The Golden State Warriors have a right to feel disrespected.
For the duration of a historically dominant romp through the regular season, many league followers refused to acknowledge Steve Kerr’s team as a prohibitive championship favorite. After Golden State won its first title in 40 years by dispatching of the postseason field with relative ease, the collective voice of those doubters grew louder than ever before. And as the Warriors prepare to embark on the quest for a repeat, some fans and odds-makers continue to stress they won’t be able to do it – using the reigning champions’ “luck” last spring and early summer as justification for that opinion.
But skepticism within the league remains a bit more nuanced. Kyrie Irving and Doc Rivers are the two biggest names to publicly comment on the fortuitous nature of Golden State’s championship run.
The Cleveland Cavaliers point guard recently said the NBA Finals would have been a “different series” if both he and Kevin Love were healthy. The Los Angeles Clippers coach, meanwhile, made headlines by telling Grantland’s Zach Lowe that “you need luck in the West. Look at Golden State.” Rivers backtracked ever so slightly shortly thereafter, saying that while the Warriors “deserved” to win a title, he “wishes” that they would have had to face his Clippers or the San Antonio Spurs.
Frankly, this entire discussion is moot. Every champion in league history has been the beneficiary of serendipitous circumstances one way or another, but that doesn’t take away from the accomplishment of winning a Larry O’Brien Trophy. Anyone saying otherwise is simply wrong.
Golden State knows that, and probably even understands the context-driven quips by people like Irving and Rivers, too. But that doesn’t mean Steph Curry and company aren’t tired of so frequently hearing their championship merit called into question – and the reigning MVP responded to more of it on Tuesday in a perfectly hilarious and sarcastic manner.
Below is a quick list of some of the accomplishments and accolades for which Curry might have been apologizing.
- A NBA championship
- Andre Iguodala’s Finals MVP award
- A 66-16 regular season record
- The league’s best net rating by 4.5 points, second-ranked offense, and top-ranked defense
- His MVP award
- Draymond Green’s runner-up finish in Defensive Player of the Year voting
- Steve Kerr’s runner-up finish in Coach of the Year voting
- Curry and Klay Thompson’s First and Third Team All-NBA selections, respectively
- Green and Andrew Bogut’s First And Second Team All-Defense selections, respectively
The Warriors will officially begin their title defense on October 27. And if their salty preseason disposition is any indication, Curry and his teammates will be out for more vengeance than before.
