The Golden State Warriors are the NBA champions for the first time in 40 years.
For pretty much every year after that 1975 title they were an utter joke of a franchise. They wasted Chris Mullin, broke up Run TMC too damn early, and won a scant 42.8 percent of their games in the 35 years after 1975. For more detail, from 1976 to 2010 the Warriors had 11 winning seasons, went to the playoffs eight times and made past their first series six times, with only two of those coming after 1990.
Under Mark Jackson, the Warriors became a fun good team while Stephen Curry became perhaps the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history. But under Steve Kerr the Warriors became great.
Curry broke his own three-pointers-made record. Klay Thompson and Draymon Green came into their own, while Andre Iguildala and David Lee went to the bench. The Warriors led the league in defensive rating (points allowed per every 100 possessions) and only trailed the Clippers in offensive rating (points scored per every 100 possessions) by 0.8 points.
They were damn near unstoppable at home, losing only four games at Oracle Arena all season, playoffs included. Only the 1985-86 Celtics had a better home record. At one point, they won 16 games in a row. Since the 2003 postseason, when the NBA upgraded the first round from a best of five to a best of seven, only the 2006-07 Spurs had a better postseason record (16-4). The Warriors' 16-5 record in the playoffs was matched only by the 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks in the last 13 seasons.
Point is, this Warriors team was fantastic in every conceivable way and will likely go down as one of the best in NBA history.
Only the Grizzlies and Cavaliers gave the Warriors any real trouble in the playoffs, with the Cavs being particularly notable. The Cavs lost Kevin Love after the first round thanks to Kelly Olynyk, and Kyrie Irving, who had been hobbled for most of the playoffs, injured his knee in Game 1 of the Finals. Under those circumstances, the fact that the Cavs took two wins away from a team that will go down as one of the best ever is nothing short of remarkable. And most of that is thanks to LeBron James.
LeBron was simply astounding in these Finals- he averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists in the six games while playing 274 of the total 298 minutes these Finals lasted (45.7 minutes per game). If anyone besides Andre Iguodala (who was great offensively and defended LeBron like a champ) deserved to win Finals MVP, it was James. The only player in the last 30 years to put up a line that good in a Finals loss that went to at least six games is Charles Barkley in 1993 (27.3 points, 13 rebounds, 5.5 assists, per game) and LeBron's 2015 Finals line blows Barkley's out of the water.
LeBron looked exhausted after Game 6, and it makes sense why. Take LeBron off the Cavs, and as Jeff Pearlman tweeted, you have the Knicks. David Blatt only seemed to trust seven players besides LeBron and not counting Kyrie Irving all series - Matthew Dellavedova, James Jones, Timofey Mozgov, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Thristan Thompson, with Mike Miller coming in as a desperation reserve late in the run. That lineup played great defense, but offensively they're pretty scatter shot. The two wins in the Finals for the Cavs resulted in guys like Delly playing beyond their means offensively (though Mozgov had a great all-around series and Smith was invaluable when he got on a hot streak).
Even if Love and Irving were healthy, the Warriors would still likely have won (though it probably would've gone the full seven in that scenario). But with Love likely resigning in Cleveland and Irving back next season, this Cavs team is the favorite to make it out of the East once again in 2016.
But speaking of going back to the Finals, the Warriors are primed to be good for a long time. GM Bob Myers has already said that he has permission to match any offer Draymond Green receives in restricted free agency this summer, and the other key players on the team are all under contract for the next two seasons at least. Who knows, maybe we'll see both of these teams face off again a year from now.
