Daily NBA Fix: The Golden State Warriors’ Historical Dominance Continues
By Ben Gibson
You don’t have to look far for write-ups on Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors but they continue to give us reason after reason to write about them.
Fifty reasons to, if you go by the number of points they beat the Memphis Grizzlies by Monday night. The final score was 119-69.
The game was within the realms of sanity when the teams came out of the locker rooms at halftime as the Warriors led 53-34. Memphis was trailing but a few runs and they could grit and grind their way to the fourth quarter and hope to keep Curry and company in check.
About that.
There are many, many superlatives I could use to describe that second half but I don’t think it can do justice. They beat a playoff team from last season by 50 points. That should say enough. The game was already out of hand by the time the fourth quarter began at 93-49.
Last season we heard the statistic that Golden State was first in offensive rating and top-five in defensive rating but I don’t think we properly appreciated what that meant. In sports, and in life, we often have this idea that teams are some sort of RPG character that if they are fast, they are weak, if they are powerful, they must be slow.
If you are good on offense, you are sacrificing defense. That hasn’t been the case with the Warriors last year or this year.
Elias: @Warriors have outscored opponents by 100 points in 1st 4 games -- an NBA record pic.twitter.com/MhjapgM6Ex
— NBA.com (@NBAcom) November 3, 2015
The one thing they do give up is size, but it doesn’t matter as far as their results go. They still manage to dominate on both ends of the floor. They are playing at a historically great level as well. How many teams have had a 10-plus margin of victory for the season? For one the Warriors last season. Any team that has done that has won a championship and it has only happened eight times.
There are three other teams this season with a double-digit margin of victory but they haven’t proven they are capable of keeping that up, with the Cleveland Cavaliers being the only possible exception.
| Miscellaneous | Team | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Season | Tm | Lg | G | W | L | W/L% | MOV ▾ | Pace | ORtg | DRtg | eFG% |
| 1 | 2015-16 | GSW | NBA | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1.000 | 25.00 | 101.9 | 116.7 | 92.2 | .549 |
| 2 | 2015-16 | UTA | NBA | 3 | 2 | 1 | .667 | 14.67 | 91.4 | 103.2 | 87.1 | .468 |
| 3 | 1971-72 | LAL* | NBA | 82 | 69 | 13 | .841 | 12.28 | .490 | |||
| 4 | 1970-71 | MIL* | NBA | 82 | 66 | 16 | .805 | 12.26 | .509 | |||
| 5 | 1995-96 | CHI* | NBA | 82 | 72 | 10 | .878 | 12.24 | 91.1 | 115.2 | 101.8 | .517 |
| 6 | 2015-16 | TOR | NBA | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 12.00 | 100.8 | 107.5 | 95.6 | .506 |
| 7 | 2015-16 | CLE | NBA | 4 | 3 | 1 | .750 | 11.25 | 96.0 | 106.8 | 95.1 | .516 |
| 8 | 1971-72 | MIL* | NBA | 82 | 63 | 19 | .768 | 11.16 | .498 | |||
| 9 | 1996-97 | CHI* | NBA | 82 | 69 | 13 | .841 | 10.80 | 90.0 | 114.4 | 102.4 | .511 |
| 10 | 1991-92 | CHI* | NBA | 82 | 67 | 15 | .817 | 10.44 | 94.4 | 115.5 | 104.5 | .518 |
| 11 | 2007-08 | BOS* | NBA | 82 | 66 | 16 | .805 | 10.26 | 90.9 | 110.2 | 98.9 | .522 |
| 12 | 2014-15 | GSW* | NBA | 82 | 67 | 15 | .817 | 10.10 | 98.3 | 111.6 | 101.4 | .540 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Of those championship teams that we have offensive and defensive ratings for only four were better than last year’s Warriors in net rating. As impressive as the Warriors were last year, the 1991-92, 1995-96 and 1996-97 Chicago Bulls and the 2007-08 Boston Celtics were ahead of the 2014-15 Warriors’ 10.3 net rating.
The ’96 and ’97 Bulls and ’08 Celtics more than a point better with 12, 13.4, and 11.3 net ratings, respectively.
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The Warriors current margin of victory stands at a laughably high 25 and their net rating at 24.5 with these small sample sizes. Those numbers most likely will draw back closer to around 10, but by how much?
This Warriors team is hitting their prime as most of the rotation is younger than 30 years old, with Andrew Bogut, Andre Iguodala and Leandro Barbosa being the only ones older than 30. This team isn’t headed for a cliff any time soon as far as age or wear and tear catching up to them.
Can they win the title? Yes. Can they have the largest margin of victory and net rating in the process? It is possible. They have a few teams that stand in their way of doing that but I’m not betting against the champions as long as they are playing somewhere between last year’s greatness and this season’s current absurdity.
LeBron Surpasses the 25,000 Point Mark
While were on the subject of historical greatness, LeBron James scored his 25,000th (and 25,001st) points with an alley-oop dunk in the Cavaliers 107-100 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers.
He became the youngest player in NBA history to score that many points (just like all the other milestones before).
Since We’re Still on the Subject of Historical Greatness
That might be the most egregious missed travel call in NBA history, yet D.J. Augustin isn’t called for it. Superstars get all the calls.
Next: The 30 Best Small Forwards of All-Time
The missed call wasn’t enough for the Oklahoma City Thunder to stop the Houston Rockets from getting their first win.