Dubb Dynasty as a production of iHeartMedia and the NBA.
And it's over.
The championship is back in the Bay for the first.
Time in forty years. There's the buzzer. There's a new dynasty in the NBA. The Golden State Warriors champions once again, back to back titles three and four years.
The run is not done. The Golden State Warriors once again are NBA champions.
Yep, those are the Golden State Warriors, celebrating championships like it's their birthright. You're probably wondering how they got in this situation, no belk fine, but if I told you it took forty years of frustration to reach those celebrations, that a basketball crazed region now drunk off success, was once a group of disillusioned diehards just hoping for any kind of consistency, and that it took some of the boldest decisions in the sports history to get you'd at
least be somewhat intrigued. Tossing the fact that the person most responsible for this remarkable rewriting of a franchise's history is the ultimate underdog with the mesmerizing ability and this Warrior's run over the past decade is far more than a record scratch moment. It's one of the most entertaining, unexpected and extended runs we've ever seen. So maybe now
you're wondering how they got here. To tell the story of these last ten transformative years, Let's go back much hurt, all the way to the last time Golden State was holding a Golden trophy. I'm Israel Gutierrez and this is Doug Dynasty.
Oh, incredible story.
It's the final damn ninety section five.
Oh, it's a sport, the most highable lawyer series.
I said, I don't believe what's happening when they came back.
Well today, I believe that the Golden State Warriors better than any want to anticipate.
That familiar voice is that of longtime sports broadcaster Brent Musburger calling an NBA finals. If that clip sounds like the nineteen seventies, it's because it was the heart of the decade May of nineteen seventy five to be exact. And if the story of the plucky underdog Golden State Warriors winning the NBA title behind finals MVP Rick Barry doesn't ring a bell even for avid basketball fans, it's understandable.
The seventies were easily considered the worst decade for the NBA, nestled in between the Celtics carrying the league in the nineteen sixties and Magic Larry and Michael reviving the NBA in the nineteen eighties, and this particular final series was a great example of just how unserious the league was
back then. The Washington Bullets had home court advantage, but were given an option to either start the series on the road or play an odd one two two one one format, which they chose, starting at home in Landover, Maryland, then switching to the Bay Area for the next two games. Why it's simple, really, The Warriors couldn't secure their usual home Oakland Arena because of a scheduling conflict with Sesame
Street on ice. The Warriors eventually deferred to the Feathered Bird and instead moved on over to the Cow Palace in Daily City, near San Francisco for their home games in the championship series. Despite playing a pair of games in a bovine residence, the Warriors won all four finals contests, and did so with Barry as the only player on
his team averaging more than thirty minutes a game. He played four three a game, and the only player on his team averaging more than twelve points, he put up twenty nine and a half per game, giving the Warriors their first NBA championship and the franchise's first title since it won something called the Basketball Association of America Championship in nineteen forty seven, while they were the Philadelphia Warriors.
Underdogs all the way like Warriors.
Championship in the forty years following that nineteen seventy five title, Bay Area basketball was basically about having a good time, but not for a very long time, no sustained excellence, very few extended playoff runs, and a reputation is the place where NBA careers go to stall out. Despite an eager fan base that desperately wanted to make Oakland's Arena
the place to be on end given night. Set against thatreary backdrop, any sort of sustained success would have been extremely satisfying for fans that saw so many starts and stops without any real hardware or banners to show for it. That's why the current Warriors run. A rare, true active dynasty that has lasted more than a decade has created a real basketball nirvana, a state of perfect round ball happiness, a golden state if you will, and.
That'll do it. It's over. The Golden State. Warriors returned to a familiar place. They're on top of the NBA world the fourth title of eight years. The Dubbs dynasty is still very much alive.
Since the twenty fourteen to fifteen NBA season, the Warriors, nicknamed the Doves for those who prefer less syllables, have been the best franchise in the league, winning four championships and reaching six finals altogether. They've set the record for most wins in a reg season. They featured the only unanimous MVP in league history in the transformative Stephan Curry.
