Dynastic - Chuck Todd & J.A. Adande tell the fascinating (and frustrating) history of the Warriors - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Dynastic. I'm Jaya Adonde and I'm Chuck Todd.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
So this episode's franchise subject is the Warriors. You might
think of them as some new money, Silicon Valley and
fused squad, but the Warriors are sort of the underrated
franchise of NBA history. Their roots go all the way
back to the very beginning of the NBA, an original franchise.

(00:27):
There are so many contrasts to this franchise, starting with
the two of the most iconic players in basketball history,
Wilt Chamberlain and Stephen Curry. JA are there two more
extreme styles of play that one franchise could represent?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
You really can't get any further on the spectrum, Like,
all you need to know is that the NBA didn't
count block shots until Wilt's last season in seventy two
seventy three, and he still has more official career blocks
than Steph Curry.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Of course, Yeah, but you know what, George Micahen has
something to say about that. But if we're gonna you're
really gonna go back.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
But right, Bill Russell, do you think he might have
wanted to get some of his blocks counted?

Speaker 3 (01:05):
But Curry, specially a three point shot.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Of course, wasn't even part of the NBA until nineteen
seventy nine, and that was well after Wilt have retired.
So how do you capture a team with so many facets?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:15):
A team that's called Pennsylvania in California home, it's called
eleven different arenas home. How do you captch all that
in just one snapshot? I think you have to go
to the night of March nineteen, twenty twelve and halftime
ceremony when the Warriors retired the number of Chris Mullet.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Oh Man, the See and Run TMC. What are the
great nicknames for a team that never wins a title?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
A fun group? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So of course it's along with Tim Hardaway and Mitch
Richmond and that high score in Trio led the Warriors
to an average of one hundred eleven points per game.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's where the run part comes in.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
And the other part of the nickname was Court was
a playoff the Semino Rap Group Run DMC. I know
you're replacing the first names of Tim, Mit and Chris
for the DMC. All three of them were drafted by
the Warriors, right, Mullan eighty five, Richmond in eighty eight,
Tim Hardaway in nineteen eighty nine Open nine a year two,
they beat the Nuggets one hundred and sixty two to

(02:12):
one hundred man eight.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I loved watching those teams. That was a lot of
fun to watch. But you know, you did wonder if
they were going to run out of gas, Like.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
They didn't get the chance to though, Like they pulled
off into the side before they before they even had
a chance to run out of gas.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
But you know, even though they only lasted two years together.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
That they were an indelible part of the franchise affects.
Steph Curry wore a run TMC hat during the twenty
eighteen parades is to shout out to his predecessors with
the Warriors in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, there's a through line with the Warriors, and
we're gonna get to it throughout this thing that you know,
even though Wilt is in there, you know it sits
there right as a foundational member. They've actually always been
a running team, a smaller team. And you know the
Rickerry Championship, the Steph Curry, like you look at all
their teams, even the run TMC team, they were all

(03:06):
a little more run and gun always looking for space.
They were not the sort of down low, pick and roll,
that sort of that sort of team.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
It is interesting. The thing that I took away the
most in our research JAA is how there really is
a through line frankly in this Warriors franchise after Wilt
leaves that they're almost Their style of play always ends
up a bit different than whatever the rest of the
league is doing.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
And even though Wilt Chamblain was one of the prototypical
and the og dominant low post presences and big man
forces in the league, he still liked to get up
and down the court, right, And we'll talk about that
as we get into the Wilt era of the Warriors, well, the.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Run TMC era.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
It both peaked and started the decline the same night,
and that was during Game three of the nineteen ninety
one Western Conference semi Finals against the Lakers, off the
only playoff series victory that they won in the first
round other against the Lakers. The Wars is one game
to in LA. They get to split. They now secure
home court advantage for the rest of the series. They're

(04:11):
back in Oakland and Chuck, they bring out the original
run DMC yeah to hype up the pregame introductions.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
That turned out to be a mistake.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, a good intention went a little ride. Maybe they
should have had them do something at halftime, but they
have to do the pregame. They run out on the court,
Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels take the court, mix and Ann.
They've got the turntables set up for jam Master J
and they're getting down right this whole elaborate thing.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I got to ask, any chance you were there covering this.
This is a young JA.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I'm still young. I'm watching on TV. Yeah, you can
see the video.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
That had to be When I think about Oakland nineteen
ninety one peak run, I mean that had to be amazing.
It was rocking.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
And even Don Nelson this you wouldn't think this would
be his type of get down.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
To Nelson as it ends he's coaching that team. He
kind of has a spurk on his face and then like.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Running MC they go over and they like wrap them
up on their way off, and he's still kind of smiling.
You know, it wasn't smiling the Los Angeles Lakers the
whole time this is going on, and I was watching
the Laker broadcast, and they keep cutting over to them
and they're just scowling and they're glaring. Yrons Skuy to
Magic Johnson just have these angry looks on their face.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
So the Lakers win the game, and then.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Ask Michael Thompson on that team, right, Klay's dad is
on this team.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, Clay's dad would have been there in ninety one,
I think so, I think so. Right.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, So the Lakers win, and Magic's still mad about
it after the game, and then the postgame intervy on
the court, he scols the Lakers, delivers a stern message
you don't party on the Lakers. That's why he has
to tell the wars you don't party on the Lakers. Right,
So then the Lakers win the next two game, they
finish off the series and run TMC only last one
more game, opening night of the next season. Then right

(05:59):
after the game, Mitch Richmond's traded the Sacramento and so
much for run CMC.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, that goes to well, that goes to you know
that it's the story of the Warriors before they get
to this dynastic period of their franchise, isn't it real? Yeah,
they get right, they get moments right, they get these
incredible moments, like, you know, whether it's in the sixty
six sixty seven season or what they did here in

(06:24):
ninety one, it's like they you think, oh, are they
on the verge of something? And then it's like Lucy
pulls away the football.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
So they're split up.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
But on this night in twenty twelve, they're all reunited, right,
They're here to honor Mullen and Tim Hardaway and Mitch
Richmond are there, and so many people from the history
of the Warriors, Rick Barry and Alvin Addams, the star
player and the coach of the nineteen seventy five championship team,
the Warriors first championship in California, Tom Meshery, who's.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
The arguably the only one right the only one in
California at the time. People forget this, So it's a
it's more of a revered title that titles means still
means a lot to that Warriors fan base.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
And it was kind of the north star to when
Joe Leco took over the franchise in his ownership group,
he pointed out to the banner that Loan California banner
hanging up there is saying I want another one.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Of those.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Tom Meshery who kind of epitomized the Warriors in a
lot of ways, you know, not a MVP type, but
a fascinating character. We'll get into history in a little bit.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
He was there.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Nate Thurman, the Warrior's other Hall of Fame center, was there.
And Will Chamberlain, who had died in nineteen ninety nine,
he was there, represented by his sister, so he was.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
It was oder.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
It really was almost like this is your life for
a franchise, right. You had the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties
at that moment, all represented there that night, all being
brought together. It was in some ways a nostalgic night
for many fans they had. You got to remember, by
this point in time, they'd only had four winning season

(08:00):
in the twenty one years since the breakup of Run TMC.
I mean, my word, they were kind of a I mean,
you know, look, I'll be honest. You were like, why
are they called Golden I was a kid in the
eighties Golden State. Why don't they just call themselves San
Francisco or Oakland?

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Right?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
You know you know that, you know you're a kid.
You just want them all named after cities, right, and
the present wasn't a lot of fun. The Warriors had
a record of eighteen and twenty four going into that
game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. They were eighteen and twenty
five when the night ended, and they finished the season
twenty games below five hundred.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
It was.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
I guess you could say that you have to hit
bottom before you can get to the top. Huh.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
But at least they had Steph Curry on the roster, right, Chuck.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Well, let's see, let me let's go through that. So
Curry was in his third year, he'd already played in
his last game of the season ten days earlier. This
was the initial fear of Curry come into the NBA.
Was he durable enough? He had been sidelined by his
ankle issues. Troublesome ankles. That would that was the whisper
campaign about him in the draft itself. Right, He would

(09:05):
need surgery that summer to reattach some torn ligaments. It
felt like his body was just, you know, too frail
to succeed in the NBA. Right, There's always been this
question if you're six three or under, can you survive
in the NBA for a long period of time? So
he was a long way away from turning the sport
upside down at this point. In some ways, he was
he was he was, it was he was having the

(09:28):
career people feared that he was going to have, not
the one that he would eventually have. So we'd seen
glimpses of what he could do. He had already had
a forty two point finale in his first season, so
you knew it was there. He finished second, that to
Tarik Evans and the Rookie of the Year voting, And
of course you remember Tarik Evans and all his MVPs, right.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Ja, Yeah, that wasn't a very prescient vote by the
media that you're I just want to say I did
not have a vote in that year's balloting. But you
know who did end up looking like fortune tellers at
least on that night in March of twenty twelve, Rick
Berry and the man of the hour, Chris Mullen. Well,
they have to wonder if they truly believed what they

(10:11):
were saying or if they were just trying to calm
a crowd that had quickly turned like Roman Colisseum levels
of ugly.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Well, this is what I don't know, whether you I'm
always proud. That fan base is care so I think
ultimately the fact that they were so upset that night
maybe tells you something about the fan base. But the
mood shifted when the new Warrior Ownership group head Joe
Lacob took the microphone. If only the Knight's MC Warriors

(10:40):
broadcaster Greg Papa had stayed true to his words what
he said that concludes our ceremony following Mullen's speech, But
then he realized he had forgotten that the boss needed
to speak the new boss, so he brings up Lacob
and the crowd just immediately boosts. And some of this
might be just you just always boo the owner, trust me,
and that's fans. I'm booon the owner. We're all boooning
the owner. You're mad at the owner, right, You never

(11:00):
want to get mad at the players, You get mad
at the owners. But at the point, why were they
so mad? Well, lacap had only had two years so
far to try to turn around two decades of what
was mostly futility. So and ultimately, of course he did
replace what is easily the worst owners in franchise history
for them, Chris Cohan.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, and the fans had had their chance to give
it to Cohen too, right, So it wasn't like this
was like kind of misplaced or no.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
They knew Cohen suck, let's be honest.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
And they let him know.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
When the All Star Game was in Oakland in two
thousand and phone was introduced and boo like there was
no All Star break apparently for the ownership for Chris.
You know, Laca was a venture capital guy. He and
his partner, Peter Gouber is a Hollywood producer, the Rest
Ownership Group. They beat out tech megabillionaire Larry Ellison to

(11:53):
buy The Warriors from Cohen in twenty ten.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
So the Eleisons, now of CBS and paramount fame owner
of the Warriors. Just throw that in your house.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah anyway, God, and apparently their philosophy has shifted, because
what I was told by somebody from inside the Warriors
is this ownership battle, this bidding war was was taking place,
was that Ellison did not like to overpay for things,
even though he and his well he I was just
gonna say, they do.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Now that's the whole Warner Brothers And yeah, well maybe
maybe next generation likes to overpay.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Maybe Daddy didn't like to overpay.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
But anyway, but whatever that amount is, I mean, this
seems like paltry compared to it because even though Lakeab
and Goober they they had the weaker hand, they weren't
coming with as much money as Ellison was. But uh,
you know, they they kind of bluffed their way and
forced him to fold because the price got a little
too high for his liking. So they get the Warriors

(12:51):
for the sum of four hundred and fifty million dollars,
which at the time was the highest for an NBA franchise. Right,
no one had ever seen that high.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
So once again we're at twenty ten. This happened for
four hundred and fifty million dollars.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Yeah, and just.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Know that today if they put them for sale, we're
taping this in be essentially the start of summer twenty
twenty six. So how many other investments at four hundred
and fifty million dollars could grow to ten billion in
value in essentially sixteen years. It's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Amazing you can get such a high multiple for something
that costs so much even back then. But you know,
the Warriors fans, they were wary of this group from
the get go, right because they had their first introductory
press conference after it took over the team. They held
it in San Francisco, not in Oakland. So they were
sending the signals that, yeah, the Warriors probably aren't going

(13:45):
to be long for Oakland if these guys have their way.
And in that night in twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
By the way, they were right about that.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
They were right, but they were wrong in this sense.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
In twenty twelve, they were still angry because just the
week before, the Warriors had traded away Monte Ellis to
Milwaukee for Senator Andrew Bogan. And remember, Ellis had been
the leading scorer on another one of those brief, short
lived moments that the Warriors had, the we believe team
that beat Dallas in the two thousand and seven playoffs,

(14:16):
and now five years later, that last real link to
that squad was gone.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
And up until the Heat knocked off the Bucks a
couple of years ago, that was the first time an
eight seed had ever knocked off a one and at
best of seven.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Right, you had to get Miami into this somehow, right.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
But you're right, you were right.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
That was historic victory and it wasn't just you know
the fact that they won and they beat a favorite
heavily favorite Dallas team. It was the way that they
did it right. They had this care free style. They
were liable to pull up and shoot a three anywhere
at any time.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Well, and people forget that Dallas team. That was Dirk,
that was you know, he get the empty title eventually,
but that was supposed to be the team.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
You know, it's funny. You know every franchise.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Coming off the finals lost the year before.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, every franchise has this where you have the team
that didn't win the title that you always thought should have.
And Dallas fans probably would say that that, you know,
they thought that was going to be their title year
and they get it a couple of years later, So
there's no there's not the same probably anger about it.
But that's what made I mean, that wasn't it wasn't
like an eight over a one in a week year.
You were like, that was the that was the favorite

(15:22):
for the championship that year.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
And to just kind of make it even better is
that they they kind of like manipulated their way. They
wanted the Warriors, you know, they thought they did because they.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
By the way, this is the most fun part of
why we do this, right, You know, I always say
it's the I didn't know that the we believe story.
You know here, I did not know anything about this
part of the we believe story. It's much better than
even the naming of the Immaculate Reception. So here's how.
Here's this story. Okay. So Paul Wong, a resident of Alameda.

(15:58):
He's owner of a Korean bararbecue joint. On March seventh,
twenty and seventy, prints one hundred and fifty placards and
hands them out at a Warrior's Nuggets home game, and
the sign reads we believe. Warriors beat Denver Wang. Prince
Moore beats the Clippers two nights later, three game win streak,
so the signs become more visible on a T and
T game. Wong took the signs to Sacramento on April thirteenth.

(16:21):
He's back home, so was Wang. It becomes this thing.
So Wong told everyone the idea came from The Secret,
which is some self help book from Oprah. But what
he didn't tell everybody is that this was about his
own marriage. His wife of ten years had given him
the book. Their marriage was in trouble at the time.

