockets in the playoffs. Durant went down with an injury, and GSW would go on to play most of the remaining postseason without the 2x Finals MVP. After sweeping Portland, GSW was set for an unprecedented finals matchup against the Toronto Raptors

Pride and Agony

The Warriors were facing a balanced Raptors team with plenty of size and experience. They were a terrifying defensive squad. Kawhi Leonard was the leading man, and Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Danny Green, and Serge Ibaka provided invaluable playoff experience. After 4 games, the Raptors were up 3-1 and poised to deliver the finishing blow on the dilapidated Warriors. Kevin Durant had other ideas.

Durant defied the odds and started in one of the most reality shattering games you could ever see. After 11 minutes Durant went down with an Achilles injury, ending his season for good. Toronto fans celebrated what seemed as the final domino of their triumph, but the GSW dynasty refused to buckle and somehow pulled out a 1-point win to head back to Oracle still alive. I will admit that watching Klay Thompson erase a 7 point deficit with 3 minutes left triggered the old trauma from 2016. It was not pleasant.

If Game 5 was insane, Game 6 was an absolute maelstrom of madness. GSW kept fighting, every injury putting ever more responsibility on the shoulders of Curry and Klay Thompson. Thompson was lighting it up and carrying the Warriors, but then he went down towards the end of the 3rd. Even with Thompson out, GSW still found a way to keep it close, but at the end Curry missed the potential game-winning 3 and the Raptors prevailed. GSW’s hopes of a historic 3 peat had been vanquished in the most costly way possible.

The Warriors had been closed out at home, their last game at Oracle Arena before moving to San Francisco, and two of their most important players had gone down in successive fashion to major injury. 5 straight finals and 3 championships had marked an all-time run in sports, but now GSW was defeated, exhausted and crushed physically and mentally. An era had come to an end.

Gap Years

Golden State entered the 2019-20 season as a wounded animal. Kevin Durant had left for Brooklyn and Klay Thompson was out for the year. From the vaunted Big 4 only 2 remained. Golden State’s roster left much to be desired when you looked past the top guys. The odds were already stacked against a sixth straight Finals run, and the odds only got longer when Curry went down in only the 4th game of the season.

It quickly became apparent that the season was a lost cause, as the team imploded without their talisman. By the time that the COVID outbreak paralyzed the season, GSW had a 15-50 season. They were the worst team in the league. Not one of the worst. The worst. They were at the very bottom of the standings and were not invited to the Orlando Disney bubble designed to finish out the season.

GSW now found themselves in unfamiliar territory. They had gone from one extreme to another. They had been an all-conquering dynasty, now they were picking #2 in the draft. The draft would be the first big test for the GSW front office following the end of the Kevin Durant era. After the Timberwolves selected Anthony Edwards with the #1 pick, the choice came down to between LaMelo Ball and James Wiseman. After much deliberation, GSW went with Wiseman.

The James Wiseman saga has followed the Warriors ever since that day, clouding the discourse around the franchise, serving as reliable kindle for all the two timelines jokes. It doesn’t help that he couldn’t even stay on the court. Wiseman can very well be seen as the Greg Oden of the 2020s, an excruciating hypothetical that simply didn’t pan out. This selection is why I believe the Golden State Warriors organization cannot be seen as a truly dynastic organization. You were given an opportunity to build a new marble pillar to your structure. The pillar turned out to be jello.

The 2020-21 season for the Warriors became clouded by another injury to Klay Thompson that sidelined him for another full season. With no splash brother and no fellow MVP year, Curry went on to have arguably the most dominant individual season he had had since 2015-16, the year of his second MVP. Curry finished 3rd in the MVP voting, and GSW ended the season with a 39-33 record. The Warriors lost back-to-back games in the play-in tournament and missed the playoffs for a 2nd straight year, but Curry had reestablished himself as a top 5 player worthy of carrying his team. The Warriors were on to something.

