The Golden State Warriors are the 10th team in league history to win at least 67 games in a regular season, and just the third group to accomplish that feat since the new millennium. Steph Curry is the MVP frontrunner, Draymond Green the presumptive Defensive Player of the Year, and Steve Kerr one of two viable candidates for Coach of the Year.
By measures objective and subjective, 2014-2015 is the best season in franchise history – save for 1974-1975, of course, when the Warriors won their only NBA championship. But according to Curry, he and his teammates will deem their nearly unmatched success irrelevant unless they bring a title back to the Bay for the first time in 40 years.
Via Yahoo’s Marc Spears:
Warriors All-Star Stephen Curry believes his team’s record season will be a bust if a new title banner isn’t finally added to the practice gym this year.
“For the players, it is,” Curry told Yahoo Sports. “No one will be happy for anything less. If we don’t win our last game this season it’s going to be a disappointing feeling, one where we felt like we fell short.”
Understandable.
Though the collective doesn’t consider Golden State a juggernaut, it should absolutely be considered an overwhelming title favorite based on regular season results alone. The Warriors’ +10.1 average point differential is the best mark since that of the champion 2007-2008 Boston Celtics, and they missed leading the league in both offensive and defensive rating by .1 points per 100 possessions.
Kerr’s squad scores in bunches and locks opponents down. It can play fast and slow, big and small. It’s long on playoff experience and boasts basketball’s best home-court advantage.
Curry should absolutely be thinking championship or bust – Golden State’s utter and varied dominance this season is worthy of that pressure. Would 2014-2015 really be a “failure” for the ‘Dubs if they don’t win a championship, though? Of course not.
Assuming Joe Lacob makes good on his promise to retain Green by paying the luxury tax, this is a team that figures to be in title contention for the next two seasons – at the very least. Curry, Green, and Klay Thompson are in their playing primes. Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala will age gracefully before their contracts expire after 2016-2017. And veteran free agents will surely consider taking a discount to play for a guaranteed winner in a marquee media market.
Falling short this season wouldn’t be the end for the Warriors, basically, and instead represent a step towards a Larry O’Brien Trophy most every eventual champion takes. Golden State is good enough that it might very well leap from playoff team to title-winner, though, a possibility that explains Curry’s all-or-nothing mentality.
But that doesn’t make it any less sensible. Championship or not, this season has been a rousing success for the Warriors – and promises that they’ll have more chances to achieve the ultimate one in the foreseeable future.
[Yahoo]