(16:42):
Wong was a workaholic. She didn't believe he believed in
their relationship anymore, so Wog started. A stated reason for
starting this campaign of we Believe was to motivate fans
to be zealous about the team again, but the real
reason was he was trying to also prove to his
wife that he believed in their own marriage. Here's the
good news. Here's the good news. Paul and my Wong

(17:03):
are still married. They got to watch the Warriors within
the twenty fifteen Championship together. They are true believers in
every sense of the world. I just man that that
is that it's better than than than I love these
weird origin stories, but that's a that's a good one
and a happy endings.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
And it's great when it's organic, right, when it's not corporate,
although it kind of quickly got absorbed.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of course it does. It's like the Terrible Towel, right,
it was kind of fun, and then you know, hey,
it's a bit. Everything's a business, right, everybody monetizes everything.
By the way, speaking of that, you could of course
call our folks an advertise. No, I'm just kidding, right,
we're everything. We all know. Everything becomes a business at
some point and so did we Believe.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
So they started printing and giving out T shirts. You
know in the playoffs when everyone wears the same colored
T shirt at the home games, so they had the
we Believe T shirts that the crowd was wearing, you know,
certainly by by the end of that series, and you'll
still see you go to Warriors games, you'll still see
some kind of faded, old yellow we Believe T shirts.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
When I look at that, you know, it reminds me.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, it reminds me. You know, if you go to
an Angel's game, you'll still see people with rally monkeys. Yeah,
and remember there was that real brief period of time
where it worked, like you know, and it's funny how
this stuff can stick to a franchise. The year the
Nats won their World Series title, they had a guy
who was a pinch hitter named Horaldo Para and his kid.

(18:31):
He had little kids at home, and so he decided
to make his walk up music, baby Shark, that kids sung. Well,
it became the theme song of the entire Gnats playoff run,
and then it became and even to this day, when
they introduced them, they play the song and it gives
you know, and that's sort of how I think we believe.
Even to this day, they never win a title with
We Believe, And yet there's somehow this idea that like

(18:55):
it's stuck more with this franchise than something that isn't
a title.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
And even when the Warriors did become championship teams, there's
still love, you know, Baron Davis or any of those
we Believe guys show up and the crowd still adores them, right,
But by twenty twelve, that era was over, you know,
and now they're in completely. They've got a new coach,
Mark Jackson. He's focused on getting the Warriors to be
serious and play defense, and that was actually the first

(19:23):
step towards the rise of the Warriors.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
But it just didn't seem like it back then.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
And man, if you want to see a painful three
and a half minutes of video, just look up Warriors
fans boot Laco on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
The booing was so bad that lakeup ends up acknowledging it.
I mean, you know, you don't ignore it, although some
people say you ignore it. You know, we're all taught,
you know, don't yeah, fight through it. And he says, well,
now that we got that out of the way, he
says before it begins, except it didn't get out of
the way. Lakeups starts off tonight is about two things,
embracing history and respect, and then someone yells out, we

(19:57):
want Manta and things just got lately fall apart.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
If you look at it. Lacobs shook right.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
He starts struggling to get his words out coherently. He
keeps pausing, he laughs nervously. None of it's work, and
finally Mullan comes up to rescue him. He puts his
arm around Lakeub says I got it. I got it,
and he tells the crowd sometimes change is inevitable and
it's gonna work out just fine. Use that passion in
the right direction. He says, this thing is going in

(20:25):
the right way. That brings some cheers and Mulla walks off.
He's smile and thinks, okay, my work is done here.
But as soon as he sits down, the boy starts again,
and this time Rick Barry gives it a shout to
try to.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
You know, this strikes me. You know, sometimes rich guys
aren't used to having somebody say no to them, and
that had to rich. I think I don't think we
fully appreciate. You know, he's probably only had people tell
him great things for so much, so this was probably
that kind of extra sort of her full experience in
his head. So anyway, Barry comes up and he's in

(20:58):
his brown Swede jack jacket and sort of grumpy Rick right,
grumpy Wrick chastises the fans because that's the rick Berry
we all know and love. Right, he goes, come on, people,
you fans are the greatest fans of the world. Show
a little bit of class. This is a man that
I've spent some time talking to. He's gonna change this franchise.
This is crazy. Seriously, come on, you're doing yourself a disservice.

(21:20):
So rick Berry telling If you only understood the story
of rick Berry's first five years, you'd be like rick
Berry is telling people to calm down.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
But anyway, but.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
It was unusual too, because you know, we've seen fans
give it to people. We've seen fans give it to
the commissioners right at the draft.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Or wait the appearances. But I mean, I don't think
give it back to the fans like this did well.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
But in some ways though, that's rick Berry man. Yeah,
rick Berry was unafraid he'd give it back to anybody.
He's lucky. He's lucky he didn't have more broken jaws
back in the day that the Barry went. Oh, he
keeps going. He goes all the wonderful act of being
said to you, for you to treat this man who
was spending his money due to the best that he

(22:05):
can turning this franchise around. And I know he's going
to do it, So give him the respect he deserves.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
So Okay, the fans they hated him though.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
They start cheering, and Barry walks off to go stand
with the other Warrior greats. As it turns out, he
and Mullen stood on the right side of history, as
we see as for Lake of years later, in recounting
his reaction to that night in email to local sportswriter
Marcus Thompson, he called the booing quote perhaps the singularly

(22:36):
most important moment for me. As awful as it was
for me and my family, I had to recognized the
situation that I was in Warriors fans that endured so
many terrible years and false promises. I know, as I
was a fan too, that this was a single moment
where the courage of my convictions was required, So I
made the decision. It was really more instinct than decision
to accept the criticism and defiantly move forward.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Now, look, we're about to find out how the Warriors
turn those booths into ear drum rattling cheers, how they
defiantly move forward to become dynastic. But Jay, I want
to sit on this quote here a minute, because look,
we're doing this and we've got two more years of
Steve Kerr. We know we at least have two more
years of Steph Curry, maybe three more, we'll see, Right,

(23:21):
we're going to find out how much more time with Draymond.
But I wonder, and I just throw this out there
as a question to you. You know this franchise so well,
you know this league so well. Will he be thinking
about those boozze? Was he thinking about those booze when
he decided that he really wanted Kerr back? Was he
thinking about those booze when he inevitably decides that he's

(23:44):
not going to trade Curry or he's not he is
going to recite, Like, I just wonder if this is
going to how much that if it had this kind
of impact, how is it going to impact how he
transitions this franchise from this generation to what he wants
to build for the next iteration of the Warriors. What

(24:04):
do you think.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
I think that never leaves you. And as he said,
it became a guiding principle. But I think it also
is he implied in that quote, it reinforced that if
you're going to do this, you got to have conviction,
if you're going to be in for half a billion dollars,
you've got to believe that you know what you're doing,
and even when it's unpopular, and sometimes the right move

(24:26):
is the unpopular move, and you just have to trust
that it's going to work out in your favor.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Well, look, the fact of the matter is, and let's
be honest here, would we be doing the Warriors today
if it wasn't for Joe lacups.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Era, Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
You know, it's under his watch that the Warriors did
truly become dynastic and a lot of the accolades, a
lot of the glittering trophies that we have, and what
we call our trophy case segment come during his watch
and we'll get into the trophy case. We'll open it
up and take a look. King side, we come back
right after this.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
All right, it's trophy case. Let's open it up and ja,
I think this is the thing that you know, if
you did the standard and I know, there's no more
fun bar trivia questions anymore because you just open up
your phone and you get the answer.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Right.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
But if you told somebody, all right, who are the
top three? Who's got the three most NBA titles? Immediately
someone's going to tell you Lakers and Celtics. You might
have an argument, Wait, do the Lakers have more? Do
the Celtics have more? Isn't that back and forth? Do
you count Minneapolis? Do you not count Minneapolis?

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Right?

Speaker 2 (25:33):
There's but either way, you know everybody see everybody. I
think the casual basketball fan knows Lakers Celtics won two.
How many even hardcore NBA fans would say Warriors are next?

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Right? Or NBA journalists. I gotta admit I didn't know until.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Would you have said both go? If you had a guess,
I would.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Have thought bulls right? And then of course the the
Spurs will be up there pretty soon. They're they're sitting this.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
I was just going to say, I have a feeling
the Warriors have a little bit of work to do
if they want to make sure the Spurs don't pass them.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Here are coming.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
But honestly, I bumped into Raymond Ritter, the AHPR guy,
And it's funny because I told he's always pushing this
stuff constantly, right like anytime you see him, Hey, did
you know?

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Did you know this? If you know that, I said, Raymond,
this is your chance.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
We have a whole dedicated this. We'll use everything that
you tell us. What do you got?

Speaker 2 (26:29):
And so here it is exactly here's.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
You waited your whole career for this.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
But he always mentions that did you know we've got
the three third most championships? And I will say Raymond
was actually pretty instrumental in kind of bringing back some
of the Philadelphia Wars and the early San Francisco era
Warriors stuff into the end of the mix and like
hanging the banners of the retired jerseys from Philadelphia and

(26:55):
the championships from Philadelphia and the in.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
The practice facility at least.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
But yeah, he I didn't know until he pointed it
out that the third most championships belonged to the Warriors franchise.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
And you know, it's one of those things. I mean,
you know to take you a little bit behind the
scenes here and our debates about you know, which franchises
we should do next, and and you know you were
you you were all over on the Warriors here ja
and then the more you were like, oh, absolutely, this
is the most I think it's fair to say, the
most underappreciated all time great franchise in the NBA.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
And because we don't think of him that way, you know,
as we said at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
They're just thought of as this like internet startup.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Right, Although I will say that I don't know if
they would have really qualified to do the show.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
I don't you know, they wouldn't have popped up.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
They certainly wouldn't have been you know, at the top
of my mind to do because even though they they
and again are kind of unofficial. Thing is you got
to have at least three championships to qualify, which they
would have qualified. But they were so spread out and
they were so long ago. But the fact that they
they they had this run under lake of you know,
that really made them strong candidates.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Well, I mean it's like if you and I had
met and started doing this in nineteen ninety nine with
the Patriots, even Dar right, you know, it's like and
that's what happened. Sometimes it's just like and that's the beauty,
that's the that's why we enjoyed it, all right.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
So seven NBA champions or new bau reach. But they
do have a tradition that goes back to the to
the beginning the league. They won the first championship, back
when before there was an NBA. They won the first championship.
That's not recognized by the end the Basketball Association of America.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
They're not first one. That's not that Celtics don't have
the first one. That's one thing they have over the Celtics.
The Celtics, by the way, in the in this original league,
it's the Warrior. Celtics and Knicks are the only teams
left from that league where they won that first championship
in it if it, I think, you know, even cements

(28:54):
them in even more. But their championship wins forty seven,
fifty six, both in Philadelphia, seventy five and then of
course the run of twenty fifteen, twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
twenty twenty two. At some point we're going to get
into this seventy five one because seventy five is one
title that many people thought would have been the first
great run of the Warriors. Many fans thought was going

(29:17):
to be sixty seven to two seventy five, but we're
good into that later.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
So the Warriors not only have the best regular season
record in NBA history seventy three and nine single season,
the best single postseason record in the NBA when they
went sixteen and one the very next year. And so
there's a little bit of dubious and I think a
little sour, you know, the fact that they didn't win
the championship and go on a great run in the

(29:42):
playoffs when they win seventy three and nine has kind
of removed the luster the allure of that seventy three
and nine record, much to my chagrin. And I actually
really was rooting for them to win that year because
I knew if they didn't then people wouldn't talk and
wouldn't revere that seventy three and nine seeds And then
there's no recognition of it, Like don't you think they

(30:02):
said an I'll throw that question to you, Chuck. Should
they put a banner up for doing something no one
else in the history league has done? The Bulls the
way they handled it because they did win a championship
the year that they won seventy two. So they have
their championship banner from nineteen ninety six and below. It
is like a little had on that says, you know,
seventy two wins.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
All right?

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Do you have the Seattle Mariners put up a banner
for their when they win one hundred and fourteen games
that year that they did not get to the World Series.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Team But what was different was it felt like everyone
knew that they weren't going to win the World Series
that year.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
No, the surprising thing about the Warriors is that they
should like, I don't know, is that a is it
an is it a black mark on the Warriors? Or
is it just the make Lebron's that year that Lebron
did this that much more amazing? Hey right, yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
If you're a Lebron fan, it makes me that much
more significant that they came back from three to one.
So that's the only thing is not only did they
you know, not follow through on the seventy three one season,
they then became the first team to blow up three
to one lead in the finals, and all the memes
and the jokes that came as a result of that.
I feel like it stirs too many bad memories. But
I feel like we should honor and respect and revere

(31:18):
the seventy three wins because that was the last time
the regular season mattered in the NBA's they lost.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
That's interesting. Okay, now you get at the game. I
know we're going off on a tangent here. Now you're
getting that to the issue that I have with a
regular season versus the playoffs, right, And you know, by
the way, I this idea that the playoffs count more
than the regular season. You know, we think this is
a near a new phenomenon after reading Rick Berry's sort

(31:45):
of mid career tell all book, and we're going to
get into that later. That's how he viewed it. That's
how everybody viewed it, right. The championships were everything, The
playoffs were everything. I don't know how to feel about
regular season records anymore. And I'm I I hear you,
but I don't think fans care about the regular season.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well do we throw out MVPs then, because that's a
regular season award?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Well, I say those don't mean anything.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
And that's another question of I. And again, we're siding
we're going to go off on a diatribe here, but
let me you're in it. You're you're a you've been
a beat reporter, so you've been in knee deep in this.
Should the MVP voting happen before the playoffs or after?

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yes, because I think it's a regular season award, and
I think we need to have the regular season have
some value. So I hold two thoughts. One, I revere
the playoffs. It's such a it's a different type of basketball.
There's nothing like it. And yes, you're who you are
is defined by what you do in the playoffs. But also,

(32:52):
I believe the regular season matters. I believe the playoffs
are a reflection of things that develop during the regular season.
I think championship habits are cultivated during the regular season.
And also it helps us sort of frame the postseason
right based on what has happened in the regular season.
Who is the favorites, who's the underdog, who could maybe
catch fire and go on a run in the post?

(33:14):
All these things happen as a result of the regular season.
But here's the don't want, you know, so many months,
in so many games to have no significance oh.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Look, and and they're about to mess around with college
football playoff even more. And if they do that, they
could dilute the regular season. I'm with you, right, the
regular season needs to mean something. The NFL regular season
still mean something. The NBA has a regular season problem.
I think we all, deep down inside know there's kind
of a problem. The question is how do you how

(33:44):
do you still revere it? But let's talk about the
record that matters more. And an undefeated and an undefeated
postseason is still is still a north star for an
all time great team. Who has yet to do it?
Not the Sixers in eighty three they lost one, Not
the Bulls that know, and the Warriors came close.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
The Lakers in two thousand and one when they lost,
they didn't lose until the first game of the of
the NBA Finals. And not the Warriors when they got
Kevin Durant and ran the table. They came within a
game of running the table. And then Lebron and company
put on a great game in Game four of the
Finals and denied them that ex So.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Let me ask you this, what's a better what's a
greater record? Sixteen and one in the postseason or seventy
three and nine in the regular season.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Seventy three and nine.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
I mean, to sustain it that much, and when all
the things were against you, having to win on back
to back nights for example, I mean getting through the
regulars with all that. I mean, there are some coaches
will tell you there are scheduled losses right just as
you're in your third city in five days.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I always love that people say that, yeah, we've got
we got ten scheduled losses on our schedule.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
I mean you look in and it's just kind of
built in. And the fact that the wars overcame so
many of those, right, you know that the NBA, it's
a little more favorable in the playoffs because you don't
have to play back to backs, right, you don't have
to go to multiple seats, I know. And you're not
having to prepare to play Toronto one night and you
know Milwaukee the next night, in Indiana the next night. Right,

(35:13):
You're just locked in on one team. So I will
say in some ways, now, granted you.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
I was just gonna say, I think the playoffs right
where where somebody you can figure out your tent. You know,
you can fool them one night can you can you
use you know, you have to change your game plan
by game three, game four, right, you can't do the
same thing if they figured out what you're doing. I
don't know I could. I will say this, I think

(35:40):
the next great all time team in NBA history will
be the first one that find that somehow goes undefeated
in the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
Well, the Thunderhead has shot at it this year and
lost in game one of these.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
There's a there's a guy named Wenby. That's uh, I mean,
I hesitate, you know again, we're taping in the middle
of in the middle of oneb's run here, But boy,
where that is something I do feel like. I don't
know about you. If you were, if you were right
in your column, would you have written the something has changed,

(36:14):
like the type the teutonic plates have shifted, haven't they?

