How in the world does it shock anyone that a team that made five consecutive finals and had three rigs in five years, How would they be shocked that that same team would make it to the finals again after their top two guys got healthy again. I mean, I don't know. This team had the fourth best odds to win it all, but let's be honest, this team looked like they were different than that team. The team they
team like like look like trash. They were in the watery two years in a row, and you wondered if they would ever be like as healthy or as dominant as they were after Clay's injury. Right, Clay's up there in age, Clay got inn acl and an Achilles' tear and back to back come back, thinking he's gonna get back under the court, go scrimmage, sus scrimmage, wasn't supposed to be doing it, tears his ac al boom boom. Steph Curry breaks his hand out. I think he played
six seven games that year. Don't quote me, but I think it's about that. Two solid years offered Clay two years in the lottery, and people started to question, is this Warriors team the same Warriors team? Without Kevin Durant, I started to question, and that's when Warriors Twitter decided that they were gonna hate me. But don't mistake it. Don't mistake it my dislike of Warriors Twitter. With the team itself, I very very much liked them, and I've
said this time after time. Those Twitter Warriors, though they have such short memories, but there were very real questions that even they had coming into the season. They weren't all hearts and roses and popcorn and lollie pops. We all thought, would Clay be Clay or when he got healthy healthy, would he be a slow, older, less mobile version of Clay. Could Golden State overcome the fact they
never really had a true center? How would they actually operate with said no true center without Kevin Durant, the fact that they had multiple lottery picks that they could have used to get a star. Was it a mistake to draft Kaminga and Moody at seven and fourteen instead of getting someone like Bradley Beale or trying to go after someone like Karl Anthony Towns or Ben Simmons, Like lots of people in the Bay thought that they should
go out and get a star instead. Of drafting those two young guys and they'll never of course submit it today though no o that was part of the plan were light years ahead. Bah blah blah. They had role players that were overpaid and awful. Kelly ou Bray, for example, who said he was going to be the next Kevin Durant and he was making like eighty million dollars with including the luxury tax payments that Warriors owed. Andrew Wiggins
was overpaid and awful at that point in time. James Wiseman, who I said would miss the entire year, who also missed the entire year to a lesser degree. Kent Bazemore, who was just literally happy to be there, always the vibe every time he was in. Some mistake made that would cost them not only like points a possession many games. How would all this work moving forward? How would they shed those guys and get other guys back because they didn't have much cap space. Their big pickup this year?
Was it iguadala? Was it be a leecha like? Was it Otto porter? Ugh? How was this gonna work? Gary Payton, the second at that point in time, the man was operating as like just the guy who hangs around. He was literally not getting paid. Can I just hang here? Can I just be around? Wiggins? Go back, going back to Wiggins. Wiggins was a combined negative seven in the play in games against Memphis and LA playoff Wiggins. Were
we going to see that again? When it mattered most the gross ass bricking' ass like literally non clutch ass Wiggins. I needed to know, We all needed to know. Would injuries derail the Warriors all over again? Lots of questions which were very valid at the time, But just like the Celtics, Honestly, some of the Warriors, what they did was very similar to what the Celtics did in the offseason.
They got help for Steve Kerr on the bench, guys that were focused on development, Guys who could execute that and were known for that in Kenny Atkinson and John Malayla Malalayla as well. Hard to say they got rid of the dead weight, just like the Celtics did. They got rid of Ubre. You're gone, Camp Bezemore, You're gone, Alan Smiley, Jeck, You're gone. Eric Paschal, Fine, you want to go play with your best friend in Utah? Go go. People wanted them to go and get a big guy
like JaVale McGee. Maybe try to find somebody else that they could have contribute right now, or a small five like Nicktum. Nick Batum said no to the Warriors said yes to La and instead they also picked up key role players quote unquote key role players like Auto Porter.
He ends up being really important for them, Biolichia ends up being somewhat important for them, and to a degree in the middle of the year when Steph Curry gets hurt, even Chris Chiosa ended up being somewhat important for them, and Gary Payton played some point guard when Steph was injured too. The tweaks and the coaching changes worked. Gary Payton stepped up and became one of the best on ball defenders that they had after literally playing for nothing.
He literally stayed around the team after they cut him, and he became this huge role player and this on ball defensive presence. While Clay got healthy, Jordan Poole stepped up to a place where people thought he would win Most Improved Player of the Year. Ten games. End of the season nine to one. As we know, they looked unstoppable. Splash Brothers appeared to have not missed a beat. Then
injuries did plague the Warriors just like we thought. Just as Clay came back, Draymond goes down for what thirty six games with the back injury and a back injury that looked like it could be night nice sleep mask for his career. Wiseman had setback after setback after setback. Didn't play one game. Steph sprained his ankle at the end of the season. Missed the final twelve games of the year. Folks and people wondered if he would be ready for the playoffs. He came back in time for
the playoffs, but looked hampered, hobbled. The return of Clay in the middle of the year coincided with Jordan Poole having a mental meltdown. We talked to the Light Years boys and they said, not really sure what's going on with Pool. He does understand that he's no longer a starter and he's not having a very high ability to cope with that situation. He now couldn't score. He now was turning the ball over like crazy. What was he going to be on this team now that he was
a role player. But at the end of the day, as all dynasties do, they figure it out. They figure out a way to lean into the fabric of their
identity and stick true to that ball movement. They did nothing at the trade deadline, by the way, unlike the Celtics ball movement, sharing the ball selflessly, relentless defense that turns into what a deluge of a masculating, humiliating bucket after bucket after bucket until you surrender and succumb you basically have you basically have like a symbolic ballgag in
your mouth when you're done with that. During the playoffs, they have been number one in points per game, number one in offensive efficiency number one, and assists number one, points on cuts, number one in points off screens, so many number ones. Add this to their number six team defensive rating this season and that makes them a nightmare for most teams. So not much has really changed. However, a ton has changed in terms of how this team plays.
