Did the Warriors really just not make the 2024 playoffs?
Gold blooded musings after possibly the last game of the Curry-Thompson-Green era.
Hey everybody! How’s it going? How’s the family?
How am I doing? Well, thanks for asking… I’m doing pretty swell! Just watched Kevin Durant’s Suns fall down 0-2 by the apparently formidable Minnesota Timberwolves.
Oh, how am I feeling about the Golden State Warriors?
To answer that question, I have to let you know one thing about me: I’m a relatively new Dub Nation blog boy. I began this blog life on Golden State of Mind in like 2015, when I was super bored at my property management job and needed something ANYTHING to take my mind away from another resident threatening physical violence on me for their car being towed after being parked in the fire hydrant red zone for a third day.
When I discovered GSOM (I randomly Googled “Fun Warriors blog” and stumbled across the site) I was hooked. These people were the most astute, funny, imaginative, and completely insane Dubs fans I had ever seen in written form. I could begin to hear their voices, and get excited when I read wacky names like Goofus, Sleepy Floyd and Duby Dub Dubs dropping science in one of the hottest message boards in sports blog history.
Over time I went from a quietly shy lurker, to an annoying fringe commenter, to one of the most diabolically poetical pro-GSW fanatics to ever grace this planet. The Gold Blooded King, my imperviously bombastic alter ego, emerged to terrorize other message boards like Fear the Sword, Pounding the Rock, Welcome to Loud City, and GSOM’s arch frenemy The Dream Shake.
I was talking so crazy on their team sites that a few of them actually blocked me from commenting. Can’t blame ‘em: I was a part of a small, unofficial, elite parachute team of GSOM bloggers who would travel to enemy blog territory to plant the golden flag of dominance. My full nerd self was able to connect basketball to trash talking in a way that had never existed outside of actually playing hoops in real life, or at least NBA 2K.
In September 2016 I wrote my first ever “fan post” (basically a longform piece as a non-paid writer on GSOM) entitled, “I Watched the 4th Quarter of Game 7 With Some Beer”.
It’s a pity SB Nation completely destroyed their archival comment section, because the community really resonated with that piece and gave me a lot of positive feedback. That encouragement eventually led me continue writing, become a professional journalist, and end up kicking it with Monte Poole as an accredited media member at Chase Center.
Isn’t it interesting that this rollercoaster ride that you good folks have rode with me since 2016 pretty much started with an emotionally charged therapy exercise lamenting the most painful loss in franchise history?
A lot of my writing career has been punctuated by me with a beer in one hand, a pen in the other, crafting an end of season soliloquy mourning of one of several editions of Warriors teams. We’re talking about squads that boasted greatest player alive Stephen Curry, and yet somehow still ended in defeat. That’s the other end of the coin of a team that is the most dominant team of the modern era, winning four rings over the last decade and changing basketball forever. If they aren’t hosting a parade, they’re watching the postseason on TV like the rest of us.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’ve shared more words following disheartening season finales than I have championship glory.
When I watched the Dubs completely fall apart in their meekly elimination at the hands of the relatively beatable and shorthanded Sacramento Kings last week, I was surprised at how this particular loss didn’t resonate with me like previous eliminations.
It wasn’t giving the nauseous delirium I felt after blowing the 3-1 lead in 2016, or the bitterly solemn acceptance after closing out Oracle Arena and the Kevin Durant-era with a loss in the 2019 Finals. Neither did it give me the quiet simmering of the 2020 Covid lockdown season, nor the painfully annoying bow out to Ja Morant’s Grizzlies in the 2021 play-in tournament.
Last season’s disturbing exit in the second round of a very winnable series against LeBron’s Lakers left a gnawing confusion about chemistry issues that could have sabotaged a championship repeat. But I feel none of that about this season’s team.
It’s clear: the 2023-2024 Warriors never figured themselves out in a league that is sick and tired of Golden State being in the title hunt and have spent years honing rosters to exploit GSW’s weaknesses.
Even though our Dubs could show flashes on any given night of a dominant champion’s resolve, there were way too many self-defeating patterns to defeat hungry, younger contenders looking to close the coffin on the Golden Empire’s dynasty.
There’s a reason these Dubs were the 10th seed. Some nights they looked old, some nights they looked small, and apparently didn’t have enough games with their best players available at the same time to build cohesion. Some nights they looked disinterested and other nights they looked like they, despite their best efforts, flat out couldn’t find the magic they desperately needed.
They led the league with the most games lost (11) after taking a lead into the fourth quarter from the third.
They had only four wins in games decided by three points or less (they had a record of 4-11 in such contests). The only other Western Conference team with less wins in those games was the New Orleans Pelicans, who were 1-7.
I feel like this was the season that the Warriors came to the cold reality that just penciling Curry-Thompson-Green into your starting lineup doesn’t mean a guaranteed playoff berth. And if that is no longer the case, the Warriors apparently have not developed whatever it will take to get back into the playoff stage, which rages red hot as we speak.
Nobody’s time lasts forever. But there’s enough here that there may not have to be much tinkering needed to reignite their competitive flames and get them back into contention. In any case thanks to these guys for another year of roundball, even if it was perhaps the most maddening and bemusing season we’ve witnessed over the last decade of the Big 3 era.
And thanks to YOU, dear reader, for supporting these Warriors and giving them the absolute best vibes for another season. This fan base is undefeated, and I appreciate you for making Dub Nation HQ the greatest place in the world to talk the highs, lows, and unforgettable life lessons we learn from these special athletes. I look forward to sharing these playoffs with you, even if the Dubs are barred this year for being mid.
We really lost to the KANGZ though?!!? SMH it’s time to trade for Victor Wembanyama :D
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