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A Basketball Team Worthy of the Bay Area

GET EX-CITE-ED. That’s no typo, get excited, now, in a major way. The Golden State Warriors have just won 14 games in a row (and still counting), which is a franchise record. They’re off to a 19-2 start, which is phenomenal by any measure and is the best first 21 game record for any rookie head coach, so kudos Steve Kerr. This is not merely why you should be happy either. It’s also not the method in which the Warriors have won these games nor the style of play being demonstrated at both ends of the court that should get you excited. It’s that this team finally has a front office that doesn’t have its head stuck up its proverbial posterior.

This Warriors streak ranks fairly well within the annals of Bay Area sports. It’s certainly not the same as the A’s 20 games in a row in 2002 or even the 49ers 18 in a row during the ‘89-’90 season. It’s slightly better than the Sharks 11 games in a row, which is a record created by bookending two seasons together. The Giants best winning streak happened in New York and the Raiders only win streak of note is how many times they’ve fooled the Alameda County officials. The Warriors streak, in a vacuum, is impressive but not awe inspiring. But look at what just happened; the Warriors finally did something worthy of comparison to the best team in NFL history, a team that an Oscar-nominated movie was made about, a perennial Stanley Cup contender, and this year’s World Series Champion! The very fact that the Warriors can be mentioned favorably to these other storied Bay Area franchises is very awe inspiring.

Until Baron Davis led the Warriors past the Mavericks in the first round of the 2007 playoffs, the Warriors were a joke in the Bay Area and NBA. I laughed when my brother bought season tickets during that offseason; the Warriors couldn’t be trusted to carry-over any good play from season to season. I was smug when my brother gave up his season tickets a couple seasons later after the Warriors began to falter under the bedrock leadership of Monta Ellis. I was there on Chris Mullin jersey retirement night, (because Mullin was the man) and vehemently booed the new owner for trading our one decent player who I didn’t even like (Ellis) for an oft-injured foreigner (Bogut). I derided Joe Lacob for abandoning Warriors tradition and making the old-school basketball move of adding a dominant big man, mostly because I didn’t believe Andrew Bogut was ever going to play a meaningful game for the Warriors either due to injury or the team’s imminent demise. After all, how often had Warrior trades worked out for Golden State in the past? In my mind: never.

But now, there’s this streak: Fourteen games in a row and counting. The Warriors pass the ball. The Warriors rebound. They play defense, they manage the clock, they change tempo, they impress. Klay Thompson is proving why the Warriors didn’t trade him for Kevin Love this offseason. Draymond Green is becoming a consistent contributor, while Maurice Speights has been a revelation. Harrison Barnes is a still a work-in-progress, but Stephen Curry continues to improve and take his game to new levels of greatness. And clearly, my foot is now firmly planted in my mouth regarding Andrew Bogut, he is pretty fantastic. Steve Kerr just might finally be the coach the Warriors have been looking for since… well since I’ve been alive. (Actually I’ve been happy with every Warriors coach recently, simply for not being Gary St. Jean). This team has been decent to good to pretty good over the past half-decade and Warriors fans don’t have to nervously wait for the other shoe to drop.

So it’s ok fellow fans, GET EXCITED. Even if the Warriors don’t win it all this year, even if we can’t use the former Spur Kerr to beat San Antonio in the playoffs, this will be a great season. And so will next season and, in all likelihood, the season after that. And then the Warriors will move to their new home in San Francisco and we’ll have to deal with all those annoying bandwagon/new location fans who didn’t grit it out the Oakland days but it will be wonderful because the Warriors matter in both the Bay and the NBA. So get excited Golden State, this is the one Bay Area franchise whose future is undeniably bright.

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