FanPost

How the Warriors Built a Championship Team



To understand the current Lakers' situation, it's important to understand how Golden State got to where they are now. Some people are pushing the theory that they became champions by just drafting great players and riding them to the top. And there's a bit of truth to that, but not the whole truth.

Yes, the Warriors did draft Curry and Klay and Draymond and developed them and refused to trade them off (most recently, turning down a Klay Thompson for Kevin Love offer). But they aren't the only reason they've won championships, and there were at least 2 key trades that helped them make big jumps.

In the 2011-2012 season, the Warriors went 23-43. The Lakers had slipped a bit but Kobe was still healthy and they still had Pau Gasol and Bynum. The Spurs were the best in the West with Duncan still a beast. The Clippers had built a big three of CP3 and Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. Memphis was still good, Dallas was 1 year removed from winning a title, and everyone thought Miami would be the best team in the East for the next 5 years. Basically Golden State was a bottom feeder team. And their outlook was that it was going to be a long time until the great teams above them faded and they had any chance at being competitive, let alone a champion.

But they did have a couple of promising young players in Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Not really All-Stars... Curry was supposedly fragile and got injured too easily and Klay was a bit of a defensive liability. But they were both really good shooters.

Then in March of 2012, they traded off arguably their best player, Monte Ellis for Andrew Bogut. This had two effects. First of all, it opened up more minutes for Curry and Thompson. Second, it gave them a player who dramatically improved their defense. And Curry and Thompson both took advantage of the additional minutes and made a big jump in their level of play. And so in 2012-2013, the Warriors went 47-35 and made the 6 seed in the playoffs. They even managed to beat Denver in the first round before losing to the Western Conference champion Spurs.

But it was a combination of the trade which improved their defense and a step up in play from their 2 best young players (and to a lesser extent Harrison Barnes) that brought them from lottery team to playoff team. They also drafted Draymond Green in the summer of 2012, but he didn't have a significant impact his first season.

The next bump was when they traded for Andre Igoudala. Golden State traded Richard Jefferson, Andris Biedrins, Brandon Rush, four draft picks, and cash to get Igoudala. They didn't say... Oh, Igoudala wants to play for us, we'll just wait until his current contract expires and then sign him. They traded actual assets for him.

It took a season for the team to gel (they were 51-31 in 2013-14) and for Curry and Klay and Draymond to mature a bit, and then in 2014-15 they won a championship.

So they went from a team in similar state to last year's Lakers (lottery team, worse record, promising young players but not yet stars) to a playoff team in 1 year, and to a championship team 2 years later.

And then they let their starting small forward leave without compensation in order to have enough cap space to sign Kevin Durant. And now they're the monster team of the West (at least for the moment).

Two important points:

First, they were willing to give up assets to improve the team. They gave up assets to get Bogut who improved them. They gave up assets to get Iguodala who improved them. They gave up assets to get Durant who improved them.

Second, they never looked at all the strong teams above them and said "Oh, we'll NEVER beat the Spurs for the championship next year so why bother?" When they could improve, they improved. And when they moved to a playoff team with some talented young players, other stars (Iguodala) wanted to join them. And when they became a contender, other stars (Durant) wanted to join them too. They didn't sign any superstar free agents while they were a lottery team.

This history lesson is brought to you by the "let's trade for Paul George now" association. Trade now. Win now. Win Championships later.