Are The Golden State Warriors An All-Time Great Team?

Uniqueness

Over the course of 103 total games, the Golden State Warriors outscored opponents by 11.0 points per 100 possessions, which, as NBA.com’s John Schuhmann notes, is the third-best mark among the last 38 NBA champions and the best the league has seen since Jordan’s 1996-97 Bulls.

The Dubs also became just the third team in league history to win at least 83 games between the regular season and playoffs, trailing only Jordan’s 1995-96 Bulls (87-13) and Jordan’s 1996-97 Bulls (84-17). Funnily enough, Kerr was a part of all three of those teams:

The world-beating numbers aren’t the only traits that make NBA champions stand out, however. Whenever a discussion like this comes up, it’s entirely necessary to take into account where that champion fits in with the overarching trends of the league at the time.

In other words, did that champion break the mold in anyway? Was there anything about them that made them truly memorable? Did they revolutionize the game or the way we think about it?

The 2014-15 Golden State Warriors definitely pass that test with flying colors.

It must have been bittersweet for Phoenix Suns fans watching the Warriors win their first championship, since it marked the culmination of Mike D’Antoni‘s life work with the Seven Seconds Or Less Suns.

Favoring a style of play that emphasized pushing the tempo, spacing the floor with shooters and avoiding lineups that included traditional big men, Mike D’s teams never caught their break, and many condemned that style of play as fun, but ultimately not fundamentally sound enough to win you a title.

Steve Kerr (the Suns’ general manager when D’Antoni was in Phoenix), Alvin Gentry (one of Mike D’s disciples) and Stephen Curry (the second coming of Steve Nash) proved that opinion to be outdated, essentially finishing what pioneers like D’Antoni and Nash had started but were never able to see all the way through.

By leading the league in pace, the Warriors became the first team to rank in the top five in pace and win a championship since the 1981-82 Lakers, vindicating Mike D’s up-tempo playing style even if these Warriors and those SSOL Suns teams had major differences on the defensive end.

But that’s not all that sets the Dubs apart.

Golden State’s championship was a huge victory for advocates of the pace-and-space era and analytics in general, both of which emphasize the value of the three-point shot. Pundits like Charles Barkley who have been spouting off tired, outdated tropes like jump shooting teams can’t win it all or teams without a low-post presence can’t win it all were finally silenced when the four conference semifinalists just so happened to rank in the NBA’s top five for attempted threes.

The Warriors became the first NBA champion to rank in the top four in made three-pointers, attempted three-pointers and three-point percentage. Having snipers like Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson obviously helps, but Kerr’s emphasis on passing and off-ball movement helps explain why so many of their threes were uncontested…and why the Dubs led the league in assists as well.

Finally, we can’t talk about the Dubs without mentioning the personnel move that changed the outcome of the 2015 NBA Finals. In the fourth quarter of Game 3, by inserting David Lee into the lineup, Kerr’s eyes were opened to the way to beat the Cavaliers, who were playing two traditional, bruise-you-in-the-paint bigs: small-ball lineups.

In Game 4, Kerr inserted Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup for Andrew Bogut. The Dubs won the next three games and the title with Iggy in the starting lineup. They pushed the tempo, they confined Timofey Mozgov to the bench, they got the ball out of LeBron James‘ hands to prevent his grind-it-out hero ball strategy and the versatile Draymond Green held down the fort at center.

It was wholly representative of how this amoeba of a team constantly adapted to adversity and overcame it thanks to their team play, depth and versatility.

Just look at the Finals matchup. It was team ball against a one-man show. It was new-wave analytics vs. hero ball. It was small-ball versatility against traditional lineups. It was perfectly fitting that the Warriors prevailed in the end, not only because they were the best team in the league all season long, but because they’re emblematic of the pace-and-space era and the current direction the NBA is heading.

On a team with no Finals experience, tons of youth and a rookie head coach, the fact that these Warriors had so much fun this season proves you don’t have to take the traditional hard-ass approach of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. We’ll revere those past champions for laying it all on the line with their heroic efforts that saw them sweat and bleed for the game.

But the Warriors proved you don’t need to treat the game like a battlefield to win. When the going got tough, the Dubs overcame every challenge and had plenty of reasons to smile the whole time. Combine that with their versatility, their revolutionary playing style and their overall dominance and I’d say this year’s Golden State team was pretty darn unique if not one-of-a-kind.

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