They completed arguably the greatest playoff run in NBA history after adding Kevin Durant and entirely reinvented what it meant to be a jump shooting team behind the leadership of head coach Steve Kerr. They did it as the out of nowhere lovable underdogs, as the big bully favorites, and as the wily veterans who just knew how to win. And they did it while transitioning out of Oakland and into San Francisco becoming one of the glamour franchises in the league, with the crown jewel of a home arena
and a growing international fan base. A dynasty like this, the dubbed dynasty that is still active in looking to add to the trophy case this season and beyond. It'll do that for a franchise, and even though this magical run isn't over, it's well worth revisiting this decade full of unforgettable moments that redefined the Warrior's frand chests, starting with the centerpiece of his wholetale Steph Curry, and how his joining the Warriors in two thousand and nine would change the NBA forever.
With the seventh pick in the two thousand and nine NBA Draft, the Golden State Warriors select Stephen Curry from Davidson College.
Before that, Warriors fans were a niche group. There were the hardcore hoops fans in the Bay and not that many else outside of it. My NBA origin story actually begins there as a pre dynasty Warriors fan. I've been based in South Florida my entire career, but as a thirteen year old I discovered the run TMC Warriors featuring the trio of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullen during the nineteen ninety ninety one season, and I immediately
fell in love. They were nicknamed after the rap group run Dms, and their fast paced style of play, coached by offensive minded Hall of Fame Donnie Nelson, had me eager to stay up past one am, often on the East Coast to catch their games on TNT, much to my mother's chagrin.
Hard Way against Scott.
They cleared the side it comes.
The crossovery blows by Please twenty six were hard Away, It's tip, Golden State intercepts the pass and the Warners have won this game, the first Golden State playoff win at the Forum since nineteen sixty.
That team was one of those handful of exciting but short lived teams dotting the Warriors history during that forty year gap between championships, and you'll hear a little more
about all of them later in the pot. By the time the two thousand and eight two thousand and nine season ended nearly twenty nine years later, Golden State had produced a few more versions of exciting, often surprising teams, but was at the moment two years removed from any playoff appearances, although as a quick side note, it's absolutely wild the Warriors didn't make the two thousand and eight
playoffs despite forty seven wins. Every single team in the Western Conference playoffs that season won at least fifty games, meanwhile only three in the East Wage. In the eight to nine season, the Warriors missed the playoffs more traditional, winning only twenty nine games and setting themselves up for an NBA draft that would unknowingly change so much about basketball.
That may, the Warriors moved on from Chris Mullen as the executive vice president's basketball operations, Yes that's same Chris Mullen, and pivoted to a man named Larry Riley as their general manager. Despite the switch, Mullen had already done his homework on the two thousand and nine draft class, much like his successor would eventually share. Mullen and his staff had developed an affinity for a scrawny six foot two point guard with insane scoring ability from a small school
called Davidson College in North Carolin. His official name Wardell Stephen Curry the second Yeah you'd go by step too. After the break the draft night drama that changed the NBA forever. Don Nelson was once again the Warriors head coach after leaving between nineteen ninety five and two thousand and five to coach the Nixon Mavericks, and he also liked the idea of a guard who could put it
in the hole from anywhere on the floor. Regardless of what the NBA norms were at the time about the only certainty heading into this draft was that high flying power forward Blake Griffin out of Oklahoma would be the number one pick. After that, the only other certainty was that one future MVP, James Harden, would drafted pretty high. Even with Curry, a future two time MVP, there was
no sure thing. And that's despite this fact his father was Dell Curry, a deadly shooter of his own who played for five teams over a sixteen year career and shot forty percent from three point range during it. But Mullen, an NBA Hall of Famer, had a strong feeling about the junior from Davidson, comparing him to another two time MVP.
We had done all prep work before I left that position. One of the minority governors who's not hearing much, showed me the notes we had Blake number one. We had Steph two. So we had watched Steph extensively, and Nelly and I both felt and this was probably maybe a long shot. At that time, he would be Steve Nash. You know, that was you know for that was Steve Nash, two time MVP. That's not you know, underestimating a player.
Obviously Steve has gone past that, but that's kind of what we saw Steph because he could play on the ball, he could play off the ball, he had a quick release. I remember going to watch him at the Garden. Davidson played West Virginia, which is a really physical defensive team.