The Return of the Splash Brothers

Entering the 2021-22 season, there existed what was essentially a power vacuum at the top of the Western Conference. The Suns were conference’s defending champion and on paper the best roster, but were far from a juggernaut. The Lakers were two years removed from their bubble ring and made the splash of the summer by trading for Russell Westbrook. The Clippers as always were a big if, and other teams like the Nuggets were dealing with injuries. In this environment, it definitely was not implausible for the Warriors to reestablish themselves as a serious contender. They finally had roster stability, with Andrew Wiggins settling in and Klay Thompson set to return.

Not only did the Warriors reestablish themselves, they turned back the clock to those heady days where Golden State imprinted its style of basketball and became the toast of the basketball world. They were playing like a team again, the beautiful basketball was back and it seemed like the sky was the limit. Coupled with the two Los Angeles teams flaming out of contention due to injuries and poor chemistry, it was starting to feel a lot like 2015 again.

The Warriors finished with a 53-29 record, good for the 3rd seed behind the Suns and Grizzlies. After beating the Nuggets in 5 in the first round, the Warriors set up a showdown with the 2 seed Grizzlies, a team that seemed to revel in antagonizing GSW. It was seen as a difficult matchup for Golden State, and a personal challenge for Stephen Curry himself to get revenge on the opponent that sent him home the previous season. From here on out Golden State’s legacy, as well as Steph’s, would be on the table.

Steph Wants his Belt Back

The Memphis Grizzlies had built up a reputation as a bunch of bullies. Arrogant, loud mouthed, and aggressive, they wanted that Bad Boys aura really badly. They had eliminated the Warriors from even making the playoffs the previous year, and now Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks wanted to inflict further pain on GSW and mark a passing of the torch in the West. The Grizzlies had home court advantage, and expectations were high.

In Game 1 the Warriors showed their old resilience as they weathered a Draymond Green ejection and a Steph Curry off night to win by 1 point, with Klay Thompson hitting the game winning 3 and playing clutch defense on Morant. The Grizzlies won Game 2, but the Warriors would go on to win Games 3 and 4 in San Francisco. Game 3 was a 30 point rout, but Game 4 was a close win that went down to the wire. The Warriors spent the whole game trailing, but Steph Curry inspired a 4th quarter comeback and Golden State won by 3. Once again the Warriors had to fight through adversity as Steve Kerr had to miss the game due to COVID.

With the Warriors up 3-1, the series shifted to Memphis for Game 5, in what seemed likely to be the curtain call for the talented but immature Grizzlies. The Warriors were brimming with confidence, and had been riding a wave of positive momentum all season long. But in what seemed certain to be the series clincher for the Warriors instead turned into an absolute beat down of farcical proportions. The Grizzlies came out looking to inflict punishment on the Warriors and scored 77 points in the first half alone. They had a lead of 27 by the half, which grew to 52 by the end of the third quarter.

Twitter was on fire, NBA fans asking what had happened to the Warriors and if they were alright. It was a brutal humiliation, and if the scoreboard wasn’t enough the Memphis players and their fans made sure to maximize the pain. Whoop that Trick. Whoop that Trick. All night long the taunts rained down on what seemed to be an old washed dynastic team meeting its end game. The Grizzlies looked poised to pounce on the suddenly vulnerable Warriors, pull off the 3-1 comeback and resign the Warriors to history.

But as it seemed that Golden State’s world was crumbling, Steph Curry and Draymond Green simply laughed and joined in on the fun. It was at that moment that I became convinced that nothing could stop the Warriors from at the very least retaking the West, if not winning the whole darn thing. To see the veteran leaders of the Golden State Warriors laughing and smiling in the middle of an absolute beat down that should have made them drop their heads in deep embarrassment was a statement in and of itself.

The Warriors were unbothered, and while the unproven Grizzlies were chirping and soaking in the Whoop that Trick vibes, the fact remained that they still were down 3-2 in the series and facing an elimination game in the Warriors arena. Skepticism over Memphis’ ability to win in a hostile road environment still persisted, and that skepticism was again proven right as the Warriors won Game 6 and closed out the Grizzlies in 6. Whoop that Trick was reduced to a mere footnote.