Speaker 1 (36:18):
So there's another moment where I saw something changing. We'll
get to that later on. I actually did write that,
but I think this was even a greater case. I
think this will be a more lasting shift, tectonic shift
in the NBA than actually what the Warriors were able
to do in twenty fifteen, what they did in twenty seventeen,
though they did start fifteen and oh before they lost

(36:38):
that game four, you know, and they're.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Still amazing they got that far. I mean, you know,
and I remember that game four because we were all
waiting to see are they about to you know it,
We all knew the Warriors were winning the championship, although
because of the three to one comeback from there, you know,
there was sort of like, wait a minute, they just
want to They're not gonna They're not going to do
a three zero comeback? Are they runs not doing that?

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Is he?

Speaker 1 (37:01):
It was out there like, oh now, crank up all
the three one Warriors blows the three one lead memes
again that everyone used in twenty sixteen. So they had
a fifteen game you know, they won fifteenth straight games
that year, fifteen game winning streak in one single postseason.
They also going back to that that seventy three win season.

(37:22):
He had the second longest winning streak in NBA history
over a two seasons ban because they.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Lived now the Miami Heat. My Miami Heat friends would
complain about this, okay, because he had the second longest
in a single season twenty seven I think.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Right, But I counted because the franchise, did I know,
the rosters aren't the same. But we say, like, like
Steph Curry had that streak of you know, making a
three pointer in whatever game that was, right, you should
have this in the trophy case. But you know, he
had a lengthy streak of making at least one three
pointer in consecutive games that covered multiple seasons. Right, So
I'm perfectly willing to cover the fact that they were

(37:58):
eight straight games over multiple seasons, last four games in
twenty fourteen fifteen, and in the first twenty four games
in the twenty fifteen.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
To start twenty four and oh is something else?

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yeah, so that's that's the best start to a season, right.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Wars had six players on the NBA's seventy fifth anniversary
team who were with Wars at some point in their
careers significant that's all.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
That's like eight, that's like what eight point eight percent.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty good, I say, at some
significant point in their careers. Raymond added a seventh, Chris Paul.
But we don't think of him as a Warrior at all. Right,
so I'm gonna say six Paul Arison.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
And he wasn't really his best years weren't as a Warrior.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Now, So Paul Arison, Rick Berry, Nate Thurman, Will Chamberlain, seven, Curry,
Kevin Durant all got together on the seventy fifth anniversary team.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
You know, you love Paul Air. You feel like we've
been doing this and you've you've been on this the
entire time. You think Paul Arison is is sort of
the overlooked super you know, sort of superstar and Warriors history.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
We will talk about him later, but for right now,
let's just say ten time NBA All Star, three times
All NBA First Team, two.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Time scoring champion, et cetera. Right, and and then well he.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Shares a number with another star.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, we'll we'll get into that later on. Klay Thompson
holds the NBA record for most three pointers in a
game fourteen. It's kind of amazing that Curry doesn't hold
that record, but his backward mate holds it.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, we'll say record for the moment. That's a record
that I'm just I would say Eddie Clay record that
the Warriors have. Don't assume it sticks.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Well, Curry's thirty seven points in a quarter. You think
Steph's gonna get that one.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Remember when did Kobe record and when did Kobe get
his eighty point game, mister Adonde, what year or when
it's let Yeah, it's last season, wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
No, No, Kobe's eighty one. That was in two thousand
and six. He got his sixty point finale. It was
a sixty point finale.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
That's what it was. Right point is is that I
just think that there's some more records coming Curry.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
You think Curry's got a forty quarter.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
I think that if Curry it's one of those we
know when he feels it and you know it and
if you're at a certain point in his career, I
don't know. It's like watching when you watched Bam and
his eighty three point game, where there was a point
where the whole team wanted to see him keep going.
I just think that there's every chance that we're gonna,

(40:27):
you know, as the cell. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
I am.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
That's how much I believe in Steph. How's that I'm
just and that I could picture scenario. He hits four
threes in a row in the first two minutes of
a quarter, He's got twelve in a quarter or something, right,
and then all of a sudden, they're like, just feed
them just feed them, right, you know how that gets well?

Speaker 3 (40:50):
I don't know. Here.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Here's something I used to say though, when the Splash
Brothers were together, that you know Curry, first of all,
he was splashier, right because he had a higher trajectory
on his shot, so when it dropped through is a
bigger class.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
So he put the splash and Splash Brothers, yes he did.
You know.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
He'll go down and is known as the greater shooter.
But I used to say that Clay's hot is hotter
than step shot. And people around you, including Steve Kerr,
will tell you that Clay had the more precise and
more textbook shooting form. Clay had the perfect shooting form,
and Steph was envious of how he used to say
Clay would get in his pocket. So like Clay has
a more consistent shot, there's less room for variants. Curry

(41:27):
put more of his body. Like Curry's shot is like
a bottom all the way to the top, whereas Clay
is just his arms, so less can go wrong. Again,
this is what STEP's going to have to beat if
he wants to take Clay's record. Clay was thirteen for
thirteen from the field, nine for nine from three and
two for two from on free throws, did not miss
a single shot in that incredible, incendiary quard.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
It's a basic actually that the Warriors have had a
couple of guys with quarters like that that made the
Sleepy Void. You know, it was one that's always been
in my head for some reason, and it's all because
it happened in a playoff game.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
But it was like and against Michael Cooper, who's now
in the Hall of Fame, largely basically defensive prowess.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, so the guy who could cover Larry Bird, right,
Michael Cooper had one job back in the day, you
have to cover less.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
And Sleepy gave him twenty nine in the fourth quarter
against the Lakers, a big, big comeback. So the Warriors
own the greatest single season scoring quarter and the greatest
postseason scoring cord. And I'm sure Wilt at some point
held the record for best scoring quarter, probably on the
hundred point nine, so they're probably represented multiple times.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Well, we also got Steph holding the NBA record obviously
most threes of all time numbers keeps growing most threes
in a single season order, and two that you know,
with the way everybody shoots threes, that's probably a vulnerable
record at some point. We just don't know when it'll
be really weird if Wemby ever breaks it. But anyway,
I digress. Draymond Green had the only triple double in

(42:56):
NBA history achieved without points being part of a triple double.
So in a four point game, he had twelve rebounds,
ten assists, ten steals in twenty seventeen against the Memphis Grizzlies.
That that is something else. I'm surprised Draymond didn't end
up with a couple of quarter any of the quadruple.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Doubles had one that he could get.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
I know, I have a feeling mister Wemby is going
to create new standards for quadruple doubles at some point.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
He's made his way into this podcast a lot already.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
I know, how do you not? It doesn't it? I
know it, but it does feel like, you know, and
this is a recency bias. We're both afraid of it,
you know, and somehow the Warriors.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
He wanted this podcast to age.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Well right, yeah, but it is one of those feelings
you're like, I think Michael Jordan, a new Michael Jordan
just showed up. That's what it feels like I think we.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
All well curated something that Jordan never did and went
in the MVP unanimously. It's kind of hard to believe
that Jordan never got into unanimous MVP. Including the year
that they won seventy two games, you would think you'd
be unanimous. Curry two MVPs, Wilt won. So that account
they have, they have six, one account the.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
All Star ones.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Well, I think all Star MVPs mattered in the twentieth century.
I think in the twenty first century, the All Star
Game because comes like what it is today, right, it's
now just sort of look, Steph Curry has two of them.
The last one was because it was in the New
Arena in San Francisco, right, But I think those those
players cared a lot about the All Star Game in
the fifty six st and seventies because you know, it

(44:35):
was frankly, the All Star Game would be one of
the few times that everybody was watching, right, it was
not you know, remember we forget the NBA was kind of,
you know, a secondary sport as far as the national
coverage was concerned. But they've had they've had six All
Star Game MVPs. Paul Arizon we're going to keep talking
about Wilt did it once. Rick Berry in his second

(44:57):
year in the league was the All Star MVP. Kevin
Durant did it in twenty nineteen, and then it's Sef
Curry twice.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
And then.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
That's a pretty full trophy case, you know, for a
team that doesn't have any we don't think of them
as having extensive history, but this, and I think.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
I'll give you one more in the trophy case. How
about the fact that a team that costs fifteen thousand
dollars to get in nineteen forty seven became worth ten
billion dollars in less than one hundred years, in about
eighty years. That's pretty good. That's a trophy all in itself.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
As type of trophies they love in Silicon Valley, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Which is what I mean. This is what you know.
It's so funny in hindsight of course, Golden State, right,
the rise of Golden State in this era does go
follow the stock price of tech stocks, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Well, it is.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Always and I've always sort of thought it was intertwined
in like now you know, look, look who's buying the
sky boxes, Look who's buying the court side seats right.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
It is arguery to them, Chuck, but I don't think
that they're necessarily in entwined. And so as we transition
into the Blueprint, I feel like that's a good segue.
As we get in our blueprint segment, one of the
things about the Warriors is they've never quite synced up, right.
So they're in the Bay Area when San Francisco is
sort of the epicenter of the counterculture and the revolutionary

(46:24):
you know, youth movement in San Francisco, and you've got
you know, you've got hate Asbury on one side of
the Bay and you've got the Black Panthers on the
other side.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
And the Warriors really aren't leading the.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Way in a way that we had seen sports do
so in the past, somewhat ironically or however you want
to put it. Later on, they're at the forefront of
sports political activism. With Steve Kerr and how outspoken he's been,
you know about the need for gun controllers speaking out right.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
You didn't have that with the Warriors of the.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Sixties, not in the sixties, but at a time when
when sort of the rhetoricas is down from sports and
you know, the time when the country is boby is
divided as it's been since the nineteen sixties and the
Vietnam process and all that. Here's Steve Kerr speaking out
and at the forefront of that. So that was one era.

(47:15):
But the other thing, Chuck, is during the rise of
Silicon vat well not right, the tech rise in the nineties, right,
the doc com boom is with the phrase I'm looking
for the doc com era in the nineteen nineties, that
coincides with a terrible run for the Warrior, right, I
mean the runting.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Sort of theis web two point now right right after
the financial crisis, when the tech stocks sort of become
the economy. It is also happens right at the same
time as Golden State, right.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
And it's also somewhat a cruel twist of fate that,
as you know, they moved to San Francisco and they
want to be on that side of the Bay and
they want to be closer. What happens when they open
up this grant vision that what became known as the
Chase Center and I think one billion dollar project that
Rick Weltson dedicated himself to getting across the finish line,

(48:07):
and they envisioned you know, this being being able to
charge whatever they wanted to because they'd have Steph Curry
and Kevin Durant to sell.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Well. Kevin Durant leaves and then.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
What happens the year the building opens, there's a pandemic
and the entire first season they can't have anyone in
the building. It's sitting there, the stands are empty because
of COVID. So again another time when what the Warriors
were doing and the way the world or the way
Silicon Valley or the tech business was going, we're just
out of sync.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
That's no, it's it's a it's a fair point. And
now in the post pandemic era that the twenty two championship,
by the way, sort of cements it right that it
became an era, right, more than just a run with Durant, Right,
just like Kobe getting one without Shack, Steph getting one
without Durant was a big deal.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
So the best way that I would summarize the Warriors,
it's kind of hard to, you know, distill it down
to the cent or two, but they part one is
that they used to be unable to keep the good
times going right. All the runs were short lived. The
seventy five championship was kind of one and done. Never
get back to the finals in that era. Run TMC

(49:22):
two years, that's it. We believe that's over.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
They they draft some great players and end up trading them,
like Chris Webber.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, oh oh, so you've got this era of like, yeah,
future Hall of Famers that slipped through their grass. So
they had Robert Parrish was a warrior. They trade him
along with the pick that becomes Kevin McHale to the
Boston Celtics. So there's two thirds of the Celtics Big
three Hall of Fame front court that well, think.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
About this, they've traded. They did it almost in every decade.
They trade Welt Chamberlain, although I will you could defend it.
Actually it was probably the right trade. They do go
to the finals the very a year after they trade them,
but they trade. They're the franchise that traded Wilt Chamberlain.
They're the franchise that traded Robert Parrish, They're the franchise
that traded Chris Webber. I mean Dark Kid, if for

(50:12):
dark the franchise that trades for Darkcake. I mean, you know,
there's there's a lot of goat and not in the
good way that you could have gone here in this direction.
And by the way, there's even a moment where they
think about trading Stephan Clay early in their careers.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, and there's uh, you know, and it's self inflicted. Right,
Sometimes there's you know, you think of the Portland Trailblazers
and what they could have been if.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
If if you know, Bill Walsh hadn't hurt his foot.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
You think of, you know, the Boston Celtics could have
been even more dynastic without the tragic death of Len Bias,
who they drafted right after they won the championship.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
They might not have a dip in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
If yeah, they run it all the way through, maybe
we don't even have Jordan and the Bulls, Like, there's
all kinds of ways that that could have gone. You know,
these are beyond their control. The Warriors, you had these
guys and you traded them. Or you know, Chris Weber
wanted out because he couldn't get along with Don Nelson,
like all these things. Then you chose Nelson over Weber, Right,
maybe you keep Weber if you get rid of Don Nelson.

(51:13):
You chose Nelson, and you really didn't have anything to
show for it, and then you know, Weber goes on
to become a Hall of Fame player and elevates the
Sacramento Kings, your regional rival right and gets them, you know,
to the brink of a championship in the two thousand
and two season. So all these self inflicted wounds that
the Warriors had which prevented them from having sustained success.

(51:35):
Prick Mioli, one of the owners, the owner from the
mid sixties to the mid eighties, he talked about that.
He said, I'd captured lightning in a bottle, and I
insisted on trying to recapture it. It's easy enough to
capture once. It's not hard work or brilliance that does it,
but luck, a stroke of good fortune. It is harder
to recapture it once it gets loose, and I'm kept
alive by my dreams of stuffing lightning back in a bottle.

(51:58):
It's hard to sustain, say, Chuck, anyone can get rich,
you can win the lottery. Yeah, staying rich, staying relevant
is a different thing, and the Warriors struggled with that
up until the past decade.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
No, it really is this ownership group that has been
able to keep this state that this to sustain this
going forward. Look, they start as the Philadelphia Warriors. They
were part of this original BA Basketball Association in forty seven.
They there are two other teams, the Celtics and the

(52:31):
Knicks that the Warriors came into the league with that
still exists there of course, now the Golden State Warriors.
There were eight eight other of these franchises from forty
six that are all gone. I love these. They were
the Providence Steamrollers, the Toronto Huskies, the Washington Capitals. So
the original iteration of the Washington Caps to our our
co partner, mister Steve Hall, here was not a hockey team.

