With the hangovers slowly dissipating and the ink on Steph Curry’s celebratory tattoo settling, it’s time to consider what the Golden State Warriors’ second championship and third straight Finals means for the NBA in the fast-arriving future.
Can they be beaten, and if so, by who? Those are the questions being asked by NBA front offices and fans alike.
First, some context, or another way to prove that the Warriors are in the midst of something special, beyond their win totals, rings and tendency to eviscerate the competition in historic fashion.
In the so-called modern era — loosely defined as 1979 and on, or after the ABA and NBA merged, the three-point line was added and the salary cap was poised to be introduced – the league’s landscape has been dominated by titans.
Since a 20-year-old Magic Johnson led the Los Angeles Lakers to the 1980 NBA championship, there have been three ‘one-off’ title-winners, aggregations of players that reached the mountaintop only once: the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, the 2004 Detroit Pistons and the 2011 Dallas Mavericks.
The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers will likely prove to be the fourth – the LeBron James-era window quite possibly closing as quickly as it opened three summers ago.
For the rest of the past four decades the league has been ruled by warring dynasties of varying definitions – from the long arc steadiness of the San Antonio Spurs to the tempestuous short-lived brilliance of the Shaq-Kobe Lakers to Michael Jordan and the Bulls’ unblemished excellence.
What makes the Warriors nearly unique among the elite?
Very few teams have rosters so young, so good and in such numbers. Most of the best teams in history have been anchored by three stars; some only two. In Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, the Warriors have depth at superstar.
According to Basketball-Reference.com, the only team that has had two players with 12 or more Win Shares (Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, with 12.6 and 12.0 respectively) and a ‘fourth banana’ of seven or more (Klay Thompson with 7.1) among their top four in Win Shares, all while age 28 or under are the 1987 Lakers.
The 1995-96 Bulls, who had the best regular season ever until the Warriors came along a year ago, had a more brilliant front man in Jordan (20.4 Win Shares) and Scottie Pippen chiming in with 12.3 of his own, while Steve Kerr – yes him – brought up the rear of their top four with 8.3 Win Shares off the bench.
The difference? That group was nearly two years older, on average, and Kerr’s totals were bolstered by a shorter three-point line experiment in the mid-1990s. He shot 51.5 per cent from the 22-foot line that year. He was never above seven Win Shares in a year when the line was at 23 feet and nine inches.
All of which should make the NBA either very, very afraid if they have championship aspirations, or perhaps strangely comforted, if they have patience and can take the long view.
Jordan’s Bulls won six titles in eight years and the Lakers, driven by Magic, won five in 11 years, with nine Finals appearances.
And while the Bulls and Lakers had clear adversaries, the bad news for those who like their playoffs competitive is that the Warriors’ next obvious challengers aren’t so obvious.
Who among the league’s next best teams might be able to mount a challenge in the next 12 months? The next 24?
There don’t seem to be many contenders.
Cleveland could be back. Had the Cavs not blown Game 3 while leading by six with the ball and 2:25 on the clock, Game 6 would likely be Thursday night in Cleveland, which is maybe why Cavs head coach Tyronne Lue said, after being eliminated Monday: “The gap isn’t that big.”
The problem may be this version of the Cavs has probably peaked and has little upside. Heading into his 15th season there are no signs of regression for James and Kyrie Irving has more runway at age 25, but the Cavs get old, overpaid and expensive very quickly after that. Three more years of J.R. Smith at $14.5 million, anyone?
James may or may not end up as the NBA’s Greatest of All Time, but he has a ways to go to reel in The Logo as basketball’s greatest general manager. James pushed for the Cavs to trade away Andrew Wiggins (and Anthony Bennett) for Kevin Love three years ago. Right now, a young riser like Wiggins would give James a better chance to be optimistic about Cleveland’s chances next year, before he hits the free agent market again in 2018.
They are built to win yesterday with an aging roster and zero asset flexibility. As a repeat luxury tax payer, they can’t use the full mid-level exception to sign a free agent and have a depleted cupboard of picks as a means to grease the wheels of a trade for, say Kevin Love, his wonky knee and the three years and $51-million left on his contract.
Elsewhere in the East the Celtics and Raptors are on paper the Cavs’ primary competition, but were each crushed under their post-season steamroller. Each might be positioned to benefit from some Cavaliers regression depending on choices they make – do the Celtics cash in their draft treasures and make a move for Jimmy Butler or some equivalency? Do the Raptors spend big to bring back their core and pray James sprains an ankle next season, or leaves Cleveland in free agency in 2018?
The conference gets tighter in either scenario, but right now the East is home to teams plotting against one another for a chance to get swept by Golden State.
The Philadelphia 76ers may eventually rise from the ashes, but they’re building a foundation on cracked feet and tender knees; ‘the process’ is a theory until proven otherwise.