The subsequent Western Conference Finals were a mere confirmation for the Warriors, as the widely expected showdown with Kevin Durant’s Phoenix Suns never materialized. Instead they faced the Dallas Mavericks, who put up little resistance as they were ousted in a gentleman’s sweep. The Warriors won back the West, and after 2 years in the wilderness GSW was back in the Finals for the first time since 2019. One last team stood in their way of regaining their crown.

Splash Bros vs Leprechauns

In the greatest ever era of Golden State basketball, the Warriors had been to the Finals five previous times. For a team that had been to the Finals so many times, the Warriors had faced an incredibly limited number of rivals from the East. 2 to be exact. 4 times they had faced the same opponent(LeBron’s Cavs) and the following year they faced the Raptors.

But by 2022 both of these teams were rebuilding and far away from contending, meaning that this Warriors core was guaranteed to face a team that they had never faced before. Enter the Boston Celtics.

For the past few decades the Celtics have arguably been the most consistently successful organization in the NBA. They had won a championship in 2008, and since then have competed every year amongst the best in the East. So consistent have they been that since that 2008 championship they have only missed the playoffs once(2014). The Celtics never truly rebuilt, courtesy of the generous bounty bestowed upon them by the Brooklyn Nets in 2013, and had enjoyed consistent regular season success.

The Celtics had made several recent trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, but had fallen short each time. Finally in 2022 they got over the hump, and entered the NBA Finals as a heavy favorite according to analytics models such as FiveThirtyEight. They had a deeper and younger team than the Warriors, with wings Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown leading the way. On paper, the Celtics were poised to exploit a lot of favorable match ups.

The teams split the first two games, and in the first Finals game played at Boston’s TD Garden in over a decade, the Celtics won comfortably to go up 2-1. The Celtics were looking good in the series, and the outlook for the Warriors seemed to grow ever more grim. They would need something special to turn the series around.

Chef Curry’s Finest Special

In Game 4 the expectation was that Boston’s home court advantage would propel the Celtics to the commanding 3-1 lead. Instead, what ended up unfolding was what can quite possibly be considered Curry’s finest performance of his career. The star guard produced 43 points on 14-26 shooting, including 7 back-breaking 3 pointers. Maybe even more stunning were the 10 boards he grabbed, highlighting his surprising and usually overlooked ability to secure rebounds against bigger players. The Stephen Curry that arrived into the NBA from Davidson, with his skinny frame and finesse style of play, wouldn’t have dreamt of getting double digit rebounds in an NBA Finals game. For a star in the NBA to sustain greatness and reach new heights, complacency is never an option. Steph had quietly become one of the most physical players in the league, just as capable as scoring in the paint as from outside the arc. As far as the Celtics were concerned, this was very bad news.

GSW’s role players played their part to near perfection. Guys like Jordan Peele(14 points), Kevon Looney(11 rebounds), and Andrew Wiggins(17 points, 16 rebounds) asserted their will and made TD Garden theirs. On the other hand, Celtics star Jayson Tatum turned into a turnover machine, his shot leaving him as the bricks piled up(8-23 shooting with 6 turnovers). Most markedly, the juggernaut Celtics, who were supposed to be in their fortress and their crowd, looked fragile, while the Warriors seemed unflappable and content with outworking and beating up on the Cs.

There is nothing more frightening for basketball fans when the other team is led by a legendary player who is cooking and is backed up by a supporting cast that is owning the moment. Game 4 was very much the turning point. GSW won Games 5 and 6 and celebrated on Boston’s court. Curry won Finals MVP in a career defining moment. Tatum finished the Finals with 23 turnovers and 31.7% shooting from the field; he ended the postseason with the ignominious mark of 100 total turnovers.

The champagne flowed, and in the following days proclamations were made of the definitive return of the Golden State dynasty, and how the Warriors would run the league just like the old days. After all, they had just steamrolled their way through the entire playoffs. They had managed to actually pull off the two-timeline thing. Or so it seemed.