Usually when I go to those games, I try to watch the entire game and not focus on one player, but I found myself I couldn't take my eyes off because he was so active off the basketball, which is really for a young player different most of those players growing up. They do things with the ball right, dynamic ball handlers, and when they give it up, they stand. That's what caught my eye about him. I was like, Wow, this guy's got that field.
But it wasn't up to Mullen to make this choice anymore. This would be a decision headed by former Warriors general manager Larry Riley, in Indiana native who'd spent his whole life in basketball, starting his career as an assistant coach at Southwest Missouri State in nineteen sixty nine.
Yeah, how many times I saw him play, It wasn't a whole lot. There were criticisms about him that come about with people who analyze players. Scouts, Okay, he's a two guard, he's too small, he's weak, he's not a point guard. The defining moment for me with Steph Kurky was it was in December, about mid December. Davidson had scheduled the game with Purdue in Indianapolis, and that was
before the hand checking stuff. You know, Purdue thought they were playing football, and I knew it would be a tough thing, and I knew they'd beat him up, and I wanted to see how he handled the physical play because that was a question with scouts. Never mind was asking, well, he's pretty friendly. He looked like he was fourteen years old. And the second thing was I got a break at that game for one reason or another, and that may
have been injured to the point guard. That he played the point in that game a good win, and that game defined to me that Steph Curry was a guy who could play in the NBA. And frankly, that was the last game that I saw him play live because we had all the video and so I was satisfied in middle or late December because in that game, he showed the point guard's feels. He made a long pass, he made the short pass, and he took the beating that went along with it. Now they lost the game.
Yeah, I was going to say, can I give you his stat line too? Do you remember that I.
Think he was I think he was only six for six for eighteen. It raised in my mind that he only made about a thirty of its shots.
It was worse than that. He was five of twenty six. He was two for twelve from three and he had six turnovers. But he had six assists in three steals and eight rebounds.
Well see, and that's what I'm talking about. He produced on the other levels. I wasn't worried about the shot.
No one was. Curry's shot is what made him such an intriguing must watch talent, to the point that Lebron James famously stopped by to watch one of his NCAA tournament games in person. It was that drawing tower and his big game performances that made Steph a certain lottery pick in the draft, meaning he'd go in the top fourteen. How high did the rest of the lottery have Curry rated?
Would he ever reach the Warriors at number seven, especially with the Minnesota Timberwolves team in need of a point guard choosing twice directly before the Warriors.
I didn't think he'd be available when we were picking. In fact, I thought he was going to be gone, to the extent that we explored trade possibilities for that pick, and those explorations were based on the fact that Seth current may not be there. Now Steph was going to be there. Okay, we know we're going to draft you. My concern was he's gone, and I have to take the next guy, Frank White, who I didn't like.
That next guy was Jordan Jordan Hill, that is who the Knicks drafted immediately after Curry at number eight and averaged double figures scoring once in his eight year career. Not sure what kind of podcast would have been birthed if Hill had been the Warriors pick, but thanks to the Minnesota draft evaluators at the time, we'll never find that out. That's because the Wolves drafted two point guards with the fifth and six picks, Spanish phenom Ricky Rubio
and Syracuse sophomore Johnny Flint. Riley had received a hot tip that the Wolves would do just that after acquiring the fifth pick from Washington via trade, but it still left him nervous.
I got a call the day before from a source that told me, Okay, Minnesota's going to do this. Well, I hardly slept that I could. I just I could not believe that it was really going to happen. But from time to time you get sources that you really believe it. This was one that I said, this guy's probably right, It's probably going to happen, and I just I was we couldn't wait until they started picking, and they actually did.
With the fifth pick in the two thousand and nine NBA Draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves select Ricky Rubio of El Masno, Spain and Juventu. With the sixth pick in the NBA Draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves select Johnny Flynn from Syracuse University.
That left the door open for the Warrior years to choose Kerk, but as it turns out, it wasn't just the Timberwolves that Riley and the Warriors should have concerned themselves with. There was a certain general manager out in Phoenix, a shooter in his own right, who'd had his eye with Curry as well. Steve Kerr had been the general manager of the Suns for two seasons at that point. He traded for Shaquille O'Neil, acquiring him from Miami his
first season on the job. But Kerr had such faith in Curry he was willing to trade Phoenix's leading scorer at the time for a chance to draft the Sun of Dell. He too saw step as a Steve nashclone and wanted him in the Valley of the Sun.