When you get your guy back, like Clay, he doesn't need to be back all the way in order to be effective Steph Clay Drey just needed some effective role players to do their job Wiggins, and now the Wiggins is doing his job and Jordan Poole is doing his job. Kevon Looney is doing his job. This team looks somewhat unstoppable. An overlooked aspect though, of this Warriors team this year, is that Steve Kurry, Steve Kerr is really coaching well, like he has changed some of his things that he's
done in ways that have made this team better. He gave a speech at Harvard this year. The quote was interesting. He said, I think the biggest lesson that I I've learned is that culture is way more important than scheme. I would say coaching is maybe twenty to thirty percent strategy and everything else is about communication and what your players feel when they come into the building every day. Side note that is what we would call a subtweet on how he let Kevin Durant get away like that
right there? How your players feel when they come into the building every day. Oh, I don't know. You mean the fact that Kevin Durant felt isolated from the rest of the group and the fan base and media basically said that he was an other and everybody else were
the real Warriors. I don't know, Okay, anyway back to that, I feel like he's been pretty good at understanding culture, but I think he's also now understood how important it is to hire the right assistance around you to do the jobs that you don't know or aren't able to do, whether that's because of skill or time or whatever. And now he's got some talent around him he always has. I mean, he lost Willie Green. That's a big that's a big time assistant coach that he ended up losing.
He came down with COVID at a critical juncture against the war Grizzlies, and then he gives the job to Mike Brown to concoct a new scheme around Looney to combat Jaron Jackson and Steven Adams. Big reason that they ended up winning that series. He gave the power away to someone and his players as well, to come up with something in order to stop the other team that was doing something effectively that you didn't not encounter on your own. And he's also doing some of his best
scheme work. The rotations that used to not make sense last work last year. Now they work. He didn't want to do small ball last year. People forget that. He just wanted to have big centers all the time. He leaned into the Wiseman. The only reason that they stopped playing Wiseman last year is because he got hurt, so, like I don't know, he ends up having to go to Draymond and sees how effective that is and then he leans into that this year. We'll see what happens
next year when Wiseman's fully healthy. He closed out the Mavericks using three guards and two wings, and he's learned from the Memphis game last year. He's changing defensive schemes quickly to confuse offenses. He's doing a really great job of finding matches, matchups that benefit the Warriors, not only offensively but defensively, hiding guys that are defensively liable. And
he's using the entire roster because it makes sense. Guys like Otto Porter Bilichia, Damian Lee, even Jonathan Kaminga have been used at times and have played important roles at certain situations. During this postseason, want Toscano Anderson has seen his playing time diminished by twenty five percent, hasn't complained, but still has contributed. The roster, even in the playoffs,
can run like ten eleven deep. And that was before Moses Moody got seventeen points in a game in the final three games against the mass And because I have to finish talk about Andrew Wiggins. I briefly mentioned he was better that he's an All Star starter because of K pop, but still he is. Wiggins was terrible, terrible
in any crucial situation. Wiggins has been in the past before this year, someone you can rely on time and time again to fuck up this year, when when the lights are bright and the Warriors go down or the lead that they have is diminishing, Wiggins gets the ball. You gasp and he hits it. You screech, your muscles tense up, and then you're like Wiggins, he's dunking on Luca. Remember I said that last playoffs, in the play in games, he was negative seven on the floor. This year he's
plus seven. Better decision making in high pressure moments. But truthfully, let's be honest, less high pressure moments going to Wiggins. You're the fourth option now, not the third option. Now you're on you get the ball the fourth most, you're the open corner three guy. You don't have to deal with shouldering the burden in high pressure moments nearly as much. And also you get to defend first and foremost and then be a part of the flow of the offense
instead of being the focal point of the offense. Not a shocker that Golden State became the odds on favorite to win the title, moving past the nets in February to four hundred plus four hundred. They moved down to plus three twenty five in April and now stand at minus one fifty five to win it all to beat the Celtics, and how they got there was not the easy road, it turns out, but it was the most effective one. And it turns out that those those Silicon Valley we can win at the same time we build
for the future. It turns out those folks are right. So congratulations to the Warriors on another title. I hope I don't mush you. I sincerely, sincerely hope. I don't mush you because that would be a real shame.