Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide: 76ers (3) vs. Nets (6); Suns (4) vs. Clippers (5); Bucks (1) vs. HEAT (8); Grizzlies (2) vs. Lakers (7)
The old friends, fresh enemies, lost loves and other pettiness
You can also read the complete Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide for Other Teams.
Saturday is a packed day of non-Warriors playoff games. Here is a Warriors-centric view of the playoffs, studying Ex-Warriors, Friends, Unrequited Loves, Villains, Petty Rivalries, Team Grudges and Storylines.
Philadelphia 76ers (3) vs. Brooklyn Nets (6)
Playoff Matchup Considerations
PHI is a stronger opponent in a potential GSW Finals, so it’s best if they get upset now. And now on to the petty stuff…
Philadelphia 76ers
Ex-Warriors
Danuel House Jr. On the 2018 training camp roster, the Warriors were too loaded to keep him.
Mac McClung. 2023 Slam Dunk winner and Warriors Summer League cult-hero. He’s on a two-way with PHI, so he won’t be in the playoffs.
Friends
At one time, Joel Embiid, but he’s been downgraded to Petty Rivalry.
Unrequited Love
Dewayne Dedmon has been the big man dream for years in some corners of Dub Nation.
Warriors Villains
James Harden. We covered Harden’s case in detail before. in his election as Warriors Villain For Life. Rival and MVP obsessive, he blends supreme skill with the cheapest possible tactics, with his absurd talents getting overshadowed by dangerous hooks and constant foul-baiting and the general sense that he constantly exploits loopholes in the rulebook.
But, he also lost constantly to the Warriors providing them with many of their greatest victories. He also forced his way out of Houston in a very ugly fashion, virtually putting on a fat suit and partying in COVID clubs to tank his value as much as possible. And though it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving owner, it was damn disrespectful to his coach and teammates who seem to be pretty upright characters.Daryl Morey. The GM of the greatest rival to the Dynasty Warriors, the Houston Rockets. He pushed the league towards a caricature of analytics ball with all threes and layups, oversaw the ultra-effective lawyerball of Harden’s isos and foul baiting, and shared spreadsheets and complaints about how the Rockets technically should have won. But also lost with grace (plus or minus the spreadsheets) and had the guts to challenge the champions instead of whining about it non-stop in the press.
Petty Rivalries
Joel Embiid. On the one hand, he is an elite flopper and seems to be adding crotch kicks to his repertoire. DNHQ was annoyed that Embiid’s actions from Game 3 were punished much less than Draymond’s Trust Fall Onto Sabonis. On the other hand, he is a public fan of Steph Curry.
Montrezl Harrell. Part of playoff battles vs GSW with Harden’s annoying Rockets team (2015-2017) and then the annoying Clippers (2017-2019).
P.J. Tucker. Chimed in supporting Haslem’s fussing about Draymond picking the Celtics to advance. Underhyped crucial part of the Houston threat to the Dynasty Warriors. His great defense wore down KD and his timely three-point shooting helped bring GSW to the edge.
De’Anthony Melton was a member of the annoying 2022 Grizzlies. But he seemed to be relatively mature in that crew.
Team Grudges
76ers have stunk for so long during the process that there hasn’t been meaningful conflict to cause grudges. And historically there’s been little to speak of.
However, the 76ers famously followed The Process to intentionally lose for years to stock up on high draft picks. This is, depending on your point of view, somewhere between an insanely clever life hack to take advantage of the rules and an insult to the game, the fans, and a glib title for being a giant corporate welfare cheat.
Brooklyn Nets
Ex-Warriors
Seth Curry. Didn’t have much time to blossom during his short time at GSW and left without bitterness to get out of his brother’s shadow. Steph roots for him hard when not playing him head to head.
Unrequited Love
Patty Mills was a big 2021 free agent target for GSW, but he snubbed them to join the title favorites BRK. I wonder how that worked out?
Warriors Villains
There used to be a lot of them here (Kyrie, Harden, for some KD), but they all demanded to come, underachieved, and then all demanded to leave.
Petty Rivalries
Ben Simmons has been a rival with Draymond Green for Defensive Player of the Year over the years. The two have also been tied together in trade chatter, being viewed as similar players (yes I know). But Ben’s physical and psychological issues may have him heading out of the league.