I thought we had a deal, a draft, a deal to end up, you know, getting him to Phoenix. But it fell through, and it involved in Amars Stademar, because I think Amari was you know, still playing at a high level, and so the Warriors were very in him.
And I don't remember the exact details of the deal, but we looked at Steph as the next Steve Dash and you know, we had been watching Steve for all those years and felt like Steph shared so many of the same qualities and could be so captivating for our fans, and just the skill level was just incredible. So I think the small stature didn't really bother us since we had watched Steve dominate the league, you know, from a similar place. So yeah, we were really interested and we tried hard.
Hang tight, Steve, You'll eventually get your chance to have Steph on your roster. There was one last hurdle of sorts for the Warriors to clear before Larry Riley could officially pull the trigger on drafting Steph. Del Curry's entire existence playing in the NBA was within that Warrior's title draft, and he didn't want his son and all his potential to end up in that wasteland that was Base Area
Professional Hoops. Dell and STEP's agent at the time, Jeff Austin, informed Riley he prefer the Warriors not to draft Steph. Steph didn't weigh much, maybe one hundred and eighty pounds entering the league, but he would attempt to throw that way around.
They made it obvious that they did not want him to come to Golden State. If I was a father, I wouldn't wanted it either. This is a bad team. What are we doing here?
You know?
And so I never blamed. And in addition to that, they did not allow Steph to visit the Golden State Warriors pre draft, and I did tell Jeff Austin, if Steph's available, we will pick in spite of that, and we did.
With the seventh pick in the two thousand and nine NBA Draft, the Golden State Warriors select Stephen Curry from Davidson College.
That booing you heard was the sound of prescient Knicks fans in the garden that night, already upset they wouldn't get their chance to draft Curry with the next pick.
Once that happened, there were never any issues. The Curry family, Nel Curry and Sonia came. When we introduced Steph, Jeff Austin came, there was never any issue, and I remember introducing him and he still looked hocking with fourteen year old kid.
It took a full regular season not for Curry to look any older. He was still the clean shaven, scrawny, baby faced point guard by the time the regular season reached its final game. It took a full regular season for the man who drafted Steph to officially realize he'd made the correct decision.
I don't recall a lot of than said that. There are things that people asked me about that I don't remember that. But there was a point in his rookie year we were playing in Portland Park and Steph just put on a tournamendous shot.
You know, Curry's like Steve Nash high basketball IQ.
So he's going to be an all start for years to come.
Curry step back of a pedagraph.
He's got another one three point lead again for the Lawyers, and now we're down there.
We're a minute forty five left, new career high for Steph Curry.
Steph finished his first season with a final game stat line up forty two points, eight assists, nine rebounds, two steals, one block shot, and a win in what was a meaningless game to the standings or playoff implications.
I recall setting in Portland watching him play that game, and after that game say, okay, we have got our point guard for the next sten years.
Riley underestimated just how long Curry would run the court in the Bay. We're currently at sixteen years and counting. But before that incredible run could even start, there were a couple of upgrades necessary to create the foundation of this stable dynasty. One was the ownership group running the team. The other was a right ankle Curry was running on
when Steph first joined the league. Neither was stable. Chris Cohan was the Warrior's owner and was often the target of the ire of Golden State fans, even though most of the decisions considered problematic under his watch weren't exactly all his alone. I mean, can you really blame a team's owner for not drafting Kobe Bryant. But there was enough failure in those sixteen years that Cohan faced the
brunt of the criticism. When Joe Lagub, a minority owner of the Boston Celtics at the time, and Peter Gouber, Mandalay Entertainment CEO, bought the team from Cohen and the summ of twenty ten, they viewed the franchise not as one experiencing a decades long championship drought, but one that had limitless potential if treated properly.
An opening night out of our ownership, I was introduced.
Lads shut off, head show, Lake up, and Peter.
Cuber getting ready to take the mic. Nineteen thousand people there. I didn't really know what I was going to say it didn't plant it in advance, and I saw the banner up there and I just pointed, if you look up there, that is a very lonely flat.