(52:54):
They were a basketball team. First, live with that brother,
Chicago Stags, you gotta love that, Cleveland and Rebels, Detroit Falcons,
Pittsburgh Ironmen, and the Saint Louis Bombers. It is interesting
that the Warriors, this now pillar of the West Coast,
was actually the one of the founding triumvirent of key
franchises in the East obviously Nickson Celtics, so that sometimes

(53:18):
gets lost. They're this cornerstone of the Bay Area now,
but they actually were an East Coast tent pole back
in the day and at the time, of course, the
NBA developed as a way for hockey owners to sell
tickets in the arenas on knights that the hockey teams
weren't playing. So to think, you know, now you have
basketball owners trying to acquire hockey teams. Back then it

(53:42):
was hockey owners looking for extra dates. Oh, this basketball
league might work, so let's try that.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
And it's funny because it was a Canadian owner of
the Los Angeles Lakers, Jack Can't Cook, who added the
Kings basically as a way to fill and justify building
an arena for the Lakers. The Lakers are playing the
Sports Arena, King has a fallout with the people that
run the LA Sports Arena, wants to build an arena,
but he says, well, if I build arena, I got

(54:09):
to have another team. So it had kind of come
full circle. I think that's late sixties, early seventies when
the Forum gets built. So now that the LA Kings
exist basically to sell tickets on the night the Lakers
weren't playing. But you know the I feel like that
that origin story the NBA explains the difference in the
way that the NF the NHL has.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
A reverence for its original six.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Right, we still talk about the Montreal Canadians, the Boston Bruins,
the Toronto Maypleiefs, Detroit Red Wings, York Range.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
Chicago Black Parts.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
We never hear the Warriors, who are an original three
in the NBA discussed with that same type of reverence.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Right, but well, the original six. Look at the original six.
They're still there, the Canadians, the Canadians still playing Montreal,
the Bruins still play in Boston, the Maple Leaf is
still in Toronto, Red Wings, Rangers, Blackhawks. I think that's
the problem.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Right.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
The Philadelphia Warriors became the San Francisco Warriors became the
Golden State Warriors, Right.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
But we don't deduct from the La Lakers starting in
Minneapolis before.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
They moved west, unless you're a Celtics fan.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Although although it took a while, it's funny there's some
contention so kind of a cool story of how they
came to honor the past the Lakers, because it used
to be there was no signs, no banners or anything,
no way to tell that the Lakers had ever played
Minneapolis when he went to a Laker game, and then
in the last years of George Micn's life reporter from

(55:36):
the La Times, Steve Springer, went down to Arizona, where
he was living at the time, and Miken is kind
of pleading, like I'm you know, he's not saying it,
but it's implied like IM not gonna re have that
much longer. Like I want some ways, I want to
proof that I existed. Right, my franchise, there's nothing for
us in Minneapolis. You know, the Lakers are still going strong.

(55:57):
I'm the one that got them going. And Jerry Buss,
to his credit, the owner of the Lakers at the time,
sees the story and like within a week done, here's
a banner.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
That's what for all the.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
It's such a Jerry Buss thing.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Right, there's all the hired numbers that the that the
Minneapolis Stakers retired. We're going to put a banner now,
not one for each, but just one for all the
retired Laker numbers.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
They put up there with the LA Laker numbers.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
And then they also put up the banners to represent
all the all the Minneapolis championships.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
So that was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
So the original franchise fee was fifteen thousand. Mister Gottlieb
buys them for twenty five grand in nineteen fifty two.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
Steve Markup. Yeah, he was the original coach.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
You know, it's not too often you see a guy
go from coaching the team to owning the team. But
it was a little more possible back there when you
could buy the NBA dollars. Yeah, money sitting around.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
You know, all these owners and in fact, the Warriors
had a lot of owners like this, Gottlieb. And in
some ways nearly was like this too. They're kind of
they're local promoters, right. They could easily have been restaurant
tours or the nightclub owner, and instead they owned they
owned a local ball club. But in some ways it
was the same type of mindset, right, a nightclub owner

(57:15):
is always looking for a marquee name to get people
to come to their clubs and all this stuff. And
in many ways, there were a lot of owners of
sports teams in the fifties that essentially had this thought
the same way as a nightclub owner. What what can
I do to get people in the seats tonight? You know,
you know, all these guys like this.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
You know, basketball in the early part of the twentieth
century and the formation of the NBA largely Jewish, both
players and.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
A lot of Jewish players in their early NBA.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Well, I've always said it was a sport, you know,
in many ways basketball and it's this way around the world. Right,
Basketball is an inexpensive sport to play, Right, if you're
a poor kid in a poor neighborhood, you don't need
all this extra equipment like you do for baseball. You
just need a hoop in a ball. And I think
it's why you've seen now around the world, after soccer,

(58:10):
what's the next sport that's that's taken hold, it's basketball
because it's I think the most affordable. It's a it
is it cuts across socioeconomic lines, don't you think.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yeah, And so you know, it was a sport for immigrants,
and it's funny become a global sport.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
But you know, at the time, yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
It was popular among you know that East Coast immigrant Jewish.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
It's always been among inner city kids, and inner city
kids were Jewish in the fifties. Yeah, it's right, you know,
in subways. It's always been a city sport. It's you know,
just depends on who the who, you know, the demographics
of the city.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah, but you know, the Jewish troops from York's also
took basketball up to the Catskills in the summertime. So, right,
basketball was really big up in the hotels and the
Cats Skills as well, again because that influx of the
New York.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Jewish community.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
So Golic buys the team they win their second championship
in fifty six by Paul Aarison and Neil Johnston and
Gottlieb is influential, you could say, plays a big role
in the drafting of Will Chamberlain. It's not that he
made the decision. It's just that there used to be
something called the territorial draft, where you could pick someone
in the regions. It was designed to kind of garner interest, right.

(59:25):
They thought it would be good if you could keep
a star from your area.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
But it was time for college players.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
This was true in the football too, because in the
forties and fifties, college basketball and college football were more
popular than the.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
Pro versions, right, absolutely, yeah, yeah, but yeah, both sports
basketball and football.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
So yeah, that's why they both instituted this territorial type
of draft.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
So you're hoping to capitalize, right, But in this case,
Will Chamberlain played college basketball at Kansas.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Right, he should have been at Saint Louis Peck, you
should have belonged to the Saint Louis.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
But Gottlieb said, hey, this guy's from Philadelphia. You know
we could need some help at the box office. And
because he was well liked by his fellow owners, they said, all.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Right, well we'll kind of bend the rules.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
This isn't the true spirit of the rule, but you
know you can have Will Chamberlain as your territorial pick,
and you know that kind of changes the course is
certainly that franchise and to some degree the NBA. So
it was kind of a personal favor to Gottlieb.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
So then.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
We get to Franklin Majoli, which you could argue is
probably the second most important owner of the franchise, right
after the current ownership group. And I love this little
detail diners Club. And I know people we're going to
have to tell people who the hell diners Club was. Right,
But before there was a card though, right, that's right

(01:00:51):
before there's Visaid MasterCard, Right, there's Diners Club. Well, anyway,
they as a company, they were the broker of the
deal for Gottli to essentially sell the team for a
pretty good chunk of change. I mean, to go to
a it was eight and fifty grand and merely doesn't
have this money on his own. I mean, he has
to have his own set of ownership groups and over time,

(01:01:13):
in fact he he he ends up buying out his partners.
But the Diners Club as a company broker the deal
helped put together the group to sell it out West
and and and this guy, this gentleman Franklin Emili who
really is he just he's this he's sort of the
same type of early owner that we've described actually previously, right,

(01:01:37):
I mean there's a there's a pattern here, right. The
owner the essentially Art Rooney, the first founder of the Steelers,
was local sports promoter. Well that's really what Franklin Mealy was.
He was the local promoter, local sports promoter, if you will.
And he wanted this, and he gets the team in
sixty two and arguably it's it. You know, I could

(01:01:58):
make a case that from sixty two to seventy five
that's the Warrior's second best run.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Yeah, well, certainly nothing that came in the next twenty years.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Right, No, I mean they have two finals appearance, there's
one victory. I mean, it is it it, you know,
and none of it involved Wilt Chamberlain ironically.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
But the thing so he was good, he was effective,
but he was sort of scattered, right, the offices were
a mess.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
People described, well, he wasn't like he didn't right, he
was sort of he was we talk about he was
an owner coach, but he was sort of owner GM
but he was also friend like he liked having a friendship.
And you know, Rick Berry loves the guy, still loves
the guy. And he was actually beloved enough and even
when he sold the team, you know, merely sells the

(01:02:49):
team in eighty six to two gentlemen named Jim Fitzgerald
and Dan Finnane, who were the former owners of the Bucks.
He's so beloved that they just sort of let him stay.
He keeps, he's kept around. He he keeps a minority stake,
and it was simply because he just you know, he uh.
He actually in some ways was a precursor to the

(01:03:12):
modern owner who understands you better have a good relationship
with your star players, that you're that and you got
to treat your star players differently, not the same. And
he got that early. And for him, it was a
business decision, his star players would get a piece of
the gate. I mean, in fact, Rick Berry's first contract
included a bonus if they if attendance went over a

(01:03:33):
certain amount, right, Like that was sort of how it worked.
And and and now these days I think, like whether
it's Bob Kraft and the relationship he developed with Brady,
but the best owners figure out how to develop great
relationships with their star players.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
But now you can't cut them in.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
No, it's illegal because of the salary cap. You'd be
circumventing the salary cap. Which bring us to another current
owner in the spotlight.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Yeah, waiting, we're still waiting to see.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Uh, we're still waiting. Now what happened the results of investigation?
How do they go from the San Francisco Warriors to
the Golden State Wars because originally they come out there,
they're playing in San Francisco and they're called the San
Francisco war.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Well, but you know it's funny, My my favorite little Nuggets.
So in sixty seven they make the NBA Finals, they
lose game in the playoffs. They're playing the Lakers, and
they played game one in Oakland and it was this
brand new arena that was that the Oakland what these
now became Oracle eventually, and then they played Game two
in the Cow Palace, which to me is one of

(01:04:36):
the great names of a crappy arena you could come
up with. And then you know, you know, they were
sort of nomadic contract cow yeah Palace, like yeah, and
the idea that and I don't think of cows when
I think of San Francisco, I'll be honest. But so
before the what happened was is that he he it

(01:04:58):
all involves the San Diego so look, mainly doesn't have
a home arena. It's part of a problem. And before
the seventy one season, Meoly decided to split the team's
home games between the Barrier and San Diego. San Diego
had just lost its own NBA team and nearly was
trying to keep the franchise afloat, and he thought, you know, hey, yeah,
if he could have if you could have San Diego,

(01:05:21):
it might help him get a better He was basically
looking for leverage, right like a lot of owners do
when it comes to arena, and he thought he could
get a better deal on a Bayar arena if they
thought he might move to San Diego. But he had
a name issue. He didn't know what to call the team.
He wanted the team to represent California. He rejected California
Warriors because he thought it sounded too much like cow

(01:05:44):
Bears for Berkeley. So he decided and in order to
scare a permanent the Warriors do officially move to Oracle
Arena in seventy one, and then they changed their name
to Golden State, be a statewide name.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
And also remember what Oracle Arena.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
So here's the thing, Like nothing was simple back then, right,
So the arena that they moved into, uh, you know,
they do finally get to one place.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
So prior to that, even when they were.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Just playing, they were even when they're in the San
Francisco Warris like they would play their games all over
the San Francisco, they played in San Jose, Yeah, Richmond,
you know, presno, Sacramento.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
They were aliable play anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
So late Thurman had a great quote to Mark Purdy,
the longtime Bey or Sports Friday. He says, when you
got up in the morning back then, you looked at
the schedule not to see who you played, but where
you played. Then you got in your car and you
drove to wherever like that was life as a Warrior
back in the late sixties early seventies. But then they
do move to an arena, but even then it's not
it doesn't roll off the tongue, right, So there was

(01:06:49):
a whole complex built. So there's the Oakland dash Alameda
County Coliseum, which is where the Raiders and the athletics played.
Right next to it was the arena called the Oakland
Alameda County Coliseum Arena, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Eventually would be known as Oracle. No it didn't, but
they stick to this Golden State name. And what's interesting
is I don't think people realize how close Golden State
got to becoming the San Francisco Warriors. Essentially, if Steph
Curry doesn't win a couple of titles the war this

(01:07:25):
ownership group makes them the San Francisco Warriors. And we're
not just speculating. Rick Welt admitted it in an interview.
So the whole plant they were going to go to
the when they when they were going to start get
the Chase Center in San Francisco was to become the
San Francisco Warriors. And Rick Weld even Center radio. The

(01:07:47):
reality is, if you'd asked me that question, three years
ago at the time he's given this interview when they're
opening the arena, I would have lied and told you
we were still thinking about it, because we were absolutely
set on changing the name of the team back to
the San Francisco Warriors. But here's what happened. They win
a couple of titles. Steph Curry becomes a global phenomenon,
and he says, if you go to Beijing or Paris
or Buenos Aires, you know, they knew who they knew

(01:08:10):
who Golden State was, and they thought, we don't need
to change. They didn't want to mess with their brand
one more time.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
I mean, it's the only franchise in pro sports right
known by their state nickname. I mean, we have some
places known by the state name, you know, the Minnesota Twins,
for example, Indiana Pacers, but no one's known by the
state nickname.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
Yeah, there was never a Sunshine State, you know team
in the state of Florida. There's been a movie called
Garden State, but there's been no Garden State nets. You know,
maybe that would actually help New Jersey. I have that
we haven't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Had another unique distinction that they used to hold that
they it's kind of gone by ay, they abandoned it,
and now it's kind of gone by the wayside now
that anyone's liable to wear any jersey at any time.
But did you know, for a while back, when home
teams were supposed to wear white and the road team
wore a dark color uniform, the Warriors and the Lakers

(01:09:09):
were the only teams that were allowed to wear gold
or yellow uniforms at home. Everyone else had to wear
white at home. But they were grandfather Then they were
allowed to wear a uniform of color in it at home,
but then they willingly abandoned that and went to white.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
And now it's just all this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
I can't. I was just gonna say, who's away, right,
you know? I like the tradition of the city name
on your road uniforms, the nickname on your home uniforms.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Right, like white at home and on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Give me that. That's all, you know. But those days
were now, But we're now old guys in the era that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
We both preferred when the home team were white. The
only two that didn't were the Lakers and the Warriors.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
All right, So when we come back, we're going to
go through three distinct with moments and eras if you
will of the Warriors, but really this sort of the
you know, probably the three of the more iconic periods,
both moments and eras in Warriors history.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
We'll do that after the break, all right, Chuck, Let's
go back to the night of March second, nineteen sixty
two in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Why Hershey, you might ask, Well,
the short answer, where's owner? Ed Gottlieb liked it. Used
to hold training camp there. There are a lot of
basketball fans and driving distance, and it was the home
of America's great chocolate factory, so they'd play some games there.

