A Warriors take was sent in by Subscriber JD and I would like to riff on it. I don’t talk much about the team I used to cover, mostly because I feel insecure about knowing far less than I used to, but it is time.
Hi Ethan -
I've been a Warriors fan all my life. As an aging millennial, I've had the unbridled joy of watching my pathetic Cohan/Robert Rowell Warriors be transformed into an absolute basketball goliath. Thanks to Joe Lacob, Steve Kerr, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and most importantly, Steph Curry, I've seen my Dubs go from laughing stock to winning 4 titles in the span of 8 years.
I've seen some nasty stuff on twitter over the past 3-4 seasons from the fanbase on twitter. Criticisms of Steve Kerr that border on malicious attacks on his character, fans thinking they are rooting for Succession-like dingbats in the Lacobs, Bob Myers going from 'Swindlegod' to someone who actually DIDN'T do anything/was bad and just overall general grumpiness. I get it, by the way. It's impossible not to recognize that Steph is still very much a top 10-15 player in the NBA right now despite being 36. I very much wish they hadn't wasted their no. 2 overall pick on James Wiseman in 2020.
Things are beginning to wind down as the roster ages and players depart for other (maybe greener) pastures. This is normal, and is just what happens in sports. This season, though, is a bit different than in previous years. Fans are starting to turn, not just on ownership - but it's even starting to get pointed at the man that gave us all of this - Wardell Stephen Curry II. (this tweet has 200+ likes and is just one example of some of the stuff being said on twitter)
Warriors fans are doing this thing where they are looking at the past w/20-20 vision and blaming the team for moves they didn't make. But almost every example had a logical and clear reason why it didn't happen at the time. 2020 draft for e.g. The team was anticipating the return of Klay from his ACL tear, and logically thought adding a stretch 5 was the best option. That makes sense! James Wiseman looked good in the limited CBB action he had before being ruled ineligible b/c of dated NCAA rules on top of COVID screwing up that season. Would it have been an incredible bit of foresight to trade up and draft Anthony Edwards? Of course! But could you imagine how much moodier and sullen Klay would have been especially since he was already not super pleased about the emergence of Jordan Poole? How were the warriors to know that ON DRAFT DAY Klay would tear his achilles in a game of pickup? There are so many unforseen ripples that could have happened. Klay and Jordan Poole played massive parts of the '22 title. Would that title have happened if Edwards were a 2nd-year hot shot on the team? There are so many examples like this, but fans nonetheless feel entitled to retrospectively criticize.
Fans are starting to go at journalists who cover the team. Some of them are your former bosses/colleagues. I personally think that if Tim Kawakami, Anthony Slater, Tim Bontemps or Marcus Thompson are offering their perspective, we (fans) should understand that the writers are around the team way more often, are privy to much more info than we are, and frankly that the journos have a pretty astounding track record of telling it like it is about the Warriors. Its not like TK has turned into Bob Fitzgerald overnight!
The general consensus out of Dubs HQ is - they're not great this year, and they're going to try and improve the team at the margins for now, but will hold back big assets in the hopes that a true team-changing player becomes available. This makes sense to me! Why are fans of the belief that the organization is incompetent? And why are Warriors fans on Twitter so incredibly privileged?
Sorry for the long email, but the Twitter fandom (which features a few folks you semi-regularly have on your pod) has started to become too much to handle and I need to complain about it to someone. Would love to hear your thoughts.