We want another one.
I told everybody what I thought was from a heart, which is, these are the greatest fans in the world, and you deserve more.
My new pairgrap color is blue and yellow, and my favorite letter is W. Lots of w's go get Amorials.
By the time the Warriors hired Rick Wells in twenty eleven as their chief operating officer, the vision to improve the franchise was well underway. Welts had been the president of the Phoenix Suns. It says he shared the vision of Lake Op and Goober when it came to Golden State.
I think everybody who was an observer of the Warriors over the twenty years before I got there, you would look at that team and just go, oh, my God, like, if you could ever get this in the right ownership and management hands, this shouldn't stand toe to toe with any franchise in sports. I mean, the place in which we lived was an amazing place to live. The corporate base there or the companies that were changing the face of the world.
You could be a.
Part of that fan support for a team that never made the playoffs, and it was you know, we all looked at it and just said, oh my gosh. And then I remember I was president of the Phoenix Suns. I remember when Joelka and Peter Guber bought the team. And what really made an impression upon me was their first real higher When I read the Jerry West, I've let, Okay, maybe these guys are taking a look at it a
little differently than has historically been the case. But I was like, you know where, after half an hour of talking to him, it was like, where do I sign? They had big aspirations. They had this crazy notion of perhaps building an arena in San Francisco they talked to me about then. So for me, it was like I was so drawn to the opportunity just because I knew
it had success written all over it. I grew up learning from Jerry Clangelo that the best way to have NBA organization be successful is to have your business people and your basketball people aligned on the goals and in constant communication about how we're going to get there. And
you know, for me, this came to light in Phoenix. Really, Steve Kerr was our general manager and I would have a weekly staff meeting on Wednesdays, and Steve came into my office one day and said, can I come to your weekly staff meetings?
Like what?
Like, Yeah, I think people would enjoy it if you came to our weekly staff meetings.
But what was about was not about you know, tell us how Steve Nash's risk is feeling. It was about, Hey, we're thinking about next season and you know, we're thinking of using these players in our campaign. And this is kind of the theme like what are we missing? What would the reaction from locker room be to that? What would what would how would.
The players feel about that? And that's how Joe and Peter wanted the organization to be. And there's you can be successful and not do that. It's possible to do. But I think to get the most out of the organization that's the single most important thing.
And that that to me, really resonated. I think it was the most important part of our conversation.
The ownership transition included a coaching change after Don Nelson ended his second stint with the Warriors in twenty ten. That meant promoting Keith Smart, who lasted just one season as head coach, and then hiring former point guard Mark Jackson, who played over one four hundred games, including the playoffs,
but had never coached a single game. It included a lot of turnover at all levels of the organization, but the most problematic turnover was happening on the court, as in Curry turning his ankle over and over and over again. Did Verry Neil dribble it off his legs?
Oh my goodness, Steph Curry ankle coming out of the pack.
Oh this is It's just heartbreaking, is all I can say. Curry would suffer multiple ankle injuries within his first few seasons, some of them so confounding even his teammates wondered how long he'd be effective in the league if his right ankle kept proving to be his actual achilles heel.
Steph is hurt.
Steph Curry is hurt, saying I will he went straight down and never moved.
Oh man, he's in a lot of pain.
Let's see if he steps on someone's foot, Yep, there it is same foot, yep, Griffin, and he turned that ankle to same He turned it in San Diego.
Against the David Lee, a teammate of Curry's for five seasons, saw the frustration's first hand.
I think the most interesting part about that is whether it's his jump shot or it's his ankle. Steph never seemed to waiver on his confidence about his ankle and his injuries.
And yeah, he had that one ankle he.
Kept rolling over and over and you're like, Okay, I tried something new, and I think I'm good this time. We'd be in a preseason game. I remember against the Lakers one time, and it's in the fourth quarter and it was an absolute you know, not stepping on somebody, just a simple movement and a completely side of his ankle touched the ground and you can see the frustration, but at the same time he just he's like, no, no, I'm going to get this figured out, and I have
faith that this is going to work out. And I think he tried like six hundred different kinds of ankle braces and taping techniques and every which way, and finally he found something that worked and the rest is history.