(01:10:36):
So this arena it opened during a great depression in
nineteen thirty six, so you can imagine it's not very elaborate.
It's very spartan. Had a unique barrel shaped roof that
was inspired by European style wooden seats in the stands.
There's folding chairs along the baseline. The attendance that night,
March second was four one hundred and twenty four. It's

(01:10:57):
about half of the arena's capacities, a very unlikely locale
for one of the memorable nights in the history of
the National Basketball Association. But then again, it wasn't that
surprising because the NBA at the time is still pretty
small time, right. The Lakers had moved to LA in
nineteen sixty. They're the only team west of Saint Louis,

(01:11:19):
and the Words played a game that season in a
high school gym in Indiana against the Chicago Packers, So
the league was there at that time. Will Chamberlain not
won to spend more time in Hershey than he needed to.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
Yeah, he lived in New York. He drived down to
Pennsylvania for the games.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Yeah, he didn't even live in Philadelphia, did he?

Speaker 3 (01:11:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Yeah, So he gone out the night before in New
York and then dropped his date for the night off
at Earthplace in Queens at six am. That's according to
the book Will nineteen sixty two by Gary Palmerantz, which
is really centered around this game in that season. And
I feel that, you know, we see guys like this

(01:11:58):
all the time. But there was some and about Wilt's
seven to one. Maybe it was the two to sixty
part of I'll Never Forget. In nineteen ninety seven, the
NBA fifty Greatest Players all assembled in Cleveland for the
fiftieth anniversary of the league, and they were all in
a room together on Saturday, and me and a couple
of other reporters were hanging out outside that room as

(01:12:19):
they were gathering and exchanging tales, and Isaiah Thomas comes
walking out, the original Isaiah Thomas from the Pistons, and
we're just asking his thoughts and impressions of what it
was like to be in his room and like what
stood out to him, and he goes, man, Wilts is
a big dude.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
And by the way, I I you know, at this
point in ninety seven, Shack to me is the biggest
guy in the NBA.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
Right, yeah, and he is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
And but you know, there's something about Wilt that that
just just stood out right, you know, and kind of
the state of the league at that time and the
perception of Wilts. It's funny he wasn't seen as like
the savor of the league, like the way we've been
talking about Victor Webbin Yama and how he the next thing,
like Will Chamberlain was the next thing. He was really

(01:13:03):
in some ways the first thing, right, like unlike anything
the league had seen, Like everything that Shack did was
reminiscent of Wil right, and like.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Shaq was really the first like yeah, yeah, Shack was
not Kareem Shack was Wilt.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
But anytime anyone does something that's amazing, statistically, you know,
it traces back to Wilt somehow. But like I said,
he was seeing as a problem.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Literally.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
The cover Sports Illustrated October thirty first, nineteen sixty one,
going into that season, featured the new coach of the Wards,
Frank Maguire. He's in the foreground, Chambin was in the background.
The cover headline is problem for a new coach. The
subhead for the story said Philadelphia's problem player. Will Chamberlain
gets a strong new coach whom we also forced the

(01:13:49):
pro game to change his brawling, hustling ways. So you
can sense in that the popular perception of the unpopular NBA.
You know, the common feeling is that, oh, it's too
rugged and rough, and you know, they need more discipline
like the college game. And maybe this college coach will
bring some of the college basketball that style that we

(01:14:10):
enjoy to the NBA.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
What's interesting, though, college coaches still to this day struggle
with the transition.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Don't think yeah, and Maguire did better than most, and
there was some question as to whether he could but
another line and again this kind of reflects how Chamberlain
was perceived. This is in the story huge Insensitive Wilt. Chamberlain,
the highest score in pro basketball history, already just a
few years in his career, had gone into a season
long sult. He was in a world of his own.

(01:14:38):
A fellow player recalls he once refused to play the
second half of a game. He swore at Neil Johnston.
He complained about his treatment by officials. He would always
go days without speaking to his teammates on or off
the court. When he got the ball, he shot it. Defense,
he often ignored.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
We're going to talk about another player in Warrior's history.
That that sounds very familiar. I mean, you and I
have been talking about this. But tell me that doesn't
sound like a certain player that we're going to talk
about later.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
In this episode. One Rick Barry.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Well, and then how about one from the most recent.

Speaker 3 (01:15:11):
Run, although not as many questions about his defense, but
fair enough, fair enough, but not the same criticism of
crunch time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
No, No, Kevin Durant would would certainly, yeah, Rick Barry
was another one, hornery and all that stuff. But boy,
I have to tell you, Rick Barry certainly was no
Wilt fan either.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
No, So one of the quotes he says is when
it comes down to the closing minutes of a tough game,
an important game, he doesn't want the ball. He being Wilt,
he doesn't want any part of the pressure.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Pretty indicting well to Barry's to Wilt's defense on that,
Barry writes that in the seventies after Frankly, that is
Wilt's reputation, right, that he always seems to lose out
to Russell.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yeah, anyway, So that's another thing we should point out though,
that how the Warrior is getting uugh credit. We don't
talk about them as a historical franchise. So Will versus
Russell was really the foundational rivalry, right. George Mikeen is
the first kind of star of the NBA, the first
big man, but the first rivalry is Will versus Russell,
and maybe to this day even still remains the standard

(01:16:15):
of how we think of rivalries and clashes.

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
Well, the first three iterations of Will versus Russell come
with the Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
Warriors and the big rivalry between Philadelphia and Bought, which also,
by the way, actually is the seeds of the Philly
Boston rivalry that's still there. Even as the sixers of
the Philly team.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
Now, so you know again this franchise that we think
of as being Johnny cum lately as well, they're at
the start of what becomes the defining rivalry of the
Of course Will goes to the seventy six ers and
it continues there, but it starts with him with the Warriors,
back to kind of Wilton his place with those warriors.

(01:17:00):
Book Wilt nineteen sixty two was the book I read
for this episode by Gary Palmers, and this was written
he comes from someone of the very favorable opinion in Wiled,
in which I think he was inspired to write this
to sort of get more out there and more positive
stuff about Wilt out there. But even that aside, he
still had this line. It didn't keep him from being objective.

(01:17:20):
He said.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
These Warriors were subdivided socially into four clicks, white veterans,
white rookies, black players, and Will Chamberlain differ was the
only Warrior to room alone on road trips, a contractual perk.
So back then again a lesser version of the NBA,
everyone had roommates on them.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
I'm sorry, So if you're seven to two hundred and
sixty pounds. You shouldn't have to share a room with
somebody that you read together.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
Yes, so that passage indicates the NBA was physically integrated,
but not socially, And there was kind of an unofficial
quota of four black players per team back then. Remember
only about a little more than a decade removed from
the first black players in the league in nineteen fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:17:59):
That's orl Lloyd, that Sweetwater, Clifton, and Chuck.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
The NBA integrated after the NFL and the n MLB.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
Yeah, so Frank McGuire spent four hundred dollars on phone
calls researching Chamberlain, talking to people like his coach at Kansas.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
And by the way, kids, phone calls used to cost money.
But anyway, long distance phone calls a big deal. I
know we're sitting here going, what do you mean he
spent money making phone calls? Trust me, this was like
and it was a huge amount of money back then.
But anyway, we digress.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Yeah, Worth noted, but and it's funny he does bring
college type drills to the team, and Chamberlain buys in. Uh,
you know, he tells Sports Illustrated. We definitely a proper supervision. Now,
this man is very very good for us. In part,
Wilt wasn't a problem as the headline and forecast. He

(01:18:53):
wasn't a problem for McGuire because McGuire made the very
stude decision to ask Wilt what he wanted, example, many minutes,
and what Will said was I don't want to come out,
so he didn't. He averaged good forty eight point five
minutes per game in nineteen sixty one sixty.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):
Wait, wait, how do you average more than the actual game?
How many?

Speaker 3 (01:19:11):
Eight?

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
Right? Yeah, I mean that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Every minute of every game, when the game's going to overtime,
you play in those two You only missed eight and
a half minutes of one game that season because he
got ejected for technical fouls, not for falling out.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
You know, he never filed out his entire career.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
But some would say because he never played defense. But no,
thank you very much, I'll be here on with defense.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
So he gets ejected, miss is eight and a half
minutes that year, But statistically he averages forty eight and
a half minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
You know what he also averaged that year, chuck, Yeah,
fifty points and twenty six rebounds per game.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Is that good. That's good, right, that's out. But you know,
we know fifty and twenty six. I mean, imagine you're
good for fifty eight. We're impressed if you if you
do twenty and ten, you're a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
Right right, And imagine that year if he scores forty
eight and grabs twenty four rebounds, it's a subpar night.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
But by the way, not to go down this road,
but he actually he actually got fewer than his average
rebounds on the night of the Big Game. He only
got twenty fives.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
Yes, but he does not win the MVP that year.
Bill Russell wins it. The Warriors won forty nine games,
the Celtics won sixty is the eighty game season back then,
and so it kind of establishes that, you know, Will
puts up the numbers. Russell is a winner. But what
the president that it's said is that I never want

(01:20:40):
to hear someone has to win the MVP because of
this that right, So like this year, you could have
sent oh nikolae Jkic led the league in rebounding and
led the league and assists. How can you not make
him the MVP in that case? Well, because they did
not make Will Chamber of the MVP when he averaged
fifty and twenty six, so that erased any future argument

(01:21:01):
that because of some type of statistical argument, Will anyone
should be the MVP.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
So that brings us to March and that game in Hershey.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
When Wilt makes twenty two field goals in the first half,
which is still an NBA record. It's funny a quirk
of Bam out of Biles night when he scored eighty
three points on March tenth, twenty twenty six, March Big eerily.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
I was just gonna say eerily close to the same
nearly the same week as Wilts.

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
Yeah, shout out to the Pisces. Both my mom's parents
were Pisces.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
So that night he scores eighty three, but with twenty
total field goals obviously three pointers, had a great three
point shooting night, a lot of free throws near the end.
But it's just funny to me that on the night
he scored the second highest scoring total, he didn't even
have the second highest number of field goals for a half.

Speaker 3 (01:21:54):
Letlone a whole game his.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Twenty field goals win and qualified as the second most
for a half. Will had twenty two your guy. Rick
Barry scored twenty one and a half March twenty six,
another March date, nineteen seventy four, So I just thought
that was an interesting court. Will finishes with thirty six
field goals that night, still the record second time that
season he had more than thirty field goals. But really

(01:22:15):
what made this such a record setting night was that
he went twenty eight of thirty two from the free
throw line's.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
And he was not known as a great free throw shooter.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
Yeah, fifty one percent from the line throughout his career,
sixty one point three percent that season, although if you
take away that game it would drop to sixty point
six percent. It's pretty amazing, Like almost a percent difference
is based on one game.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
That is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
That's how incredibly was that night. There's three unsung heroes
that enable us to have what little documentation there is
for that night.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Well, that's the thing. This game is not available. You're
not You're not going to NBA TV and seeing a
replay of this game? Are you?

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
And no video? It's like it's like this Kofax Perfect
game that there's no TV of, there's just radio audio.

Speaker 3 (01:23:04):
There's a Vin Scully call. That's all we know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
We have the Vin Scully call. In this case, there
is some radio, right, but it's a weird way that
we got it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Yeah, only because some guy going to college in Amherst
named Jim Felice, a student at UMass, used his girlfriend's
real to real tape recorder to capture Bill Campbell, who
was calling the game on w c AU radio. He
captures the fourth quarter, so we at least we have
audio of this historic moment. Another unsung hero is an

(01:23:37):
AP photographer who was off duty that night. He's at
the game with his son, man named Paul Bathist maybe
Beathos sorry. So at the end of the third quarter,
Whil's up to sixty nine points and Paul goes out
to his car or he's got the camera in the
car and brings in his camera. So we get shots
of the uh of you know, Wilt scoring the hundred

(01:24:00):
point you know this the aftermath celebration, and that's on
the cover of Wil nineteen sixty two, and so we
have that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
And then probably the true hero of.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
The night is Harvey Pollock, who is the Sixers publicist
and the statistician. So that night, triple duty he's strung
stories for the United Press or Universal Press.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
Was the UPI stand for United Press centerntion.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
She's not a press inter national. He writes for the
Associated Press. Theo's a story for the Philadelphia Inquired. Keep
in mind, the Philadelphia Inquire, the main newspaper, didn't send
their beat writer to this game.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):
This is the NBA in nineteen sixty two.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
Yeah, it was like you, just like the Redding Phillies
may or may not have a beat writer from Philadelphia.
I mean they did sometimes the NBA if you weren't
playing in the city and you were off in Hershey,
you know, maybe they the local paper wasn't going to
pay expenses.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
We'll have hers for us, right, So Harvey writes it up.
Not only does he do all that, he's after he's
in locker room. He's like, we need something to commemorate this.
Grabs a sheet of paper, writes one hundred on it,
and is it to Wilt who holds it up? For
that photo? That's the photo that night.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Defining photo that night. If I had told you you
had to pick five photos in NBA history to tell
the BA easily one of the five, right, So let
me ask you this. Ja If I told you that
the Knicks starting center was sick that night, Phil Jordan,
and then sidelined by the flu, does that put an
asterisk by the one hundred?

Speaker 3 (01:25:38):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
Do you care? I know you don't care, but it
is you know, it is remarkable these all time great
scoring games. There's always something and you're like, well, how
did this happen? You know, it's like with the Bam thing,
how did this happen? I just have the other fun
little fact I loved is that the Knicks didn't want
Wilt to get a hundred, and so they started fouling

(01:25:59):
other Philly players to try to keep the ball away
from Will. And then the Warriors said, fine, we're gonna
At that point, they wanted Will to get the hundred,
and they started you know, so I like the fact
that the Knicks actually tried to stop it, right, because
what's the big complaint about BAM's eighty three point game
that the Wizards just sat around.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
And wait, yeah, yeah, back to those you know, those
three individuals that chronicled, you know, responsible for us having
some type of record of that night. That plus you know,
the fact the game was in Hershey, like all that
reflects the state of the NBA at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
And by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
The recording, the recording is in the official National Recording Registry.
Now wow, they put that recording into twenty sixteen. Yeah,
I mean, you know, how cool is the fact that
it's so important historically that it's in the National Recording Registry.

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
And the NBA was late to understand the importance of
this type of documentation. Right there's there's you know, all
those great Russell Chamberlain battles, like, there's very little footage
of that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:05):
I could argue the NBA doesn't ever really figure this out,
arguably until social media. I could make a.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Cat well I would, I would push back and say
the video cassette era. So they come out with those
NBA video cassettes, starting with the Michael Jordan one nineteen
eighty nine Michael Jordan Come Fly with Me. So those
were really popular in the eighties and nineties, the NBA
video cassettes, and then Inside Suck starts in nineteen ninety
though now Hall of Fame and trying Inside stuff with

(01:27:34):
the motor Shots starts in ninety that's the first year
the NBA has the TV rights.