A Not so Golden State of Mind

As great as the Warriors had played in the 2022 playoffs, the numbers as well as the eye test told every honest watcher that such a level of dominance was not sustainable. GSW’s role players had played like All-Stars during the season and especially the playoffs. As great as Curry was, he would not have won the championship without Andrew Wiggins, Kevon Looney, Gary Payton II, and especially Jordan Poole playing out of their minds. Many of Golden State’s players significantly overperformed that season, per fivethirtyeight. It was going to be hard to replicate that success during the 2022-23 season. Most of the championship roster was coming back intact, and there was optimism that the Warriors could recreate the magic of the previous year with some luck.

Instead Golden State turned on itself before the season began.

Draymond Green and Jordan Poole on the same team. Like oil and vinegar it was only a matter of time before this duo made things toxic, and that time was apparently during training camp in October 2022. If the Laker dynasty featured the Kobe and Shaq feud as its defining discord, this was certainly Golden State’s response. Draymond Green punching Poole certainly set the tone for the season. This incident has frequently been placed in the context of contract disputes; Jordan Poole as well as Andrew Wiggins were in line for contract extensions. Problem was that Green as well as Klay Thompson wanted their own hefty extensions as compensation for being part of Golden State’s original championship core.

The two-timeline approach had seemingly divided Golden State into two camps, and with so many mouths to feed it was inevitable that someone would be left hungry. At the time, it appeared that Green would be the odd man out. With this in mind, the 4x champion and newly burgeoning podcaster did what any NBA player would do when your team is about to begin the hunt for back-to-back titles: embrace the pettiness and go on a season-long side quest of displaying how deep you’re willing to indulge in playing the game. And by game, I don’t mean the game of basketball.

And just like that, GSW's title defense became a farce. Warriors dysfunction became a staple of NBA talk, and Green’s podcast overshadowed the actual basketball on the court. The Warriors seemed unfocused and routinely stinked it up wherever they went. Their 11-30 record on the road was a black eye for the champions. So was Klay Thompson feeling the need to count how many rings he got to the Grizzlies bench.

Golden State finished the season 44-38, good enough for the 6 seed. They faced the upstart Sacramento Kings in the 1st round, who were back in the playoffs after a lengthy absence. The Kings were buoyed by a raucous crowd, whose Light the Beam chant defined their breakout season. Despite the Kings outplaying the Warriors for large stretches of the series, Golden State leaned on its experience and prevailed in 7. Curry again imposed his will in the decisive moments, pouring 50 points, while the ultra-experienced Kevon Looney grabbed 21 rebounds. The two seized control over the game in the 3rd quarter, when Sacramento’s inexperience really showed.

Still, Golden State had been shown to be far removed from its former dynastic form. After all, Harrison Barnes missed a wide open shot in Game 4 that would have put GSW in a 3-1 hole and on course for an early trip to Cancun.

After surviving Sacramento, the Warriors faced the Lakers in what was the NBA’s dream matchup. Featuring the two biggest stars in Curry and Lebron, as well as two of the league’s most well-known teams, the series generated a lot of hype. The interesting thing about this matchup is that the Lakers, even after spending six years stuck in the lottery, had always had the Warriors’ number, irrespective of how stacked they were. Even though Golden State had home court advantage, they were unable to contain the Lebron-Anthony Davis star duo which feasted on GSW’s lack of size in the paint. In 2023 it was the Lakers’ turn to have role players pop off as D'angelo Russell and Austin Reeves each averaged 14 points, while Jordan Poole was relegated to a fringe role off the bench. The Warriors fell in 6 games. Remarkably, it was Golden State’s first ever loss in the Western Conference playoffs under Steve Kerr.

Draymond Enters his Backpack Era

Things didn’t get any better for the Warriors the following season. Jordan Poole was shipped off to the basketball Siberia that is Washington, and Draymond Green got his extension. This should have guaranteed a happy Draymond, and a happy Draymond would pave the way for one last run for this dynastic core. The expectations were that the Warriors were poised to bounce back, and make this a season to remember.

This was indeed a season to remember. Just not for the reasons Warriors fans were hoping for.

To list every single incident, controversy and escapade Draymond Green featured in would make this long article even longer. We can just limit it to the on-court stuff and the episodes with Rudy Gobert and Jusuf Nurkic and forbear dipping into the weeds of Draymond’s off the court media empire of podcasts and documentaries and TNT guest appearances.