It wasn't just the correct brace or the proper taping technique that allowed for history to be written It included a lot of tension because Curry being advised that he would need an ankle surgery that could include using a tendon from a cadaver. A doctor Richard Ferkel would be in charge of repairing Curry's ankle, but not for a lot of fretting from Steph's father. Dell was no longer
advising an unknown Riley not to draft Curry. He was now trusting Riley, a known team confidant, to offer advice about his son's ankle.
Dell Curry called me. He said, Larry, do you think he needs surgery though? And I said, yes, he does, because he's worked, he said on everything. I took him to Portland to the Niking factory to where we thought they might be able to build a shoe that would help statelevise the ankle. On great effort, but it still wasn't right. I never saw him get down to the
point where he was chattered or thinking it's own. It may have happened, but never saw it, and I member since that I felt like I was more worried about it. Maybe he was at times, but his dad since state urgency.
But Riley joined the Curry family, including Steph's new wife, Aisha in the surgical center while Steph was going under the knife. What doctor Furkle found when he began the procedure was that there would be no cadaver ligament necessary. What he discovered was effectively all Steph needed was a
good cleaning out of the oft injured ankle. From Pablo Torri's twenty thirteen feature in ESPN, the magazine on this subject, a one ounce HD camera snaked into Curry's subterler and ankle joints produced images of thick, sticky bands of scar tissue like crab meat, Furkle says, as well as in flame tissue, bone spurs, and chips of cartilage. To anyone else, orthopedic seafood might be revolting. To Curry, it was good news.
Tory's story explained why it was good news. A motorized device could remove all of that from Curry's ankle in less than two hours, and it would shorten his expected recovery time significantly, and by July twenty twelve, after a season in which he played only twenty six games, Curry was once again rehabbing his ankle, but this time with much more faith that the flukiness had also been removed the season following his ankle procedure was something of a
reintroduction for Curry. While Lebron James and the Miami Heat were stealing the oxygen from everyone in the league, Steph was quite literally finding his legs again. He missed only four regular season games. He damn near doubled his three point attempts per game while maintaining a forty five percent shooting clip. Andy had one particular game that, even though it came in his sports season, was his unofficial coming
out performance. It was February twenty seven, twenty thirteen, in New York City's Madison Square Guarden, a building Mike Breen knows so well because he grew up in it and has called Knicks games inside and out of MSG since nineteen ninety one as a radio announcer and since nineteen ninety seven as a television play by play announcer for Wfan. Who better to describe the magic of MSG than break Well.
I don't think I'm the most objective person because I grew up in New York and Madison Square Garden was the building I went to as a kid, and I always felt it just had a special aura, but it just there's a certain sound with that ceiling that they have there and the stage lighting where it's just like there's these performers that are on stage and you know, not a rough and tumble crowd, but a crowd that doesn't suffer fools. It was just the perfect atmosphere for a big event.
On this evening, Curry would have nearly the perfect night in that perfect atmosphere. Mark Jones and Doris Burke were there to witness it, calling the game for ESPN.
Curry with a floater, got it to go.
Tell you what, For a guy who a lot of people questioned that six three, one hundred and eighty five pounds could he be effective.
In the league, he has put those concerns to rest.
Well.
Andreant to double Coury with a quick trigger.
Cat the three ball.
You know he does shoot forty five from downtown on the season. Curry with another jumper and it's a one point game.
Just you know, he plays with a pace of a guy who's an old man in the league.
Right, he's still pretty young.
You don't meet Stephen Curry.
Out He's gonna go with his pace.
Still the second best shooter in his family, though, I say yeah.
But I make a better I agreed.
Del I'm talking about his brother Secan.
No, Dell probably will go down as the best families.
What Dell couldn't do what Stephan does. Curry for the lead, got it? Steph Curry smooth. He scored the last fifteen in a row for Golden Set.
After the break, Steph Curry makes his first major splash in the NBA.
I always found in extraordinary when a team comes to a road arena and a player on that road team has the ability to kind of capture the hearts of the fans that are rooting against him and his team. But it happens when certain arenas a player goes into and fans just can see greatness or potential for greatness.
And that night, that's what they saw.