Speaker 3 (01:27:37):
But you know, Chuck, you made a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
We think of the NBA as being just on top
of it now, and especially they they mastered social media
ahead of really and better than all the other leagues,
but decades behind when it comes they weren't even playing
itself on video.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
And I will say, you know, it's funny whether or
now it's the world of politics, the world of business,
or the world of sports. If you don't know how
to tell your story, your business is going to fail.
And you know the NBA's inability to tell its story
for so many decades. I mean, you know, I I

(01:28:15):
spent some time with the with the former owner of
the Cavaliers that the early owner of the seventies, Gordon
gunn I got. I was sent next to him at
a at a dinner and you know, even as late
as the late seventies, early eighties, this was a league.
No no, no, no, this is Gordon gun But even
in the late seventies early eighties, I mean, you know,

(01:28:37):
you know, David Stern begged Gordon gun to take the
calves like it was just like teams were going to fold,
Like this was a league that took argue. It took
him decades to figure this out. And really, I think
what I think you. I would argue that once the
NBA had a footing on television, that's when they finally

(01:28:58):
found their footing. You know, they just were this incredible
league that nobody was watching because there wasn't enough places
to watch them.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
The NBA Finals are on tape delay. Magic Johnson's great
Game six when he fills in for a Kareem that's.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
My that's that's my memory of my of the Lakers.
I became a you know, as a kid, it was
Magic Johnson was my guy. So I ended up a Laker.
You know, back then that was always the NBA, right
player had to.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
Get permission from your mom to stay to watch the
game because it was And he came on after Dallas
on Friday night.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
And the only reason my dad was kind of into
the Lakers is he loved John Wooden and there was
always a lot of U. C. L a Guys on
the Lakers, right, so he was he had this, you know,
he liked he enjoyed watching the Lakers because of the
old Wooden guys and that's what he liked. Wilkes And
when Wilkes a UCLA guy, I think I know, obviously
Kareem was and so that so thank goodness he actually

(01:29:56):
liked those teams or I don't know if I'd have
been able a lot of stay up late.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
So, you know, the pre eminent night, the.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
Arguably the greatest single night performance in NBA history, comes
in obscurity, and you know, we're lucky to have what,
you know, scraps that we do have, and thanks to
Harvey Pollock and everybody else that did their best to
preserve it and to commemorate that night. But it's really
reflective the fact that there isn't more about it and

(01:30:26):
the fact that we don't celebrate the fact that there
was even this kind of you know, typical everything they
conspiracy theorything argument that it never really happened because we
don't have video of it happened, So how can we
really sure Will scored one hundred points? And Harvey Pollack,
the statistician, like furiously was you know, double and triple
checking the stats right afterwards, making sure like, oh, did
we miss a basket? Like I want to make sure

(01:30:48):
that they actually it's funny because the nixt score on
the initial thing that went out was erroneous and so
that led some people to think like, oh, if they
got the nixt score wrong, maybe they got Wilt's total wrong.
But Republlock, you know, would would He lived for a
long time after that and he would tell people that
he was there and he documented it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:07):
But it was a different era for the league.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
And you know it almost not not forgotten, but probably
an undercovered, undermentioned, underdiscussed aspect of Warriors spry.

Speaker 3 (01:31:21):
And again we don't connect it to these Warriors right.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
Right, because it isn't. It was the East Coast instead
of the West coast. But let me before we get
and we're gonna we're gonna leave Wilt here, and you know,
well the Wilt legacy. Let me throw something at you, Jay,
what if there's no one hundred point game and everything
else is the same with Wilton, what's the legacy?

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
I mean, there's still fifty points and there's still again,
anytime anyone does something, you have to compare it to Wilt.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
Shaq in two thousand and one goes back to back
over forty points and twenty rebounds in the first two
games of the conference semi finals, first time it had
been done since Will time and time again, George Gerbon
once told me, you know, if you think you've done something,
you're in the record book.

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
Dig deeper is the record book? Okay, he will humble
you so and yet is it?

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
But this is the proof that rings seem to shine
up a player better than anything else in the in
basketball history. Right because he short rings. He's got two,
so there ain't zero, but he doesn't have five. Right,
Kobe has five, Magic has five, Jordan has six.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
Lebron right, Bill Russell has eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
All right, you there's always been this butt with Will
and the question is is it fair that there's a
butt or is it there's unfair there's a butt? I
get it. Look, he clearly earned the butt, right his
own personal reputation. Look at how other players talk about him. Right,
there was a little bit of that. Right, he was

(01:33:02):
not beloved, and maybe because he wasn't beloved in the moment,
there was an underselling of his achievements. Would you do
you buy that?

Speaker 3 (01:33:12):
Well? You wonder what happens if there's not Bill Russell
to provide this counter?

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
Right, So it's really ultimate team player, right, Bill Russell
the ultimate team player? Probably you know, you know the
idea of a passing center, right, the idea of that
guy essentially that you know, coach on the court, all
of those things. Russell is the antithesis of everything. Will
isn't right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
I found this great story and research in this and
it's just like this little kind of clip in a
in a like sports story kind of a sports roundup
in Time magazine, and it just details a regular season
matchup between Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. And he spends time
with Russell and the Locke. Remember Russell used to like
famously like throw up before games, and he's like lily

(01:33:57):
sick to his stomach, think about the prospect of having
to go against Will Chamberlain. And I think Will gives
them like forty eight points or something that night, But
Russell's team wins, right, And Russell just been having to say, like,
I don't care how many points get scored against me.
As long as I can secure a victory for my team,
That's what matters the most. And it's that that classic matchup, Right.
Would you rather have the stats? Would you rather have

(01:34:17):
the championships?

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
All?

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
But let me throw something else at you. When I
say shack, you'll also say in Kobe and he could
even early, say in Penny. When I say Kareem early,
there's Oscar late, there's magic. When you say Russell right,
you have Koozi, you have host of Hall of Famers right, correct?
What does it say that there is no Wilt and.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
Right until you get Wilton Jerry West right for.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
A brief, brief period gives you your one Jerry West title.
So at Matt and I would who is that title
more meaningful for Wilt or Jerry?

Speaker 3 (01:34:56):
Jerry at that point?

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Will you know Close already had his career, Wilt already
had a championship. You know, Jerry had been fighting, So
I think it means more for Jerry and to Jerry.
But you're right, and Wilt would point that out himself.
He would say, yeah, Russell has the championships. Look at
who he was played. He didn't put it this plainly,
but you know, look who he was playing with. Look
who I was playing with, and you know, but the

(01:35:18):
fact is Russell played with more Hall of Fame players
than Wilt Chamberlain played. He gets Paul Arison at the
tail end of his career. I think that might be
the last year of his career sixty one sixty two,
So he gets Arason a great player, but you know
that he's in his thirties now, and you know al addles,
but you know, not a great play. Like there's a
reason that no one else came even close to Will's

(01:35:41):
scoring total that night, Right, it's Wilt because he had
to score all the points. So that's the other thing too,
And one of the reasons he didn't play defense, like
they needed him to score points. He said, I could
play defense, but my job is to score the points
for this team.

Speaker 2 (01:35:55):
And yet four years later, once they became the San
Francisco Warriors, the owner, mister Muli, has a choice. He's
got essentially two centers, Nate Thurman and Wilt Chamberlain. Nate
Thurman is younger, Nate Thurman is playing the four, Chamberlain
the five. There's a lot of thought, who do you trade?

(01:36:20):
And he decides to trade Wilt instead of Thurman. And
after the break Chamberlain era ends the Welt Chamberlain era,
and it brings us to one more era. We'll get
into that after the break. Well, Jay, there's we were
talking about this with the Warriors. When you're looking at

(01:36:41):
him as a as a holistic franchise, we've sort of
split it up right. We've got obviously the current make up,
the dynastic, the thing that most the recency bias, dynasty
part of the words, which is where the heart.

Speaker 3 (01:36:56):
Of it is.

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
But there's two distinct other sort of corners stones of
this franchise. We've done Wilt. The other is rick Berry,
and in fact rick Berry is the centerpiece of the
the the only championship the Golden State Warriors won before
Steph Curry. And we're very specific on Golden State Warriors there,

(01:37:18):
considering we know that the Philadelphia Warriors are there. And
the seventy five Golden State Warrior championship team is still
remembered as one of the surprise championships in NBA history.
But it was not a one year fluke. In many ways,
it was a what could have been on the Warriors.

(01:37:40):
There's always been this thought that had had the ABA
business hadn't happened with Rick Berry and all of this stuff,
seventy five might have been the third of a championship run.
But instead it was there their one run. Because you
got to go back to the original decision by Frank
Muley to tray Wilt Chamberlain instead of Nate Thurman and

(01:38:04):
to then get a young top five pick in one
of the first four picks. He gets it because the
Warriors the year after Wilt are terrible. They earn you
know them, and the Knicks earned the first picks the
same year Rick Berry's drafted ja you know who, the
Knicks draft number one overall, Fraser, No, Bill Bradley. Who

(01:38:27):
So it's Bill Bradley goes one in that draft, and
then the Warriors end up with Rick Berry. And it
is this relationship between Barry and the owner, Franklin mew Lee,
which is just fascinating. I have to say I got
a lot of these stories.

Speaker 3 (01:38:47):
Yep, sorry about that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:52):
I have to say I got a lot of these
stories off of this out of print book, Confessions of
a Basketball Gypsy. By the way, I say that, I
don't know if you could say that today, could you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:06):
No, There's a lot of things that Rick Barry used
to say that you could not say today.

Speaker 2 (01:39:11):
Here's what's remarkable about this book before we get into
seventy five, because I think it's sort of you know,
everybody talks about the modern NBA player. This is a
player driven league. The NBA's always been a player driven
league and Rick Berry he writes this book in the
middle of his career, three years before the seventy five title,
while he's in the middle of lawsuits between the ABA,

(01:39:34):
the NBA, the Warriors, Him and the ABA, the ABA
and the Warriors, the Warriors and Rick Berry. There's just
lawsuits galore. When can he and he's had to sit
he plays in all these crazy ABA leagues. But it
was basically rick Berry wanted to tell his side of
the story. And it's just fascinating to get a player
memoir in the middle of their career, not at the

(01:39:55):
end of their career, but in the middle of their career.
By the way, it's in this book that he trashes well,
it's in this book that he sort of and what
I what, I'm really impressed with this book. He writes
it with a sports run named Bill Libby, who was
just a freelance writer won the National Magazine Award in
nineteen sixty four, so certainly was in that world. The

(01:40:19):
way this book you get you get the rick Berry's
take on things, and then he would allow people he
talked about to give their responses, so you'd have these
middle of the chapter entire paragraphs from rick Berry's wife,
from Franklin the owner, Franklin Mulei, Nate Thurman gets a

(01:40:40):
chance to respond Bill sharmon a coach that Rick Berry
can't stand. So it's it's it's it's a remarkable book
in some ways and in other ways it feels right
out of today's NBA, where.

Speaker 1 (01:40:56):
The drive different, right, instead of the social media. You know,
it's justicing that Johnson actually did something similar. So remember
early in his career when the Lakers fired Paul west
Heead and you know, pat Riley winds up being the
coach after having the job lateral to him by but
Jerry West at a press conference. But I think the

(01:41:18):
main purpose of that book was to address the controversy
and to let him have his say. Right, You couldn't
go on a podcast, didn't have a blog, couldn't post
through it, couldn't do a thread on social media on
your side. So the way to do that was to
put out a book. And so there's a lily chapter
of magic book. You know who really fired Paul west Heead?
And I think the whole purpose of that book was

(01:41:40):
to address the notion and to try to refute the
notion that he was the reason why Paul West had
got fired as coach to the Lakers.

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
So better time in publishing, right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:48):
I was just going to say where books could be
when you couldn't wait to find out where the books
broke the news. These days it is rare to get.
Even if you get breaking news in a book, what
does the reporter do make sure that gets out into
some other news organization? First, right the excerpt. So here's

(01:42:10):
what Mealy says in this Rick Berry book. He said
why he traded Wilt and not Nate Thurman. He actually
could have gotten more for Nate Thurman, but he said,
I felt we could build a winner better around Thurman
than around Chamberlain, which when you look at the status
you think is unbelievable. But if you go back on
what we discussed in the previous segment, Wilt didn't play

(01:42:31):
well with others. Nate Thurman played really well with others.
And then, of course, so they trade him. In sixty six,
he goes to the Sixers. They trade him back to Philadelphia.
But there's this new franchise, the Sixers, that are there,
and then it's that year that they draft Rick Berry.
So rick Berry and Wilt never play on the same
team at the Warriors. Literally it's a trade. Now Nate
Thurman is there and Rick Berry joined Nate Thurman. And

(01:42:59):
and what Mealy said about this team with Nate Thurman
and Rick Berry is with Nick and right, we had
captured lightning in a bottle. And they get to the
NBA Finals in sixty seven. So it looks like this
is rick Berry's second year. He leads the league in
scoring that year. It looks like this Barry Thurman is
going to be like Russell and Halichek and those guys,

(01:43:21):
right that they have something. They have the two, they
have the guys to build around. They make it and
they lose to Welt seven game series, Wilt's first title.
It's important to Wilt because he has to go through
Boston that year.

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):
Yeah, but he finally breaks through against Russell and the Celtics.

Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
In the Eastern Conference finals with the seventy six ers,
and then of course it all comes full circle. He
gets to basically gets a little revenge on the team
that trades him, the San Francisco Warriors. But look, that's
sixty seven year. Rick Berry becomes a superstar. He wins
the scoring title, He's the MVP of the All Star Game.
He gets he's a national celebrity. He's the spokesperson for Snickers,

(01:44:02):
to the point where it's some games people come with
Snickers bars. Well, they're mad at him. They kind of
threw Snickers bars at him.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
I love this.

Speaker 2 (01:44:10):
This is a fun little fact that you learned in
this book. So Rick Berry's favorite player growing up as
a kid, he grew up in New Jersey. His favorite
player growing up as a kid Willie Mays. He was
a Giants and Giants fan.

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
He said he was why war twenty four right, That's
why he.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
Wore number twenty four. In fact, as a kid, he
literally jumped a barrier at the Polo Grounds simply to
shake Mays's hand. And of course, years later he and
May's would share a spotlight as sort of beloved San
Francisco sports heroes. But what's great about this rick Berry
version of the Warriors is that in hindsight you see

(01:44:47):
glimpses of today's Warriors. The Warriors were a fun team.
You know, this wasn't old school East Coast basketball they
were playing. This Warriors team had movement, creativity, there were
scoring and so it looked like they were going to
bring this new style of West Coast basketball, a little
showier to the game. And then they run into Wilt

(01:45:10):
and you know, it's one of those things. They lose
this finals and they think that's okay. It's kind of like,
you know, the team that's one year too early, right,
like the Celtics team that loses to the Warriors. You're like, yeah,
they got there probably a year too early, but they're coming.
And that's what this Warriors team felt like. Look, they
lost to Wilt. They lost to a team with Billy

(01:45:31):
Cunningham on it. It was that Sixers team sixty eight wins.
At the time, it was the best record any team
had ever had in the NBA, that seventy six ers team.
So you know, they lose in seven games to a
team that was worthy, that was a big worthy team,

(01:45:52):
and then the whole thing comes apart. Barry leaves after
that finals run in sixty seven. He goes by the
way that he did win. He does win an ABA
title with the Oakland Oaks. For what it's worth, Boon,
right by Pat Boon of all people. Uh, he has
to spend a year in exile because of his is
a sort of a litigation, He's forced to sit out

(01:46:14):
an entire season. So there's always going to be a
few what ifs about Rick Berry's career because he lost.
He lost his season in the heart of his of
his abilities, and that really was you know, it changed
rick Berry because the Rick Berry that comes back in
seventy five and leads his team to a title is
a bit more of a humble man. I mean, humility

(01:46:36):
and Rick Barry didn't always go hand in hand, but
he's he The ABA years were were were rough on him. Yes,
they win a title with the ABA with the with
the Oakland Oaks, but then they're forced to move to Washington.
By the way, This version of the Washington team very
briefly is called the Washington Caps, by the way, so

(01:46:59):
it comes back full circle with the originals again Capital
not the original Washington Capitals, which of course we now
know is part of the original precursor of the NBA.
That team plays literally a year in Washington, then they
go to Virginia, and Rick Berry doesn't. He hated playing
in Washington and he hated even more playing in He

(01:47:19):
didn't want to go and play in Norfolk, where the
Virginia Squires were playing and he also said, look, he
didn't like he didn't like the ABA. It was very polarized.
The Washington team was very polarized. He complained about he
thought there were too many racial too much racial tension

(01:47:40):
that sort of upended the teams, and he talked about
that in this book in ways that Frankly, if this
came out today, I don't know how well that would
rick Berry would be received on the court. And I'll
just leave it at that. But he has to stay
in the ABA. He keeps losing these lawsuits, and through
seventy to seventy two he plays on the on the
New New York Nets in Long Island. So rick Berry

(01:48:01):
seventy to seventy twos with the New York Nets and
no Ja he's there. He's with the nets, literally leaves
the year before Doctor j ends up on the back man.