But what I do find compelling about this whole saga is what it says about the Golden State franchise, and the degree of influence to which Green exercises over it. This is especially in stark contrast to another member of Golden State’s championship trio, the ever more malcontent Klay. Klay had been struggling badly, leading to ever persistent questions about whether he’d get sent to the bench. The whispers were persistent, and the inescapable reality that Klay was set to become a free agent after not getting the extension he wanted loomed over everyone in Golden State.

The mortality of the GSW big 3 was in the balance, and for the first time it seemed that Curry’s steadying presence as the anchor of the Warriors that kept everyone united was not enough The chaotic dysfunctional influence of Draymond was unyielding- like a hurricane, it eviscerated anything and everything in its way. Green had learned the trick of how power games are played in professional sports, and he had cajoled his way to kingmaker status in the Warriors organization. Essentially Draymond made himself untouchable, and with the franchise GOAT unwilling to take a stand against his friend(and the coach placating his worst tendencies) the organization was essentially his.

The clear loser in all this was Klay Thompson. With the Warriors spiraling both on and off the court, and a clear pecking order established, Klay and his camp grew ever more distant from the Warriors organization. Klay doesn’t feel appreciated. This would be the message coming out from his camp for the rest of the season and into the off season.

Golden State’s championship culture had been tarnished by one man’s ego and the unwillingness of the organization to check said man’s ego. The season still needed to be played out, and sport will always offer opportunities to those willing to take them, but in every practical sense the season(and dynasty) was cooked.

Draymond as a difference-making winner in the NBA was finished. Now he was living out Jordan Poole’s description of him back in 2022. The Backpack Era had truly arrived.

Not Enough Curry Sauce Around

Even Stephen Curry couldn’t keep Golden State in step with the top dogs of the league. The NBA is getting increasingly younger, and with the Western Conference full of young squads featuring talented hungry stars the Warriors simply did not inspire the same degree of fear. Of course you still saw shades of the old dynastic Warriors: wins against the Celtics, Bucks and Lakers on national television evoked feelings of Warriors teams past. Curry’s heroics, Green’s antics and the general dynamism of the supporting cast in making winning plays seemed to justify for Golden State’s defenders that they still were very much an ongoing dynasty.

Yet in a loaded West even a hot finish to end the regular season was not enough for the Warriors to make the playoffs. A bad loss to the Pelicans in the penultimate game of the season condemned them to the 10th seed and a matchup with the Kings. The Kings would host the game, but the Warriors were still fancied by most to prevail, with memories of the previous year’s first round series still fresh.

What the remaining hold-out defenders of the dynasty hoped would be the launchpad for a last-dance type of run for the Warriors instead ended up being a massacre of Golden State’s dynasty remnants. The Kings and the fans finally got to Light the Beam at the expense of GSW. Sure it came one year late, but who’s counting? You could argue that the Kings somehowmanaged to get the last laugh. The endgame had come for the once invincible Warriors.

Especially as far as Klay Thompson was concerned.

Steph Curry’s splash bro went 0-10 and ended up with the unthinkable amount of 0 points. As he walked off the court it was evident that a lot was going through his head, first and foremost as far as his future with the Golden State Warriors was concerned. Had he just played his last game with Steph and the Warriors?

As it turned out in the summer, there was no turning back.

Golden State’s Sunset

All this leads us to the present day. The Warriors are in a position that can be described as stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have been passed by several competitors in the west, and their roster is composed of players that are either too old or not ready enough to contribute to a championship contender. They could conceivably use players such as Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody to trade for a more established star, but the Golden State front office doesn’t seem inclined to make such a move.

Stephen Curry continues to play at a superstar level, and enjoys almost unrivaled popularity among today’s athletes. Yet contending for a fifth ring does not seem to be in the cards for him and Draymond, who with the departure of Klay and Jordan Poole has essentially completed his power grab within the Warriors organization.