And Giannis Antetokounmpo clearly has the goods to be a Durant-stopper, but the Milwaukee Bucks are at least two elite players short of being a contender with no clear means to acquire them, financially, and a tradition of losing their best players to warmer, sunnier places that stretches back nearly 50 years. So Antetokounmpo may eventually anchor a new dynasty but it’s unlikely to be in Milwaukee.
Out West, those that crave knock-down, dragged out conference finals got excited when rumours circulated that Chris Paul would consider going ring hunting in San Antonio.
With the still-potent 32-year-old point God running the show for Kawhi Leonard, the Spurs would instantly have the NBA’s best two-way tandem when factoring on-the-ball defence and ruthlessly efficient offence; a space-and-pace version of Stockton and Malone.
But for that to happen, the pending free agent would have to leave the Clippers and a five-year max that would pay him $205 million for four years and $153 million in San Antonio.
And even if Paul could afford to leave $50 million in guaranteed money on the table, the Spurs can only afford him if declining 37-year-old Pau Gasol declines the option on the $16 million the Spurs owe him next season. Barring that, the Spurs would have to look at closing the door on a Manu Ginobili return and waiving injured Tony Parker to stretch his cap hit out to something more manageable. The Spurs have spent 20-plus years building a culture, it’s hard to imagine them being that ruthless at this stage.
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According to Zach Lowe of ESPN.com the Rockets are scheming and plotting to leverage the best years of James Harden, but the last time we saw him he was shooting 2-of-11 with six turnovers in an elimination game against the Spurs. The Warriors probably aren’t worried.
The sexiest angle might be James taking his talents to Hermosa Beach in 2018 for some kind of Superteam reboot with the Lakers, or a bucket list project with Paul and the Clippers. James will be heading into his 16th season at that stage and Paul his 14th, so count me skeptical. And even James might struggle to go win-now alongside a passel of Lakers young guns who have only ever lost in the NBA, even if Paul George finds his way home from Indiana.
When it comes to renovating rosters with shaky foundations, James is the NBA’s Love it or List it ninja, but that is one move that might leverage his talents beyond what can be reasonably expected.
Frustrating as it might be for the rest of the league’s hopefuls, the best strategy might be to simply try and wait the Warriors out.
As bright as the future looks for them, the NBA has a way of pulling things apart.
Even barring injury or in-fighting, properly rewarding the roll this team has been on and will likely continue to be on for a few years at least will require financial commitments the NBA has never seen before; that no sport has.
Some number-crunching by former Brooklyn Nets executive Bobby Marks for The Vertical suggested that to keep the Warriors’ four stars together would require a max contract for each of their core each summer between now and 2020. Marks’s total projections of payroll and luxury tax spending over the next four years would be about $1.4 billion, with $700 million in luxury taxes alone. By the end of it, the remarkable depth and balance they have off their bench would be winnowed away. Their depth would amount to whatever veterans they could sign at the league minimum and whatever production they can get from players drafted in the late first or second round.
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Just as the Warriors came together thanks to some unique salary cap events – the discount deal they could get Curry to sign coming off ankle surgery ($44 million over four years), and the salary cap jump this past summer that opened the space for Durant – they will be the first team to feel the full wrath of the way the new CBA punishes repeat luxury tax offenders.
The Warriors owners can likely afford the money, but losing the ability to use all the salary cap exceptions non-tax teams have will affect their ability to round out their roster most critically as they approach the end of their collective primes.
Similarly, the Warriors have been incredibly healthy the past three years. Curry, Thompson and Green have missed 29 games combined.
All great teams are healthy but at some point as their core does begin to age, those numbers may even out somewhat and could offer another beacon of hope.
But the most realistic scenario might be that all that glitters right now simply doesn’t turn to gold. Even in the 1980s when the salary cap was much less restrictive and there was no maximum term on contracts, great teams had significant roster turnover.
Jordan and Pippen were the only constants on the Bulls’ two three-peats.
None of the key figures Magic Johnson won his first title with in 1980 were rolling with him when he lost in his last Finals in 1991, even when roster stability was far easier to achieve than now. His key lieutenant in his first three titles was the ageless Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and then James Worthy. Otherwise it was a rotating cast of Norm Nixon, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy, Byron Scott, and Michael Cooper, among others.
In the Golden State era it’s unlikely the team will be able to trade or draft for players of that calibre and free agency additions won’t be an option.
So barring any unexpected rookie contract finds, the Warriors will have to roll with what they have, hoping they don’t succumb too quickly to the NBA’s tendency to age stars in dog years.
What does the future look like? It’s hard not to project another relatively comfortable run at a title a year from now.
But after that, when money, health, luck and human nature are properly accounted for, the Golden State dynasty might even be past the halfway point.