Speaker 1 (01:48:11):
That would have been a great tandem, although from what
you just said prior to that, I don't know how
well it would have worked out. So it's interesting to me, Chuck,
that I wasn't aware of this, you know, racial polarization
or conflict, because when I think of the ABA, I
think it has so much black aesthetic that it really highlighted, right,

(01:48:33):
like yeah, Doctor Jay and his afron, Darnell Hillman and
his afron. Just the style of play, it seems more
accommodating and more elevating of the black basketball aesthetic.

Speaker 2 (01:48:45):
Well, what Barry would say, it was behind the scenes, right,
he'd have he said, players would complain, it would just
race was just inserted, he claimed. And this is his
point of view, inserted into everything, whether a game was
officiated poorly, if player was benched, and it was just
he that's I'm giving you the Rick Berry perspective. So

(01:49:06):
I don't you know, I think that that I'm with you.
I've always viewed the ABA as sort of a Black League,
the league that didn't, you know, keep black culture buried, right,
that allowed allowed culture to thrive there. But look throughout
this entire time in the ABA, the Warriors still owned
the NBA rights to Berry, because that's how this original

(01:49:30):
reserve class right, the whole reason he had set out.
But they still kept his rights. And by the way,
Franklin Muly loved Rick Berry like a son. And he said,
just like when your son makes bad decisions, you still
love your son. And that was the relationship then, and Look,
the ABA years in some ways makes Berry a better

(01:49:50):
NBA player by seventy four to seventy five. Because a
young Rick Berry believed his talent solved everything oper you know,
and that you know, he we he was endless. The
older Barry now realized just him scoring alone wasn't going
to win games. He had to figure out how to
play with different types of players if you wanted to

(01:50:12):
do that. So he comes back to the Warriors in
seventy two. At this point, Nate Thurman is getting older,
the league's changed, the Warriors have changed, and at this
point when he comes back to the Warriors, he played
for the San Francisco Warriors. Ja when he comes back,
there now the Golden State's Warrior, Golden State Warriors.

Speaker 3 (01:50:33):
He's back in the same plays, but it's got a
different name.

Speaker 2 (01:50:36):
It's got a different name. So look, he's a different player.
He's a better player. He's not just worrying about how
to score. What's interesting grick Berry always said, even in
his own game, he said, I was a scorer, not
a shooter, which I thought was an interesting self reflection
on his part. But when he comes back in seventy five,
he's actually a better passer. He starts to play defense.

(01:50:58):
He admitted he wasn't a big fan of defense. He's
a better floor general, and he keeps his you know,
he's more mature. He's thirty years old at this point,
so he's got a little more emotional control of his emotions.
And even Rick Berry himself admits that the ABA years
forced him to expand his game because he was the

(01:51:19):
only guy that could play. I mean, he'd say he
didn't think much of the ABA players. He said, there
was like a handful of guys that could play in
the NBA, and that's it, you know, And usually they
were the guys that had left the NBA and could
do that. So here they are, and by the seventy
three seventy four season, he's a much better player. And

(01:51:40):
then the most important new figure in his life is
Al Addles and he comes in as a coach. He's
not you know, Bill Sharmon is the coach of the
sixty seven team that makes the NBA Finals, and Bill
Sharmon was coach in LA. He replaces a coach that
the players love.

Speaker 3 (01:52:02):
In in.

Speaker 2 (01:52:05):
Hannam, And the players loved Hannam. They did not like
Sharman Charman was actually a man ahead of his time.
Bill Scharmon used to make the players watch videotape. Think
about this in nineteen sixty seven. This was not being
done in many In many teams, this guy practiced, made
them practice every game day, made them practice every off day.

(01:52:26):
They had to practice hard. Rick Berry did not believe
in practicing hard. He had a little Allen Iverson in him,
and he's in practice. Why am I doing that?

Speaker 3 (01:52:33):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:52:35):
He didn't like that, causing though Chuffey say, like how
reviled Charmon was with with with Warriors. Because in La
So I got to go to a reunion of the
nineteen seventy one seventy two Laker team, the team that
had the thirty three game winning streak and win a championship, And.

Speaker 3 (01:52:55):
I didn't hear this.

Speaker 1 (01:52:56):
You know, maybe it's because a lot of time had passed,
but you know, I just didn't recall hearing all this,
the stuff about Sharman. And you know, another thing that
he innovated was the morning shoot around. Teams didn't used
to practice the day of the game, to which he
institutes this, all right, we're gonna come over at morning
shoot a round and go over everything.

Speaker 3 (01:53:13):
We'll come back to wilch Well.

Speaker 1 (01:53:15):
Chamberlain famously replies, Look, I'm only going to come to
the arena once per day.

Speaker 3 (01:53:20):
You can pick what it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (01:53:21):
Do you want me to come in the morning or
do you want me to come in night in the game,
and so to which Charmon decided, I think we'd rather
have him at the game.

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
Well, what you're describing though, see the Bill Sharmon is
sixty seven. Would have done that, That's what I'm what
I've gotten what I think he wouldn't have gotten dated
will that way? Yes, And the sixty seven version of
Bill Sharmon was my way of the highway, hebbi. I
you know, I can't help but look at Sharman and
think and Rick Berry's description, and think everybody tried to

(01:53:52):
be Vince Lombardi at a certain point as a coach,
and I think, you know, the strong alpha type of guy.
But Al Addalls comes in former player and he's not
quite two player friendly like Hannam was accused of being.
And he wasn't, you know, too hard on him. Like Sharman,

(01:54:13):
he commands enough respect, but he gets that she got
to treat the stars differently.

Speaker 3 (01:54:18):
I think it helps that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:54:21):
His nickname was the Destroyer, and they came from a play.
I think it was at high school and everyone's going
for the ball and everyone's collides and like Adel's pretty
much emerges unscathed and like the other guys have to
be help off. So from that point on, his name Destroyer.
So do you really want to go at someone whose
nickname is the Destroyer? Which makes him scene meaner than

(01:54:43):
he is. And I was never in the huddle with him,
but I got to know him a little bit. You know,
he stayed on with the Warriors. He coached him into
the nineteen eighties. Right of course it played for them too,
and he stays on with the Warriors, and it's like
a community ambassador.

Speaker 3 (01:54:59):
But he'd beat all the game.

Speaker 1 (01:55:00):
So as we would walk up at Oracle Arena to
go sit in the press seating area, al Addeles sat
in the row in front of us, so we'd see
him all the time and just could not have been
nicer for a guy nicknamed the Destroyer. Is as friendly
a person as you'd want to come across, and had
this great deep voice, very forceful voice.

Speaker 3 (01:55:18):
But al Addle's one of the just the real pillars,
foundational figures of the Golden State Warriors.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
No, and it's in this team. I mean, he gives
Barry something that he didn't have, you know, which is
just you know, somebody who created some structure that he trusted,
emotional steadiness. You know, young Barry fought authority all the time,
and yet in al addles and I think the humility
of the ABA right, also he plays a role in this.

(01:55:48):
But look, Barry's you could argue, while he won the
scoring title in sixty seven, his seventy four to seventy
five season is amazing in a lot of ways. He
averaged over thirty thirty points six points per game. He
leads the league in steals. Again, this was not rick Berry.
Was not mister defense in sixty seven. Yeah, but he

(01:56:10):
leads the leagan steals, He's top ten and assists. That's
another thing. Wasn't a big disshirt back in sixty seven.
By seventy five he is. And of course, you know,
you can't talk about rick Berry without the underhanded free throw.
Even my son, nineteen year old son, I told him
we're doing the Warriors. He goes, well, you know who's
on the word Rick Berry. Oh, that's the underhand free
throw guy, right, Like everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:56:31):
Knows that, right. It was so distinctive, right.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
And also because he would pop up, you know, Shaquille
O'Neil would be having to struggles. Anytime a prominent play
would struggle from the free throw line, Rick Barry would
start of magically appear and do a media tour and say, hey,
if he wants me to help him work on shooting
on her handed free throw, I'm here.

Speaker 2 (01:56:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:56:50):
It worked for me, It could work for anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:56:52):
There's no reason not to do it, of course, the
reason being that just people just can't bring themselves to
you know, shoot this, you know, the granny shot as
it was called.

Speaker 2 (01:57:04):
I should we should go through those playoffs a little bit,
and I just want to give you a little taste
of the of the seventy four to seventy five plays.
So the Warriors, by the way, only win forty eight games.
I say only forty eight. You tell me this, Ja,
It's not often that a team that doesn't win fifty
wins the title. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:21):
Going back to our conversation about the regular season, like
you got to prove and develop things in the regular
season to show that you're worthy and yeah, forty eight
win team winning a championship. But also, you know, a
different NBA back then too, So you know there wasn't
there wasn't that powerful that the seventies was. You know,
the Celtics dynasty had ended, Russell retired and you're transmissing away.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
It was a transition. Yeah, yeah, we hadn't quite you know,
Kareem gets traded to the Lakers, but the Lakers haven't
become the Lakers yet. Yeah, at this point, the Celtics
obviously get that seventy sixth title. That's kind of there.
I don't know what we refer to that title, right,
it's this title, but I don't think there's any players
on the by the eighty one team. But it's also

(01:58:05):
got a little exhaust fumes from the sixties era. So
this team actually has the seeds of players that would
actually be part of future championship teams on other on
other franchises. So Rick Berry's the hub of this team.
He's averaging thirty at nine. This is the season that
a young Jamal Wilkes. At that time, he's known as

(01:58:27):
Keith Wilkes, but this was his emergence season. It becomes
a great compliment to Barry. He doesn't need the ball.
He's not an ego guy at the time, and and
he fits. You know, one thing Barry made clear in
his own book, because you've got to play with me.
I don't play with others, right, and when you're younger,
you learn to play with others. Phil Smith was was

(01:58:49):
a big player on this team, a young guard, say
the Clifford Ray Butch Beard, but really Al Addles. It
is the core of this team. They beat the Seattle
SuperSonics four two in round one. That one has. Spencer
Haywood is part of that SuperSonics team.

Speaker 3 (01:59:10):
JA, so Heywood's really relevant.

Speaker 1 (01:59:13):
It's funny as you were talking about Barry and his lawsuit,
it just got me thinking what a litigious time it
was for NBA stars because he had Oscar Robertson in
nineteen seventy buying a lawsuit which really helped lead to
free agency in the NBA. Right, he fights against the
basketball version of the reserve clause, which was the famous
thing that was fought against by the Baseball Union.

Speaker 3 (01:59:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:59:36):
So that and then Spencer Haywood is the guy that
bought for players to be able to come into school early, right,
You wouldn't have had Lebron James going from high school
straight to the NBA, Moses Malone or you know when
Kevin Durant and they era of one and done guys,
or basically all the guys that left college early before
they had Spencer Heywood from in the NBA, including Magic

(01:59:57):
Johnson and Michael Jordan, like you named it. Basically, from
the late seventies on, almost all the great players in
the NBA either came straight out of high school or
left college early, right. And Spencer Haywood's lawsuit was the
one that enabled all of that to happen. And for
a long time he felt like he didn't get appreciation
from these young players who had made so much money

(02:00:17):
off of his efforts. And then finally kind of came
around and Spencer was at peace, including Lebron Jame acknowledging
him as Lebron came in his rookie year.

Speaker 3 (02:00:26):
That just made Spencer feel very satisfied.

Speaker 1 (02:00:29):
But among all the things that we think of the
late sixties and early seventies, he's forgotten legal battles in
the world of professional sports that changed the landscape and
made it You know the landscape that we know today.

Speaker 2 (02:00:41):
Now absolutely Look we know it in baseball, right with
Kurt Flood in some way Spencer Haywoods Kurt Flood huh.

Speaker 1 (02:00:48):
A little bit, yeah, yeah, for basketball and Oscar Robertson.
You know, in addition to being one of the all
time great players, he's also one of the ones that
took the stand. So like, imagine if like Kurt Flood
was like Willie mace on the fight like that much.

Speaker 2 (02:01:00):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:01:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:01:02):
So they beat the Sonics four to two. The real
NBA title, this may sound familiar, was the Western Conference Final.
This was a seven game series against the Bulls and
guests who got traded to the Bulls before the start
of the seventy fourth to seventy five season, Nate Thurman.
So it's aging Nate Thurman on the Bulls. But suddenly

(02:01:23):
you want to talk about adding a little extra juice
because a lot of Warrior fans were mad at the
Warriors Muly for trading Thurman. Thurman was beloved, right, he was.
He stuck the whole time. He didn't jump to the ABA,
and Rick Barry kept saying it was Thurman that was
going to jump to the Aba, which was he basically
was either going to stay with Thurman or jump with Thurman,

(02:01:43):
and Thurman stayed me only got you know, paid him
ninety grand to stay and Barry goes. So Thurman, uh,
it'd been you know it was he was aging and
all that, but he's on this Bulls team. Warriors win
game one.

Speaker 3 (02:02:01):
In in out in in uh in the Bay.

Speaker 1 (02:02:04):
So I'm not sure which venues, but this was another
funky one, I think because of the c because of
the venue availability. Right, So like game one is in
the Bay, Game two and three are in Chicago, Game
four and five are back in the Bay, and then
they alternated for the last two games. Like typically it's
two games, two games one one one, but this was

(02:02:25):
like one two.

Speaker 2 (02:02:26):
But the most significant I think what's significant here is
they win game seven in Chicago. You know they had to.

Speaker 3 (02:02:34):
But again a rare series.

Speaker 1 (02:02:35):
How many times in NBA history does is Game one
played in one city in game seven is played in
the other the other city.

Speaker 2 (02:02:44):
It's crazy. Meanwhile, the Warrior is going to sweep the Bullets,
and the Bullets were the favorite. The Bullets had West Hunselt,
Elvin Hayes, Phil Scheneer, they had more size, more playoff credit, pedigree,
more national credibility. The Warriors looked like they were just
sort of this cute story from the West and they

(02:03:06):
just come in here and what what this is Why
this seventy five Warriors team, weirdly is a little foreshadow
into what the Warriors would do literally nearly forty years later,
is they basically sped up the game and and and
and went with speed over size.