Team Grudges
BRK grabbed for the ring, assembling a mercenary grab bag of eccentric stars (Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden). Following the LeBron playbook so far, the stars were expected to leave town once the mine goes dry, leaving it a smoking toxic hellhole.
However, they out-superteamed themselves by imploding BEFORE coming close to winning anything. Kyrie asked out of a contender, showing that his team-killing was out of principle, and not to increase his odds of winning. But even after BRK traded Kyrie on Feb 6, the Nets still seemed like a strong contender. Then they pulled the plug completely by trading Kevin Durant on Feb 9.
What remains is a likable bunch of players. But we really do not appreciate BRK giving KD to PHX and making them one of the favorites to win everything.
Phoenix Suns (4) vs. LA Clippers (5)
Playoff Matchup Considerations
PHX is a stronger opponent in a potential GSW Western Conference Finals, so it’s best if they get upset now. Of course it’s no sure thing that GSW can even get out of the first round.
And now on to the petty stuff…
Phoenix Suns
Ex-Warriors
Damion Lee. Husband of Steph Curry’s sister. Honorary Warrior For Life!
Kevin Durant. Honorary Warrior, but not quite Honorary Warrior For Life in the last election. Generally positive feelings from many but not all fans in Dub Nation.
Friends
Robert Sarver was known as one of the cheapest and most unpleasant owners in the NBA. From a basketball perspective, this has been bad for PHX and good for everyone else playing against PHX. Unfortunately, he’s been replaced by a big spending new owner.
Warriors Villains
Chris Paul. We covered the feud between Chris Paul and the Warriors, Dub Nation and most people in extremely vivid detail previously. In short, King Obnoxious with the Lob City Clippers, then Knight Obnoxious in the court of James Harden’s Rockets, he’s just continually getting in the way of the Warriors. He also brought out the best of the Warriors and Steph in particular. From the feud story:
What does Steph in Maximum Tryhard Mode look like? Between the Game 7 loss in May 2014 and January 6 2018, the Warriors went 13-1 against LAC, dropping only the traditional Warriors dud in Los Angeles on Christmas Day 2014.
Many of Stephen Curry’s most famous highlights came in that stretch against Chris Paul’s team.
He was elected Warriors Villain For Life, but unfortunately he was not able to dethrone James Harden as the most despised player in Dub Nation. Most recently, CP3’s 2021 MVP campaign irritated a lot of commenters here.
Let’s not forget his Tonpa role in the league, telling the world that small-time cheating (flopping, hooking, rip throughs) is good. Not as influential as James Harden’s cheating, Paul’s antics are more like the Athlete’s Foot of the league.
Petty Rivalries
Devin Booker seems to be developing his Flop Force powers under the elder Sith Chris Paul.
Cameron Payne was a role player for the KD OKC team that almost took out GSW in 2016.
Team Grudges
Well, PHX has been horrible from the 2010 last gasp of the Seven Seconds Or Less Suns through 2019. When you’re horrible, you get a zillion high draft picks and now they’ve drafted themselves into being a promising team. It also means there’s no way to develop a team rivalry since PHX has been irrelevant for so long and then has managed to crash out of the playoffs before GSW could face them.
LA Clippers
Ex-Warriors
None.
Unrequited Love
Nicolas Batum has been a GSW free agent target for years now. But he snubbed GSW for a better chance at a ring with LAC. How did that work out?
Robert Covington has also been a statistics darling and target for years.
Warriors Villains
None, but read on about Russ and Kawhi.
Petty Rivalries
Russell Westbrook. He was voted Warriors Villain, but not Villain For Life. Ah, remember the days of the media blitz to give Westbrook an MVP for his combination of talent, box score stuffing, stat padding, and in order to punish Steph Curry and Kevin Durant for teaming up? His star has fallen so far, with multiple teams trading a bunch of assets for him and then having their team crater. So I can’t even list him as a Warriors Villain any more. And frankly, he did the Warriors a huge favor by undoing that LeBron James - Anthony Davis superteam. But just for old time’s sake, here is an old writeup about Russ.
Westbrook has an incredible engine and uses his athleticism to grab rebounds and force layups and generally drive an offense. But to my knowledge, he has never complimented an opposing player except the passive-aggressive, cover-my-ass “he made tough shots”. And he definitely loves his statistics, chasing triple-doubles hard, to the point where his OKC bigs boxed out for him to allow him to get easy rebounds.
