NBA Report:Golden State Warriors star player will not return….
It’s Not the End of the Warriors Dynasty Thanks to Draymond Green
NBA dynasties don’t end because of indiscretions or moral failings. Golden State, like every other great NBA team, will fall victim to something else in the end.
Once again, as we rush to celebrate the Golden State Warriors—to offer our hot-take final rites and fake-trade sacraments—we could be tempted to focus on the mayhem, to lose ourselves in a blur of punches and chokeholds, to interpret one man’s breakdown as the end of a dynasty. It’s easy to place the blame on Draymond Green.
It’s simple to get mired in hypothetical scenarios. Had Green not struck Jordan Poole with his punch last year? What if last month, Green hadn’t choked Rudy Gobert? or last week, gave Jusuf Nurkic a smack? What if he had been more restrained? What if he wasn’t serving an endless suspension and was actually playing basketball with Steph Curry right now?
The Warriors are in a faraway 11th place in the West with 12-14 days until Christmas. Green has lost six of those games on nights when he was either suspended or ejected, and before the league allows him to return, there will undoubtedly be many more.
The season and any realistic chances of the Dubs contending for a championship may already be gone by the time their defensive anchor returns. They might never get another chance because of their age, mileage, and contracts. Let the eulogies begin. However, Draymond Green won’t be the reason if the Warriors’ illustrious reign comes to an end (and I’ll still grant them the benefit of the doubt in this case).
NBA dynasties are not ended by brawls, benchings, or the transgressions of a lone miscreant. They pass away from brittle ligaments, old age, and grumpy backs. They perish from ego and hubris. They pass away from benign neglect and nostalgia. They pass away due to the inherent nature of things; nothing, not even the billions of dollars, the “light-years ahead” declarations
In actuality, the Warriors of Steph, Klay, and Draymond are already exceedingly long for their historical period. Four of the seven NBA’s historic dynasties—defined here as winning at least three titles in a decade—have already been matched or surpassed by Golden State if we measure a dynasty’s duration from its first championship to its last, with the same core stars.
Despite playing in a very different NBA, Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics set a nearly unachievable standard in the 1950s and 1960s, winning 11 titles in 13 seasons. With Tim Duncan at the center, the San Antonio Spurs broke the record for most seasons with five championships in 16 years. However, most dynasties end much sooner.
The first NBA dynasty, George Mikan’s Minneapolis Lakers, bridged the 1940s and 1950s with five titles in six seasons. Over the course of nine seasons, the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s won five championships. In six seasons, the 1980s Celtics won three championships. In eight seasons, the Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan won six championships. In three seasons, the Shaquille O’Neal–Kobe Bryant Lakers emerged victorious with three titles.
The Warriors had four titles in eight seasons after winning the 2022 championship, which was one season less than Showtime’s run and equal to the Bulls’. That’s about as far as a contemporary dynasty can go.
The Spurs’ reign was a huge anomaly in terms of both its duration and its structure. From their first title in 1999 to their fourth in 2007, they had a nine-season run of true dominance, led by David Robinson and Duncan in the first two and by Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in the third, fourth, and fifth seasons. The fifth championship, which arrived an incredible seven years after the fourth, was nearly unrelated to the previous one, as a young, developing Kawhi Leonard supported their aging core while winning Finals MVP.
It’s instructive to see how that Spurs run ended. After a cunning and fortunate trade of George Hill for Leonard on draft night in 2011, Duncan and Ginobili, who were then in their mid-30s, were rejuvenated. Excellent teams typically select low in the draft and, with luck, land one or two solid role players. Leonard was not exactly tipped for stardom as the fifteenth pick. Acquiring an MVP-caliber player while maintaining dominance with your older stars is incredibly uncommon.
Furthermore, as we would discover a few years later, maintaining them can be challenging. In 2018, after a confrontation with team officials regarding medical matters, Leonard demanded a trade, ending any chance the Spurs had of continuing their dynasty. He was parading the Larry O’Brien Trophy through Toronto’s downtown a year later.
