The Golden State Warriors and the chase for 73 wins
Every NBA fan, if it is not their team in question, is afraid of the two words “NBA dynasty”. It means the team they love, that they follow whole-heartedly and undergo its every up and down has to play second fiddle to a more dominant, a more annihilating force of Basketball hegemony. The die-hard NBA fans will tell you becoming a dynasty in the current NBA setup is next to impossible.
With cap restrictions and half the teams entering the league with max-level cap rooms, it is only a matter of time before some franchise throws an insubordinate amount of money at the player who might be key to your team.
The stars are generally immune to such greed but for the bench guys, the energy guys, the role players, it takes about one season of stellar performance to become coveted free agents.
With such turmoil, hardly any team fields the same 12 players for two consecutive seasons. There will always be that one guy who outperforms, who in spite of being on a Restricted Free-Agent contract gets millions of dollars thrown to him, an amount which the team having his bird rights is in no position to match or doesn’t want to, depending on the scenario.
Just ask Tristian Thompson and the poker game the Cavaliers and Thompson played for much of last year’s free agency. And just like that, your team is short of a key energy guy, a key contributor, a key scorer. The cycle repeats.
There are a few things common across every NBA dynasty, though. A good coach, excellent role players, the right balance of youth players and veterans, good management and players buying in on the team philosophy. And most importantly, a truly transcendent superstar.
A superstar who defies standards, who defies expectations, a player who’s every move, every action influences the game in ways the SportsVU cameras do not catch. The Bill Russell Celtics had all of these things, which is why they are the benchmark when it comes to NBA dynasties. The Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls had it too. And as it turns out so do the Steph Curry Warriors.
Meteoric rises in professional sports are so few and far in between, you can actually count all such instances on your fingers. Sport doesn’t work that way. Generally, it is a slow, steady and painful climb to the top involving missed opportunities and bucket-loads of heartbreaks. But sometimes a team or a franchise depicts such inexplicable improvement that you cannot help but marvel the beauty of their accomplishments.
The case with Golden State has been somewhat similar. In what was touted as LeBron James’s league, soon to be Kevin Durant’s once LeBron decides to yield the torch, the Golden State Warriors in the past two years have wrenched the power so decisively and with such force that they have literally thrown conventional wisdom out of the window. At the helm of it all has been Stephen Curry.
Stephen Curry: Changing the way we play basketball
Stephen Curry is dominating the game of basketball and changing its perception in ways that have not been seen since the time of Michael Jordan. No longer do kids aspire to be 6’8 and all muscles. Now all every kid wants to do is hit threes, tap his chest and point to the sky.
It is testimony to the change Curry has brought into the league that the Three-Point Contest at the All-Star weekend, once almost a neglected event is among the most watched and eagerly awaited events of the festivity. The festivity which also features the dunk contest, long been considered the absolute test of basketball prowess.
Stephen Curry is bending defences and game plans in ways that are giving coaches collective nightmares. No longer is establishing a defensive position just outside the three-point line considered fail-safe. For years the 3 pointer, considered a difficult shot in its own stead, was considered inefficient.
With the advent of Curry and his mind-numbing efficiency, the shift in strategy and focus could not be more prominent. His game-winner against the Oklahoma City Thunder from 38 feet was such a dagger that over those six freeze-frame seconds,
Andre Roberson who has worked really hard in becoming an excellent defender and prides himself in his ability, could do nothing but watch the ball soar rainbow-like, right up to the rafters and splash through the net.
His position? A yard outside the three point line. Roberson may have blamed the basketball gods. Commentators and coaches blamed him. It didn’t matter. The game was over, the Warriors had won and Stephen Curry had once again done things that were once considered unfathomable.
Stephen Curry and his game have changed the boundaries of what is acceptable so drastically, that on a collegiate level where averaging 4 made three-pointers a game was considered so difficult that just 11 years ago, not a single player was capable of doing it, 30 players this season have done it.
Punishing a mismatch when an opposition big man switches on Curry after a screen no longer incites a need to trick him and draw a foul. Instead, Curry just rises up and shoots over the outstretched arm of the hapless big guy.
Finishing a fast break at the rim is no longer the efficient way to do it. Instead, Curry pulls up on a dime and drains a fast break three, all during the time when the opposition defender is backpedalling hoping to contest the shot at the rim. Double-teaming him is no longer an out since every one of the Warrior players is capable of manufacturing looks at the rim or more easily make a wide open three point shot. And yet Curry is just a bigger piece of the pie when it comes to the Warriors.