And the media exalted his 2016-17 season as a cross between a bride abandoned at the altar, a modern-day Oscar Robertson, and one man standing against the zombies with no help in sight. All this in direct opposition to Kevin Durant’s first Warriors season. And Russ played up the martyr image all the way to an MVP and many dramatic cupcake-themed grudge matches between OKC and GSW.
Russ had plenty of chirps at KD, but also threatened to revenge-injure Zaza Pachulia, and even got happy-go-lucky Nick Young enraged at him.
So there are plenty of reasons for Dub Nation to be annoyed with Russ. But I suspect the chill really began with this smug press conference with OKC up 3-2, where Russ mocks and laughs at the idea that Stephen Curry had underrated defense. Then Steph proceeded to help put the clamps on Mr. Westbrook as the Warriors completed the epic series comeback.
Kawhi Leonard. In our polling, Kawhi didn’t register as a Warriors Villain or really anything at all. People overwhelming didn’t care, even after his role whacking the dregs of the 2019 Finals team. After the 2019 Finals, Kawhi was used by LeBron fans / media to flog Stephen Curry. He was held up as an example of a star who can really carry teams
As I wrote:
Kawhi Leonard may be the greatest player to have no Stans. Everyone respects the abilities and talent. To me, the most absurd part has been his ability to steadily and majorly upgrade his capabilities each year.
Now you would think Warriors fans would have a strong opinion about him. After all he and the Spurs tortured the Warriors from 2011-2015 (yes I included the championship year). In 2015-16, Steph evolved to beyond Kawhi’s domination, but he threw a scare into everyone in the 2017 Playoffs until his injury. And of course, he helped put the Raptors over the Warriors in the 2019 Finals.
Despite all the negative things Kawhi has been party to, he never smack-talks. He gives amusingly literal responses to questions and seems to care not a little bit about the Fame lifestyle.More importantly, he has unintentionally crippled multiple GSW-rival franchises. He kneecapped the unkillable-zombie Spurs out of nowhere and seems to have permanently torpedoed them into second-tier status. He then helped the Raptors but immediately left before anyone could really start to feel one way or the other about him. Then he forced a trade to the Clippers while apparently leading on the Lakers as long as possible to sabotage their free agency plans.
If that wasn’t enough to make you think he was a sleeper agent for Dub Nation, then he forced the Thunder to trade Paul George and triggered the demolition of Russell Westbrook’s Cupcake Commandos which then caused the hilarity of Westbrook joining James Harden, two players whose peculiar fan bases had just spent years keyboard-slaughtering the other; and also forcing the trade of Chris Paul, one of the most gifted and obnoxious players in the world, to basketball Siberia.
So… you can’t be blamed for loving, hating or not caring about the fellow. And so perhaps it is no surprise that the poll results are really really neutral.
Eric Gordon. He played a major role in the Houston Rockets team that challenged the mid-stage Warriors Dynasty. But he seemed relatively mature next to blinding light of the grifter ball of Chris Paul and James Harden.
Owner Steve Ballmer. Irritating, but in the end the guy does shell out the bucks for a competitive team (who can forget the awful Donald Sterling who somehow got rewarded for his awfultude with a massive payday on selling the team).
Coach Tyrone Lue. The coach of the LeBron CLE Finals teams (except 2015), he held together a tricky mess of a Cavs team featuring LeBron’s corporate juggernaut, Kyrie Irving’s intense ultra-wandering spirit and Kevin Love’s sacrificing reputation and dignity to let the other two thrive. He also gave props to Steph Curry as the “Head of the Snake” in a time when most of the media was crediting Kevin Durant for carrying Steph and teaching him how to brush his teeth.
Team Grudges
Once the principal rival of the up and coming Warriors, the Lob City Clippers ended up being a punching bag for years and then scattered to the winds. Kawhi tried to assemble a super team in LAC, recruiting Paul George. But will those two have the nerve to go Full LeBron on LAC and ditch them when they start to age out of contender status? Well, given Kawhi’s record, maybe that’s 100% certain.
Milwaukee Bucks (1) vs. Miami HEAT (8)
Playoff Matchup Considerations
MIL is a stronger opponent in a potential GSW Finals, so it’s best if MIL gets upset now.
And now on to the petty stuff…
Milwaukee Bucks
Ex-Warriors
None, I think?
Friends
Jrue Holiday. Hard working, great defender, two-way talent. Fierce rival, but also a big public fan of Stephen Curry.