Golden State’s roster is talented, and can compete with the league’s best on certain nights, but barring a major trade in the near future the title window seems shut for good. As of Christmas day in 2024 the Warriors are 15-13, 8 games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder atop the West.

Conclusion & Takeaways

Having gone through a rewind of more than a decade of Golden State basketball, it is finally time to try to draw some takeaways on this particular dynasty.

Suffice to say that I am most certainly not a fond admirer of this team and its cast of personalities; however, I will point out that this was not always the case. In a pre-dynasty time of Warriors basketball, I had nothing but respect and fondness for the young fun rambunctious team from the bay. I supported the Warriors in their maiden NBA Finals appearance of this era, and was glad to see them break their 40 year drought.

This is to say that the fact that we are even able to discuss the Warriors as a modern dynasty is a miracle in and of itself, and speaks volumes of the organization and its leading men. No team has had it better the last decade and a half than the Golden State Warriors. They were built through the draft and shrew trades, and they deserve nothing but credit for how they built this thing.

But this is Made to Rule: Dynasty Throwdown, and we at the business end. It’s time to go in.

The first thing to keep in mind is that Golden State benefited greatly from a series of very fortunate breaks. Chief among them was the once-in-a-lifetime loophole in the salary cap that allowed the Warriors to stay under the cap and make a run at Kevin Durant in the Summer of 2016. KD’s impact on the dynasty is not just big, it’s fundamental to its essence.

There can be no question that without Kevin Durant, there is no dynasty. And no amount of glazing and pontificating about the superiority of Golden State’s style of basketball can change that fact. As great as Curry was and still is, building a dynasty with him as the figurehead in a league full of apex predators like Lebron, Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard would have been unfathomable. The numbers speak for themselves: Golden State’s ring count without KD stands at 2. It took Curry 6 trips to the Finals to finally claim a Finals MVP.

If we look at the more recent history(following the 4th championship in 2022), there have been countless explanations for Golden State’s swift and sudden demise. I believe that many of these explanations (the two-timeline approach, the Warriors core getting old, the young guys not being ready, Steve Kerr, Bob Myers leaving, gentrification), are interesting and have merit, but after spending all this time researching for this project I have become convinced that GSW’s ills can be traced back to one dude and what he embodies in the Golden State organization.

This is such a touchy topic for so many NBA people, especially with regards to the media. With every Draymond fumble it became a question of how the folks at ESPN would handle the explosive grenade that this guy represents. The reason for this is quite simple, as I pointed out earlier on here when discussing the contract extension talks involving him and Klay Thompson.

Green is a very powerful character in the NBA landscape. This is a guy who can assault fellow players on the court, get suspended, and randomly show up for TNT’s All-Star coverage later in the year. He has had carte blanche to taunt and belittle his rivals while enjoying privileged status among the NBA’s veterans that make up the leadership of the Player’s Union.

He started off as a highly valuable swiss-army-knife role player who took David Lee’s spot as the starting Power Forward for the Warriors. His singular passing skills and positional versatility on defense gave the Warriors the ability to play a unique style of basketball. They could impose their terms on rivals who simply couldn’t come up with answers to Golden State’s matchup advantages.

You can argue that Draymond playing center in the 2015 finals was what won Golden State the championship, that maybe he should have been the Finals MVP over Iguodala.

That was in 2015. Then came the suspension in the 2016 Finals for hitting Lebron and the blown 3-1 lead. Then came Kevin Durant, two chips, and a very public breakup.

“We don’t need you. We won without you. Leave.”

Next came the pandemic, two lost seasons, and another championship in ‘22. Dray punched Jordan Poole, Poole left, and then Klay left. Suspensions and on-court altercations have been plentiful.

So much has changed for the Warriors, but Green is still there. He has managed to outlast fellow 2012 draftee Harrison Barnes as well as Kevin Durant and Klay Thmpson. Even general manager Bob Myers has left the scene.

Not only has Draymond Green outlasted all these guys, he has become the unquestioned authoritative voice in that organization. He has been enabled by the ownership and Kerr to act out and embrace his worst tendencies. As for Steph, he has struggled to establish himself as the captain of the team as of late, deferring to Draymond after failing to hold him accountable for his actions. Green won the power struggle, and with a multi year contract secured, his status in the franchise is secure. Only Curry enjoys a more privileged status in the organization.

