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Exploring the Possibility of the Warriors Failing to Reach the Finals

The Golden State Warriors are playing some of their best basketball of the season, and KD isn’t even on the floor. This means his return will ensure domination all the way to the NBA Finals, right? Wrong.

By Kenneth WilsonPublished 7 years ago 6 min read
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SF Gate

A week ago, the Golden State Warriors feared losing the No. 1 seed to the San Antonio Spurs. Now, they find themselves a full three and a half games ahead of the No. 2 seeded Spurs. This is in large part due to Wednesday night’s spectacle of a performance by both sides, where the Warriors opened the game down 15–0 and were down by as much as 22, only to come back and win the game by 7 points. This came only a night after a tough road win versus the Houston Rockets, who they face again on Friday at the Oracle Arena.

Combined with their recent nine-game win streak, what exactly do tough back-to-back wins like this say about the Warriors? Some would say that it means they are “priming for the playoff chase and starting to play their best basketball at the right time.” Others would even say “it looks as though the team has found their rhythm and will get that much better once KD returns”, but I believe it begins to tell another story. One that actually began at the beginning of the season. This is the story of how Golden State will not make the NBA Finals.

Once the season began everyone in the sports world was ‘gung-ho’ over the Warriors, as they should have been. They had, by all accounts, just acquired the second best player in the world to go along with a championship team consisting of three of the top 20 players in the NBA. This euphoria was short-lived to those who really pay close attention, though, as there were a few things that just didn’t seem quite right.

From a lack of the quality bench and role players to the fact that some of their “stars” weren’t shining as bright as originally thought, the rumblings began that perhaps this wasn’t Golden State’s conference to lose after all. This all combined with Kawhi Leonard playing and looking like a “final form” character from ‘Dragon Ball Z’ gave some the notion that the Spurs could actually knock off the Golden State “superfriends.”

For The Win

Fast forward to game No. 60 against the Washington Wizards on February 28, 2017, and the unthinkable happens. Kevin Durant is injured and has to be out for a rather substantial period of time. On the surface it appears that this was a very bad thing for the Warriors, but if you look at it for what it is worth and has done, it was more good than bad. Prior to Kevin Durant going down, there was always this background chatter about everyone else on the team’s numbers and how they didn’t look as good as last season.

This was somewhat of a stretch and interpretation issue, as when you add a guy who is as lethal with the ball as KD is, everyone has to sacrifice at least a bit in order to get maximum worth out of that maximal talent. The issue here is that unlike in other situations, such as Miami with their Big 3, this sacrifice didn’t come with better results for the team. This was so much the case that even up until the game Durant went down, pundits still questioned whether or not Steph was being as aggressive as he had been due to the presence of Kevin Durant.

Star-Telegram

After KD went down that all changed, as Steph Curry quickly reverted back to his old self. He is noticeably starting to ring off performances with more consistency, resembling that of the past two years. But was that all it took to make things “right” again? Although Klay Thompson’s numbers really don’t reflect a drop off in production and although Draymond Green’s defensive stats may be down only a bit, the key here isn’t all in the numbers. In the past, each member of the team would get in sync with the rest of the team. What the issue is now is that Kevin Durant’s style of play forces everyone to try and get off in spite of the way he goes about the game. Kevin Durant threw a wrench into the already developed and awesome chemistry GS had, and it will cost them in the future.

Another technicality as a result of bringing Durant aboard were the casualties of said deal, who were then forced to take other jobs. That is, however, from the released player’s perspective. But from the Golden State perspective, it meant letting several players go to acquire one. It just so happened that the players that needed to be let go were ones that helped to make Golden State a team Kevin Durant wanted to join. The Warriors lost key pieces over the last year in Leandro Barbosa, Mo Speights, Andrew Bogut, and Harrison Barnes, with the latter two being really important to what they did on the floor. Although Durant is an all-time transcendent player, he is only one guy. When the depth of your team is negatively affected as it was here, it usually has a negative impact on the team overall.

New York Post

Along with overall depth, there is another specific aspect of “depth” that will become an issue in the near future — lack of bigs. When thinking about what happened with the acquisition of Durant and how things have played out thus far, it has you thinking about a few names: David Lee, Festus Ezeli, Javale McGee, the aforementioned Mo Buckets, as well as Andrew Bogut, and lastly Draymond Green. The Warriors signed Kevin Durant with the notion that he would be the four guy in their small lineup, but the catch is that this still leaves you “small” and susceptible to any team capable of taking advantage of an insider mismatch, such as San Antonio.

These are the reasons why the Warriors will not make the NBA finals. It sounds strange, but could KD possibly make the Warriors worse upon returning from injury? Yes and no. He makes them better on paper and perhaps the floor if they had the chemistry or time to develop it, because he is friggin’ Kevin Durant — the slim reaper, KD, The Durantula, a 7' 0" shot maker, a shooting guard in a center’s body. That’s apparent. However, he doesn’t make them a better team. He simply disrupts the team chemistry on the floor, and has disrupted several elements of team building and development upon being signed. If you are a part of the Warrior family and/or fanbase, just remember, “Shit happens.” Unfortunately for Golden State, the shit happening involves the Warriors not making a trip to the NBA Finals.

basketball
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About the Creator

Kenneth Wilson

SPORTS...food...culture...music! VA raised me. Can't handle the real..........you might want to make like a tree....10-4?!

Follow me on twitter @Ksaidwhat

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