Giannis Antetokounmpo. He and Stephen Curry regularly pick each other first in All-Star games. Make googly eyes and godly plays together.
From Giannis’s Honorary Warrior For Life election (he fell short):
Dub Nation has been pining for this MVP to bolt Milwaukee and join the Warriors. We also have a soft spot for him for picking Stephen Curry first when he was All-Star captain, which Steph rewarded with this absurd alley-oop.
Giannis has also been openly humble about his MVP case, claiming not to care about it, in stark contrast to certain other bearded players who are obsessed with MVP. In fact, Giannis has been taking jabs at Harden and Harden has been taking bigger jabs back. Here’s the latest round from today:
James Harden addresses the comments Giannis made during the All-Star draft about assists: "I average more assists him than him, I think....I don't see what the joke is." Later: "But I wish I could just run and be 7 feet and just dunk." youtube.com/watch?v=tUCf4p…So the poll results were very friendly to the reigning MVP.
Poll. Dub Nation, imagine you see Giannis Antetokounmpo in a game with no practical implications for the Warriors. (So not against GSW, ignore draft picks, playoff seeding, etc.) Do you want him to do well or poorly?Well 73.4% / Poor 4.6% / Don’t care either way 20.2% / Don’t know who they are 1.7%.
Dub Nation has lots of affection for the Greek Freak, but he falls juuuust short of the 75% mark. He is hereby awarded Honorary Warrior.
Unrequited Loves
Joe Ingles has been a longtime target of Dub Nation.
Warriors Villains
Grayson Allen rose to fame in college as a talent who couldn’t stop cheap shooting opponents. Then for two seasons he was a merely annoying foil until he hit big shots in the MEM-GSW Play-In overtime. Then he re-torpedoed his reputation with his wild flagrant taking out Alex Caruso for weeks.
Petty Rivalries
Meyers Leonard. Went bonkers for one game in the playoffs vs GSW, but it’s okay since GSW won anyway. After his anti-Semitism scandal, he bounced around to the Lakers and finally landed on MIL.
Jae Crowder was the Agitator for PHX and has snipped at GSW for years, carping about KD and more recently trash talking Draymond.
Team Grudges
Not sure who hates the Bucks, as they didn’t win a playoff series from 2002 to 2018, disappointed in two straight playoffs, finally broke through, taking out the damned annoying Chris Paul Suns, and then fought valiantly despite injuries in the next couple of playoffs.
Miami HEAT
Ex-Warriors
None.
Friends
Jimmy Butler. Famously couldn’t get along with the Minnesota Timberwolves management, couldn’t get the most out of Andrew Wiggins through tough love, and caused so much chaos that it forced trades and moves that put MIN in such a dreadful position that MIN had to make a desperation move to keep Karl-Anthony Towns from leaving: the glorious trade of Andrew Wiggins and the 2021 Top 3 protected 1st round pick (#7 Kuminga) for KAT’s pal D’Angelo Russell. Thanks, Jimmy.
Kevin Love. Childhood pal of Klay Thompson. Legendary near-trade target for Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes. The #2 free agent whom LeBron grabbed for his Superfriends 2.0 (v 1.0 in CLE), who became a scapegoat for all CLE’s problems.
Unrequited Love
MIA have a few players that Dub Nation has fantasized about getting for years:
Dewayne Dedmon, Omer Yurtseven, Kevin Love.Dilly writes: I believe that Dewayne Dedmon had his own little meltdown on the Miami bench & threw something & was waived and/or traded & waived and was later picked up by Philly. I think.
Warriors Villains
None yet.
Petty Rivalries
Udonis Haslem. Raised a whole fuss about Draymond picking the Celtics to advance.
Team Grudges
None really. They did have the annoying LeBron / Wade / Bosh Super Friends team, but that one horribly underperformed so much that it provided some entertainment. Dwyane Wade has been pretty cool in retirement, and they also got dumped by LeBron after he strip-mined the town, so it’s hard to hold a grudge. They also gave the Lakers a scare in the 2020 Disney Cup despite a rash of Heat injures, and also got within one shot of upsetting the Celtics in 2022.
Memphis Grizzlies (2) vs. LA Lakers (7)
Playoff Matchup Considerations
MEM is a stronger opponent in a potential GSW Finals, so it’s best if they get upset now.
And now on to the petty stuff…
Memphis Grizzlies
Ex-Warriors
None
Friends
Steven Adams is everybody’s friend.