The Lakers of the early 2000s were also derailed by animosity and a dramatic trade, with Bryant and O’Neal battling for control of the team even as they advanced to the Finals for the fourth time in 2004. That summer, O’Neal was shipped to Miami. In the end, Bryant and Pau Gasol would win two more championships together during a run that can be considered its own era.
The Showtime Lakers were defeated by erosion and attrition; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989, the year of their last championship. In 1991, Magic Johnson and James Worthy advanced to the Finals once more, but Johnson had to retire later that year due to HIV.
The rival Celtics followed a similar route, winning their final championship of the era in 1986, going to another Finals in 1987, and then declining into mediocrity as Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, and Larry Bird aged. The premature passing of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, two gifted young players who could have prolonged the Celtics’ dominance, was also tragic.
When Bird retired in 1992, he was 35 years old, the same age that Jordan would be when he won his final championship in 1998. However, Jordan spoilt us all by going out in style and making a shot that would go down in history to win the game and the championship. He emerged victorious. I wish you luck in trying to duplicate it.
A few months later, Jordan would declare his retirement, and the Bulls would start a complete collapse—a unique situation in which a dynasty ends while still at the top of its game as opposed to slowly and agonizingly eroding away.
These endings are typically grim, slow, and depressing, with players and supporters clinging to a thin veneer of exceptionality—the team’s past as opposed to its current state.
Eight and a half years after winning their first championship, is that where the Warriors are now? Did we overestimate their potential for 2023 based on their 2022 championship run, on Curry’s enduring greatness, or on Green and Thompson’s resumes? In light of Green’s erratic behavior and Thompson’s difficulties, are we now writing them off too quickly? Is the dynasty really gone, or is it, in Miracle Max’s words, “only mostly dead”? “Mostly dead, with a hint of life.”
We have already buried them early. When Thompson’s knee gave out in the Finals and Kevin Durant’s Achilles ruptured in June 2019, it appeared as though the run was over. Numerous obituaries were composed. However, Thompson recovered in the end, Durant was converted into Andrew Wiggins (through D’Angelo Russell), and Steph continued to be Steph-like, which led to a second-wind title run that nobody could have predicted.
The takeaway? Although it’s always inevitable, dynasties eventually fall. The same forces of age and physics that doomed their forebears now haunt the Warriors. Thompson’s shooting touch is inconsistent these days, and he isn’t the same defender he was prior to his knee and Achilles surgeries. Curry and Green are still very good, if not quite as good as they were when they were at their best. Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala have retired, and Durant is now a member of the Phoenix Suns.
Along the way, Warriors officials hoped to update the lineup. However, they selected Jonathan Kuminga over Franz Wagner (or Alperen Sengun) and James Wiseman over LaMelo Ball (or Tyrese Haliburton). They mostly failed in their attempts to use a “two-timeline” strategy to defy the basketball gods. They are now focusing more on veterans in the hopes of winning the championship again.
But the end is in sight, or very close. The principal architect of this dynasty, Bob Myers, left last spring. Talks about Thompson’s extension are at a standstill; he may depart next summer. In the final year of his contract, coach Steve Kerr is also a free agent, and there are indications that he may be prepared to leave.
There is only one important player remaining with a long-term commitment, aside from Curry: Draymond Green. It’s impossible to predict when his suspension will end, how his counseling session will proceed, or whether he’ll return with improved self-control. However, we are aware that without Green, the Warriors dynasty would not exist. He represents their fierceness, fire, and defensive conscience. He is the one who has an almost psychic bond with Curry, which enables them to play a free-form, improvisational two-man game that continues to excite fans, confuse opponents, and fuel the Warriors’ offense.
Nobody can predict with certainty when or how a dynasty will end. Sometimes the information reaches us much later. Is the Warriors’ era ending? Maybe. But they have previously overcome the odds. Curry is still performing like an MVP at the age of 35. And Green remains an irrefutable force despite all his warts. The Warriors are still incredibly powerful when they are whole.
So if you have to, bury them. Turn up the trade machine and the gossip mill. But if there is still some life left in this dynasty, if there is a last chapter that needs to be written, Draymond Green will most likely coauthor the screenplay.
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