It’s as if Travis Kelce was running the Chiefs as his personal fiefdom, with Andy Reid offering excuses and Mahomes acquiescing while watching on as a spectator.

So the most important takeaway that I can take away from this is this: Don’t get high from your own supply.

The Warriors ended up believing their own hype. The organization that can never stop gloating to their friends in the media believed that they were light years ahead of the competition. That is the downside of coming up with all these goofy slogans. It’s all good if you just repeat it publicly to the world but internally remain focused and grounded.

What happens when you let it get to your head? You come to believe that you never needed Durant anyways. You chose Draymond over KD. You chose Draymond over Klay. You chose Draymond over Jordan Poole. You take all the wrong lessons from that very improbable 2022 championship. You double down on the two-timeline approach(this franchise does love its slogans) and systematically enabled Draymond while butchering the development of younger players.

Golden State’s track record in the draft for the past 10+ years is not great. James Wiseman says it all. They fancied themselves the Spurs, but all along they were just the Bulls. NBA scribes warned them that all that two-timeline talk was just foolishness, but of course Golden State ignored all the warnings. After all, why should the brilliant minds from the bay ever listen to voices from outside the walls?

At the end of the day, championships are what count. Winning two championships is amazing, winning 4 is ludicrous. I can only wish for the Thunder to be able to reach even half of what the Warriors managed. Their place in history is secure.

But comparing them to other dynasties, I remain steadfast that they are a step below other dynasties such as the 80s Lakers and Celtics, 90s Bulls, the Spurs, and the early 2000s Lakers. The Warriors had the best 5-year run any team has enjoyed in sports, winning the West 5 straight years and securing 3 chips, but outside of that 5-year stretch consistency has been far too few.

Compare that to the Spurs who competed for decades, and the Bulls who 3-peated twice. Teams such as the Chiefs and Dodgers have managed to win for nearly a decade and dominate their respective divisions without any down years. For these teams, there is no need for excuses.

At an individual player level, how Steph Curry has handled Green is something that for me has to factor into the whole legacy discussion. Jordan handled Pippen and Rodman and got the most out of them in the pursuit of championships. Kobe felt that Shaq was hurting the Lakers chances of winning and forced him out; though in the short term it hurt the Lakers, in the long term it worked out as Kobe won 2 straight rings with a team molded in his image.

I can also make the same argument with regards to how Mahomes provided Kelce with guidance that allowed him to become more disciplined, or with how Brady managed to take a motley crew of cast offs that included Antonio Brown and lead them to Super Bowl glory in Tampa Bay.

Jordan, Kobe, Mahomes, Brady. They all led their men. They all drove the bus and molded their respective teams in their image.

In Curry’s case, he never managed to reign Green in. Green’s selfishness has hurt the organization and diminished GSW’s viability as a dynasty-level organization. He has added to Curry’s burden instead of lessening it. Had Steph managed to assert his presence in the organization, there would have been an opportunity to present a united front and force Draymond to either change for the good of the organization, or leave.

Instead Steph has assumed a passive role, and now the Warriors are truly Draymond’s team, not Steph’s. The worst timeline for the Warriors became realized, and now with every new Draymond antic you can see Steph and Steve Kerr twist themselves into pretzels trying to talk themselves into believing how it’s not actually a big deal and everything will be fine.

I don’t believe that Steph Curry is a bad leader. He has proven to be a good leader, great even, and is a positive role model for young basketball players who have been inspired by his revolutionary style of player.

But when you are trying to build and sustain a dynasty that can rival all that came before and all that are yet to come, the standard can only be impossibly high. Curry proved unable to provide order on his own team, and unlike Jordan, Kobe, Mahomes, and Brady, he has become a passenger on his own team, surrounded by chaos and dysfunction.

The next part of Made to Rule: Dynasty Throwdown will cover baseball’s trouble child, the Houston Astros and their story. Coming later this week.