Unrequited Love
Jake LaRavia got a huge amount of love in the 2022 DNHQ Draft Tourney. David Roddy is another cult draft hero that ended up on MEM.
Warriors Villains
Dillon Brooks
First rubbed some fans the wrong way with his aggressive wrestling of Steph Curry through the 2021 Play-In.
Then he injured Gary Payton II and knocked him out of most of the playoffs.
Then he’s trash talked Draymond Green and Klay Thompson endlessly trying to poke the bear.
How often have you seen Klay mad enough to do this?
Then he’s gotten into so many weird kerfuffles with different players that it’s not just a Warriors problem; he’s now despised around the league.
Petty Rivalries
Ja Morant did praise Steph as the MVP, but then he rudely threw in 5 threes to mess up the Warriors playoff run. He also tried to go full gangster and ended up suspended and in counseling. I don’t think he’s a Warriors Villain yet, since his story has taken such a depressing turn, and also since MEM seems to be a tougher matchup for GSW without Ja.
Coach Taylor Jenkins outraged Dub Nation with his comments about being “curious” about whether Jordan Poole injured Ja by gently brushing his knee (physically impossible) on purpose (come on).
Team Grudges
The 2022 MEM-GSW playoff series was epic, matching up, in my opinion, the two best teams in the West. Memphis is such a bad matchup for GSW with their endless long athletic wings and sturdy bigs, and losing Ja seemed to transform MEM into an even worse matchup for GSW. Their power forced GSW to level up their own play to overcome them.
MEM did knock GSW out of the 2021 Play-In, but that seemed more like a random ending than anything, and MEM had not evolved into their current level of obnoxiousness.
The Grit and Grind Grizzlies nearly knocked the 2015 Warriors out of the playoffs, before Draymond took Steph out for BBQ and Kerr debuted the Tony Allen Defense on Tony Allen. And in general, that team gave GSW a tough time with their smashmouth basketball. But in the end, MEM never really damaged GSW’s chances, and they also set the stage for plays like this:
If you can ever say a playoff series was decided by a 3rd quarter heave, that was it.
L.A. Lakers
Ex-Warriors
LAL had Juan Toscano-Anderson and Damian Jones, but traded them in a big mid-season reset. So Dub Nation can now hate LAL without any conflicts.
Friends
None.
Unrequited Love
Parts of Dub Nation really wanted to acquire Jarred Vanderbilt (All-NBA Motor) and Rui Hachimura.
Warriors Villains
LeBron James. LeBron pioneered the age of players assembling as mercenary super squads at resource-rich franchises and then leaving when they’ve strip-mined everything for maximum short-term gain.
LeBron combines all-time genius level play and athleticism (explosiveness plus invulnerability) with petty crap. One sequence that sums it up: His 2018 Finals Game 1 regulation performance was one of the best games I’ve ever seen; he then follows that with a mental meltdown after J.R. Smith’s meltdown; then smashes a whiteboard in the locker room after and breaks his hand and ruins any chance of an upset; then shows up to the post-Finals press conference in a “oh you mean this?” hand cast so that people would ask him the story.Anthony Davis. AD pioneered the age of players having multiple years left on their contract forcing themselves off the team via PR tricks, sudden injury issues and generally abandoning their team and contract.
AD forced a trade to the Lakers by sieging the Pelicans well before his contract expired to team up with LeBron, though NOP took an amusingly long time to call his bluff. He recently won no fans in Dub Nation when the heavy favorite Lakers got a ref-colored win in the Play-In and he followed it with giddy trash talk.
Petty Rivalries
Austin Reaves worked his way up from the G-League, works hard on both ends, and has become possibly the worst sport-destroying foul-baiter on the planet. He must be stopped for the sake of impressionable children, the elderly, people looking in the direction of his games, marine habitats and basically all terrestrial lifeforms.
Team Grudges
Most of Dub Nation wished ill on the Lakers franchise before LeBron and AD showed up to strip-mine. Now that they’re together, it is a recipe for Dub Nation disgust. That doesn’t even bring in the recent ref-fueled 2021 Play-In loss.
>by gently brushing his knee (physically impossible) on purpose (come on).
Do not underestimate Poole's infamous Feathery Touch Knee Exploder.
Dewayne Dedmon started his career with the dubs. Even played in Santa Cruz for a bit. Very underdeveloped at the time though.