The 'Gold" is gone for Golden State Warriors

GS accomplished a lot even b/f KD got there - Curry has manageeld to achieve a lot given his lack of athletic ability - one can argue Curry has done/accomplished way more with less, than 99% of other players with superior physical ability.

IMO GS earned a lot of what they accomplished - it's not as if they were stacked with talent b/f KD got there - Draymond is an undersized 2nd round pick - Klay was the 11th pick so it's not as if he was a top lottery pick - and Steph was hardly recruited out of high school and went to a tiny private Liberal Arts College and he took Davidson to the Elite-8 in the NCAA tournament (they had not been close b/f or since)

Love him or hate him, Curry is one of the best pure shooters in the history of the NBA. He may be a one trick pony, but he does that one trick extremely well! I don't think of Curry as a one trick pony personally. Because he is such a great shooter, he can up fake a defender and go right by them to the hole. He has scored a lot of points doing this.

Golden State achieved quite a bit during the past five seasons but age, injury, free agency, and the price of success has finally caught up to them.

True, GS won a chip before KD, but it was against an injury-plagued Cavs team. When the team was healthy the following trip, they couldn’t rise to the occasion.

But adding KD was just absurd and basically made the outcome a foregone conclusion. No one is surprised GS won chips with a healthy KD on the roster.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind the run they had, except for all the showboating and shimmying as they went along throughout the entire season.

No shimmying this year!

"I don't follow basketball that much, but every highlight clip I've seen of Curry is him sinking a 3-pointer from downtown and that's pretty much it"

As someone who does follow basketball that much, watching a few highlight clips is not going to give an accurate representation of a person. He is shown in highlights making so many threes because he is one of the best three point shooters of all time. That's why.

I got into an argument with my ex boyfriend about this years ago (it's actually why we broke up): I had been following the Warriors for years, he had never sat through a single game. But because he always saw Steph making threes in the highlights, he actually thought he was qualified to debate me on this. This is how you know he was a stupid person; a smart person would have said, "well I've never even watched an entire game, and you watch nearly all of them, so when you tell me Steph can do more than shoot threes, I should take your word for it." Instead, he wanted to argue. So I pulled up some stats.

He was averaging almost 31 ppg at that time, and less than 14 of those 31 points were coming from three pointers. That is a lot of missing points to make up for, for someone who only shoots threes. He was also 2nd in the league in steals at that time (this was the season where he went on to be the only unanimous league MVP ever).

You need to do a lot more than just shoot threes to win league MVP (twice).

My advice to anyone who thinks Steph only shoots threes is to watch a couple of his games. Steph restored my faith in the NBA. I am actually NOT one of the people who watches the NBA to see people "dunk on scrubs." I don't care for dunks. Steph wasn't genetically blessed with the DNA to be as athletic as someone like Lebron, but he makes up for it by having a skill level this is truly unmatched. I think he's actually part alien.

I don’t question Steph on skill level; as an individual, he’s a beast in his own right.

I do question his ability to be the type of superstar to lead a team, particularly when not playing around others that are similarly gifted.

The spacing Steph provides by his ability to hit 3s is nuts, he just needs average to above average players to take advantage. And his unselfishness bleeds through to other players. He is very very very good.

"I do question his ability to be the type of superstar to lead a team, particularly when not playing around others that are similarly gifted."

The first year he won league MVP and the NBA championship, his "superstars" were Klay Thompson who had just made his first all star team (barely), wasn't a high draft pick and was thought of at the time only for his ability to catch and shoot, and Draymond Green, who wasn't an all star yet and was a 2nd round draft pick who "experts" said would fail in the NBA because he was supposedly too small to be a center or power forward, and not skilled or athletic enough to be a guard or small forward. So it's not like Steph inherited a stacked team. He really built it.

I don’t place much stock in draft pick selection. Top draftees can fail; low seeds can rise to the occasion.

The team was definitely built ground up, but not by Curry. Mark Jackson and his coaching staff set them up to succeed. And then Kerr got to waltz in and collect all the accolades...lol!

The stacked deck starts with the addition of KD after falling to the Cavs following their record-breaking regular season of showboating (and being up 3-1 in the finals). That series is where Curry should had stepped up as leader, if he had it in him to do so.

Looking at their roster I think lebron had better players on those Cleveland teams he dragged to the finals. Nobody is carrying gsw anywhere not even jordan.

The 2007 Cavs could be considered scrubs - but if memory serves me correctly the 2015 Cavs had the highest payroll in the league - and the Heat teams Lebron played on were not scrubs either

"... but if memory serves me correctly the 2015 Cavs had the highest payroll in the league ..."

That may or may not be accurate - but I do think the Cavs had the highest payroll at some point after LeBron came back to CLE since the organization seemingly pretty-much gave LeBron everything he wanted and basically seemingly let him run the organization and seemingly bring in whomever he wanted

"Here's the basic question you have to ask yourself --- if it was Curry on the 2007 or 2015 Cavaliers --- would he have taken them to the Finals with a bunch of scrubs like LeBron did ??
absolutely not?

here's my question: do the warriors win that 2015 championship if steph is out of the lineup? imho he's the catalyst of that team. w/o him they're just another pretender masquerading as a contender.

Papi you're right, the Heat were so stacked with talent they made a whole promotional show about the Lebron deal + the reptilian guy and the others they acquired.

Chris Bosh, that's the reptile I was thinking of.

Curry has changed the game for the better and helped put an emphasis on fundamentals versus raw athleticism. A GOAT he may never be, but he will be a legend.

LeBrick - the East was really weak for years. He is overrated IMO. Glad he got Cleveland a ring though, that was nice. I used to like that Price/Ehlo/Daugherty trio.

Steve Kerr & the Warriors are getting exposed!!!

And guess what, the Basketball Season has just begun.

At this rate, I highly doubt that the Warriors will make the Western Conference Finals after playing 82 Games during the regular season.

I'd call it "injured," not "exposed." They're already playing without Klay and now Steph goes down. What exactly do you expect?

At this rate they won't make the playoffs, let alone conference finals.

This is really sad. Also quite obvious that there is some sort of curse stemming from them leaving The Oracle.

Pretty much expected Curry to get hurt...sometimes the NBA is very predictable.

Best to sit out and recuperate vice taking beatings with the rest of the team for an entire season!

@NinaBambina

Even before Steph got injured he was already getting pounded with the rest of the team.

This shows that Steph needs at least two superstars to cover his obvious flaws.

When it comes to carry a team on his shoulders just like Lebron James or even James Harden he flatters.

And then of course Steve Kerr isn’t even that great coach we all thought he is.

Apparently he needs two to three superstars to week games week in week out.

Now that he doesn’t have them, he look totally clueless & stunned.

They’re all getting exposed & it’s hilariously to watch.

This also point to the fact that Lebron James is held to a higher standard than the rest of the NBA.

If he was the one in this situation, he would have already been ripped into shreds by the NBA & ESPN Analysts.

@NinaBambina

43-14 during the first quarter against the Phoenix Suns on home court & ended up loosing 121-110.

I can’t remember the last time the warriors gave up 43 during the first quarter.

That’s my definition of getting exposed.

Except you wanna use the word “pounded” that would also be appropriate.

@NinaBambina

Things got so bad during the last game that Steph had to fake an injury.

Heck I’m inclined to argue that Steph twisting his ankles was never that bad.

He took the easy way out to avoid getting pounded all season long.

He’s very lucky.

He took the “get out of jail free card”

And now all those long time Warriors fans will disappear to wherever they hid 5 years ago