We all knew that he was he had a chance to be special, and for him to have that type of a game that it was so close and they wind up losing, it made for like the perfect deepening for the big fans of the Garden because they saw this maybe the first instance of the greatness of Steph Curry.
In the second half, Curry, who had an abbreviated version of the Bible, First Philippians four thirteen, written on his sneakers, reading I can do all things. Was doing one thing particularly well. He was scoring with regularity, despite constant double teams and adding attention from the mixed defense.
What's the pick and roll of it?
Take it out of Curry's hands?
Football, take and the same result we've seen for the first two periods. You see what I mean? So now you make the adjustment.
You're trying to trap and make somebody else beat him.
But Stephan relok kates after getting out of the trap, and again like, doesn't you play like an old guy?
Like the pacing and.
Not getting rattled.
By the first few minutes of the second half, it was apparent you were watching one of those memorable performances you get just a handful of times in an NBA season. You could hear it in the voices of Jones and Burn, but if you listen close to enoughs, you also hear it in the reaction of the fans, the groans and even a few cheers. As Mike Green predicted, We're getting louder with every maid Curry bucket.
The Warriors are connected on fourteen of their AD sixteen. Make that fifteen of seventeen.
He's cooking with some hot grease.
Right now, Steph Curry has thirty three put against belc for three?
Got it?
What a night for Steph Curry?
Did you hear them? We've seen that movie before.
Steph Curry with another three? If he walks back said to say, I am a bad man, but you got nothing for me tonight?
Looking how upset my fortune is?
How about now Curry for three?
Who unbelievable?
Making it rain in New York forty six?
Back in the way, Curry?
Why not for three?
Big go? And the next crowd is stunned.
He is in a soon right now, all by hisself.
I gotta go quick.
Curry off the screen, got in up room again. Butter Steph Curry, it's eleven three of the night.
Curry was a perfect seven of seven from three in the second half of this game. His running mates were still finding themselves. Rookie Draymond Green and second year backcourt made Klay Thompson combined for ten points in this game, with Clay missing all six of his three. His time to shine as a splash brother was still to come. But on this night in New York, Curry couldn't have found a better place to let the world know he
requires everyone's attention. The following season, Mark Jackson would already declare Steph and Clay the best shooting backboard in the history of the league.
But we got guys that can knock down shots. When you talk about you know, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, in my opinion, that the greatest shooting backcourt in the.
History of the game, a statement that seems perfectly obvious today, was looked at as premature braggadocio from a relatively noviist head coach at the time. That didn't stop Jackson, a friend and eventual partner of Breens in the television booth, from regularly letting folks know just how much potential this pairing had.
Mark made sure it was on your radar.
One of Mark's strengths is his ability to instill confidence in whoever's around them, whether he's a teammate, whether he's a coach, whether he's a fellow broadcaster. And the way he talked about this team and their potential and how good they could be. You know where we thought he was, all right, you're going a little over the top of here, these guys are going to be good, but let's take it easy. But right from the start, he saw what
the potential was in that team and those players. So you had to listen to him and believe him because obviously he knew what he was talking about.
The organic, esthetically pleasing Warriors. Assent seemed to be on a solid path, but the Golden State front office made one more decision they felt could accelerate the timeline to a championship. It would mean leaving a key figure behind. It was one of those gambles that had to work out, but no one was certain.
It would.
Look. I was shocked at they made that decision because it was a tough decision. I think as far as the organization goes, you know, we just Warriors that I mean the playoffs for so long, there's a little media noise around that finally made the playoffs.
Coming up on this podcast series that relives the incredible Golden State run, we look back at the rise of the Warriors, their massive impact on the game, and how they plan to continue to succeed into the future. You take me through the highs and lows, the championships and challenges that forged the dub dynastas.
Those are like the times in your career where you're like, wow, I was just a part of something special. It was definitely something to celebrate.
Well, first off, dramon Nivat to develop into a voice. He's always been a cloud, tell you what a king's buy. And I think that's what makes him so great. Do I think that constant negative attention on him compared to the constant positive attention on Steph was a faculty?
Sure.
I mean he revolutionized the game and there's no doubt about that.
At one end of the steps going through his routine. At the other end was Kevin's going through his routine, and you know it's like we're watching Mozart and Box at the.
Exact same time, composed music.
It was stunning.
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