Speaker 1 (02:03:28):
And again we I think we don't think of Alvin
Adams is someone you know, ahead of his time coaching wise,
but but yes, innovative, different, you know, adapting, changing with
the times and in that style.

Speaker 3 (02:03:43):
And also you wonder, you know a little bit, does
Barry bring some of the ABA with him to the NBA?
You know the NBA, the ABA was a more up
tempo league.

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
And hey, that's what he learned. He learned to play
more up tempo. And so by the way Nate Thurman
would end up coming back to the Warriors, He's still
considered a good franchise elder, if you will.

Speaker 3 (02:04:05):
They couldn't quit each other.

Speaker 2 (02:04:06):
Here's what's interesting. You know, seventy five is an important year,
right the merger happens in seventy six. Everything seems to
change in seventy six, and so the question is, how
come the Warriors couldn't do this again. Ironically, the Warriors
had a better record in the next season. They won
fifty eight games in that year, but they lose in

(02:04:30):
the Western Conference Finals to the Phoenix Suns, and that
team that featured pat Riley.

Speaker 1 (02:04:36):
And the Suns go on to have that classic series,
you know, with one of the all time great games
against the Boston Celtics in the finals.

Speaker 2 (02:04:44):
But in many ways, losing to the Suns, that basically
was the end of Rick Berry's career.

Speaker 3 (02:04:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:04:51):
He wasn't the last, obviously, he kept playing. But what
the seventy five Warriors were was was the ultimate what
if the owner believes it, the ABA doesn't happen, the
idea that we might have had an interesting you know,
could have had an interesting Warriors Lakers showdown right in

(02:05:11):
seventy or seventy one. There's a lot of what ifs
about the Warriors in sixty eight, sixty nine, seventy and
seventy one. That a health a younger Thurman, a younger
Barry playing together in their fourth or fifth year without
the ABA, without all of that, who knows.

Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
But uh, that's that's the theme of the Warriors though
for up until the Steph Courier is that these brief.

Speaker 3 (02:05:39):
Moments just like then.

Speaker 1 (02:05:40):
So it's and this is probably the high the highest,
but and and the longest relatively right, it was more
than the two years of the run teams era, but
it's still it's just one highlight that they just can't sustain.

Speaker 2 (02:05:52):
So you know, it's funny. I look, I grew up
in Miami, which meant if and I was a huge
My parents were huge University Miami fans, and so you
know the irony the University of Miami basketball JAA is
that so Miami had one of the greatest NBA players
of all time, Rick Berry, and Miami basketball was so

(02:06:13):
successful in the sixties that they dropped it in the seventies.
The University of Miami did not.

Speaker 3 (02:06:19):
He was so successful that they dropped.

Speaker 2 (02:06:21):
Yes, meeting, I'm kidding right, Like they were successful, but
it was not a well fought like univers of Miami. Hey,
you want to talk about nomads and where you played
your games. They had no campus gym. They played at
the Miami Beach Convention Center. Sometimes they'd play in little
other where. I mean they they yours of Miami back
in the sixties. Even with Rick Berry, they were winning

(02:06:43):
twenty plus games. They were going to the n I
t which is really was almost as as as prestigious
as the NCAA Tournament back then. And you know, Rick
Berry has he's great. He actually holds a holds a
record or two for games played in Madison Square Garden,
you know, all time great college games at Madison Square
Garden during the n IT years. But Miami actually, like

(02:07:05):
it had it, just didn't care about basketball. They dropped basketball.
They don't bring it back until nineteen eighty five. And
Rick Berry is, weirdly this sort of lost icon of
the University of Miami that only very recently. And I
feel the same way. And you tell me, I feel
like it's only been with this era of the Warriors
that Barry's been embraced back in. And I feel like

(02:07:27):
it's only now that Miami basketball is a little bit
more competitive in the acc that they they try to
sort of enhance their history a little bit and say, hey,
don't forget we have Rick Berry to give themselves a
little bit of a history. But it all goes back
to this Rick Barry reputation. What was his reputation for

(02:07:49):
a long time?

Speaker 3 (02:07:50):
Not good jack.

Speaker 1 (02:07:51):
So yeah, there's a remarkable Sports Illustrated story late seventies,
early eighties. So Rick Barry's playing career has come to
a close, and he just wants in in the NBA somehow.
Can he be an announcer, Can he work in somebody's
front office, Can he coach? You know somewhere that you know,
this lifetime of dedication to basketball, he wants to continue

(02:08:12):
it at the highest level in the NBA now that
he's no longer playing. And the gist of the story
is he wants back in, but nobody wants him because
nobody can stand him. And it was written by a
young writer named Tony Kornheuser. Familiar with him, Chuck, I
think I've.

Speaker 2 (02:08:27):
Heard of him. Yeah, he's going to do pretty well
in business.

Speaker 3 (02:08:31):
He used to do some stuff from Sports Illustrated.

Speaker 2 (02:08:33):
You know who would not remember that piece? Tony Kornheiser, No,
he remembers. He's hilarious things. Sometimes you're like, you know,
you wrote a piece on Rick Berry.

Speaker 1 (02:08:42):
I did, oh right, yeah, Okay, this one stands with
him because the amount of people he got to say
on the record with their names attached. Yeah, I can't
stand rick That's basically the theme. Basically the subhead, like
I said, that subhead for Wilt Chamberlain, he's a problem.
And this at the other the subhead very easily could
have been Rick Berry wants in the NBA, but nobody

(02:09:03):
wants them because nobody can stand him. And all these
people said it on the record. That's what You would
never have something like that today. That'd be all these
anonymous sources. Well everyone's putting their names to it, but
former teammates.

Speaker 2 (02:09:15):
But I go back to this book, Ja rick Berry
named names, So you know, you tell me people were
willing to put their name on it. Well, rick Berry
put his name on criticisms. So I kind of think, like,
you know, if you're going to give, you better be
prepared to get. So there it is the Warriors what

(02:09:36):
could have been?

Speaker 1 (02:09:38):
They don't get one last thing I mentioned seventy eight
kind of the one good thing about the Warriors after
that championship. I know it certainly mattered to a certain
local marine mammal. So there's a story in nineteen seventy eight,
workers are cleaning the dolphin tank at Marine World Africa, USA,
and I still remember the theme song, I've been up

(02:09:59):
there in the Bay Area in seventy seven to seventy
eight Marine World Africa.

Speaker 3 (02:10:04):
You had say.

Speaker 1 (02:10:05):
So, they're cleaning the tank and a bolt comes loose
and one of the dolphins, dolphin by the name of
mister Spock. How seventies that sounds right, a dolphin named
mister Spot. So he thought it was food and he
snatched it up. And this bolt gets lodged in the
dolphin's stomach and where it could do you know, major damage.

(02:10:26):
They didn't get it out, and veterinarians didn't have anything
that was long enough to reach that far down the
dolphin's stomach to retrieve the bolt. The Parks publicists knew
Clifford Ray, so she calls him up. Clifford Ray, being
six foot nine, had a different reports. Have his reaches
forty five inches or forty seven inches whatever, he had
long arms.

Speaker 3 (02:10:46):
Let's suffice it to say.

Speaker 1 (02:10:48):
Right, So, while the Warrior's flight waits to take off
for their trip to Washington, Member this is at a
time when NBA teams flew commercial, So this commercial flight
is waiting based on the tarmac, It goes down to
Redwood City, throws on some surgisical scrubs, loves up his arm,
reaches in with guidance from the venarian by the phone,
and retrieves the bolts from the dolphin's stomach, pulls it out,

(02:11:13):
is a hero, and then makes it to his flight.
Turns out he's sitting next to Elizabeth Taylor on his
flight across country.

Speaker 2 (02:11:21):
And this is a great little post And they made
a movie about a fish that say, Pittsburgh, we should
have done the Warriors the dolphins.

Speaker 1 (02:11:31):
So the post of the PostScript is that apparently, you know,
whenever Clifford Ray would would go down to Marine World,
that dolphin recognized him and appreciated him, and we kind
of come over and was excited to see him.

Speaker 2 (02:11:42):
I hope that every time we want to believe, we believe.

Speaker 1 (02:11:47):
We believe before we're believing in the words, we're believing
in Clifford Ray the savior of dolphins.

Speaker 2 (02:11:54):
And so now Steph Curry.

Speaker 1 (02:11:58):
To skip forward a couple of decades, it's because there's
only a couple of years we're talking about. But once
Steph Curry arrives and gets going, there is plenty to
talk about. So Chuck, the peak of the Curry Revolution
was a moment so stark and just jarring that even
I could notice. And I have to admit this came
in an era, the post Twitter era, when I didn't

(02:12:23):
maybe pay as much attention to the NBA games during
games as I used to before we were on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (02:12:27):
But you know, now during the game.

Speaker 2 (02:12:30):
That's an interesting admission because I think I think I'm
the same way, but explain.

Speaker 3 (02:12:37):
So before i'd.

Speaker 1 (02:12:38):
Really just notice everything that was going on and keep
it down, but now you're you're scrolling through Twitter because
you want to see what everybody else is saying, right,
maybe somebody has some observation and kind of more important,
when you're at the game, you're not seeing You're not
seeing what they're showing on television.

Speaker 3 (02:12:55):
Right, they might have an angle.

Speaker 1 (02:12:56):
You know, you're sitting high up in the arena and
maybe there's some close up on TV that they're showing
you what's happening, or they're showing the broadcast, but that
feedback is coming back to you through Twitter, right, So
you know, I'm curious, I'm like, what are they saying
on the broadcast And I'm missing out on or what
is somebody noticing or you know, maybe there's a former
player that's got some commentary on Twitter. It's weird you

(02:13:19):
kind of have fomo when you're actually at the event.
But that was the world we're living in. However, early
on in the Game five to twenty fifteen Finals, I
look down on the court at Oracle Arena and I
realized I was getting a glimpse of the future. There's
a version of the NBA where no one on the
court is taller than six foot nine, and everyone on
the court is capable of putting up a three pointer

(02:13:41):
at any given moment. Before I kind of get in
the details, I think it's important let's go back in time.

Speaker 2 (02:13:47):
Well, it's in this period, and it's interesting because we
may go back and isolate this period when we say,
when was the last time somebody under six? How many
times we had people under six nine win MVP? So
starting in twenty fifteen, we had four straight years, I know,
and I'm wondering if we're ever going to have that
ever again, let alone in a row.

Speaker 3 (02:14:09):
I'll say this because because it was it was Curry
twice in a row, James Harden, Russell and Russell west
Russell Westbrook and then James Harden right, right, So four
straight years you've got guys under.

Speaker 2 (02:14:19):
And well in the But you know, in some ways,
and I think, I know you believe this that the
seeds of the of the of the Warriors were actually
planted in Phoenix.

Speaker 3 (02:14:30):
I believe that when you had a small guard, the
guy even Steve Nash, even shorter than Steve Nash, went
in back to back MVPs.

Speaker 2 (02:14:37):
And then Mark D'Antoni seven seconds or less Suns, right,
which was just you know, they average average fifty eight
wins over a four year stretch. The fact that that
team never makes it to the finals, though, probably does
give some pause to the does this work right exactly?
You know, it's sort of like, you know, it's funny.

(02:14:57):
This gets into the you know, introducing analytics, but it
is important to know who was the GM of that
Sun's team, Steve Kerr, right, and that and Alvin.

Speaker 3 (02:15:06):
Gentry on that team and who let her take over
as the head coach of the Suns after they tried
to go away from the D'Antoni style and that wasn't
working that well and the fans weren't like and the
fans missed the up tempo style.

Speaker 1 (02:15:18):
So Alvin Gentry takes over and and immediately reinstalled, reinstates
the seven seconds. Lest I want to say, they scored
like one hundred and forty points like the first two games.
After he comes back, they scored some absurd number like
the first two games he comes back.

Speaker 3 (02:15:36):
I texted him the coach of the.

Speaker 1 (02:15:38):
Year, and like all he did was just kind of
reinstalled the D'Antoni system, right, So clearly he buys into it.

Speaker 3 (02:15:44):
He believes.

Speaker 1 (02:15:45):
Yeah, So when Kerr comes to the Warriors, Alvin Gentry
is his assistant at least for that first year, and
so they incorporate elements of that. They also have some since.

Speaker 2 (02:15:56):
The beginning of analytics and not basketball is it not.

Speaker 3 (02:16:00):
Not exactly? I mean it. It was the basic math
of three is more than two? Right, and well what
dance that math was.

Speaker 2 (02:16:10):
True going back to you know, the late seventies when
they brought.

Speaker 3 (02:16:13):
Into right the in corporation, but.

Speaker 1 (02:16:16):
The you know that just there was this belief that, well,
you're going against the math, against the just established you know,
orthodoxy of basketball, which is that the game is played
from inside out. I remember Ralph Wiley doing a story
talking to to Earl of Pearl Monroe, in which he

(02:16:37):
said Monroe said that the object of the game is
to get the ball as close to the basket as
possible in the score, right, And that was just kind
of the maximum the mantra for so long, and it
made sense. And the scores during the nineties got really
low because the defenses got really good. So you had

(02:16:57):
you had people trying to get to the basket against
defenses that just would not let them get to the
basket easily, and the result was that they made it
really hard to get close to the basket and score,
and so the score started dropping. Remember, the league moves
into three point line for one year open to increase scoring,
and the problem is the undertended consequences is it made
it easier to both cover the three point line and

(02:17:18):
to recover.

Speaker 2 (02:17:19):
And somebody has a record. There's somebody's three point record
is that season like percentage made or something like that,
like the best season long, and it's like people are
conveniently forgetting that that was the year they moved it in.

Speaker 1 (02:17:36):
So one analytical thing that Mike D'Antoni believed was that
the data showed that the worst thing you could do
was to throw the ball inside to the low post.
A guy that's being guarded in the low post trying
to score. Is what the data said was the worst
percentage playing basketball, which that was all that the game

(02:17:59):
was first, like sixty years of the NBA.

Speaker 2 (02:18:02):
Well, you know, you'd get glimpses of this. You know,
it's interesting think Rick Patino at Providence right.

Speaker 3 (02:18:07):
In the in the eighties, especially Kentucky, right.

Speaker 2 (02:18:10):
And then you know in college you saw quite a
few teams essentially over index on three pointers in order
to essentially use less talent to overcome teams that were bigger,
more physical.

Speaker 3 (02:18:22):
It was the slingshot for David against a lot, right, And.

Speaker 2 (02:18:27):
The thought was, well, that can't work in the NBA
because everybody's you know, the difference between the number one
team and the number thirty team is still smaller than
the difference between you know, a top four team and
a top fifty team. Right. So, but it is intriguing
to me that it took the NBA this long to

(02:18:51):
essentially go this to do what Steph Curry did, which
was I mean this to me, and it gets to
this larger issue of Curry, right, where does Curry fall.
You know, we're gonna we mount rush more of a franchise.
It's Curry. Nobody's gonna say he's the top four all
time player. But if you completely change how the game

(02:19:15):
is played, do you get extra consideration?

Speaker 1 (02:19:22):
I remember when Curry's, you know, in the midst of
his run, and we're going in for a pregame meeting
with ri Kylisle, the coach of the Dallas Mavericks at
the time, and he just simply said he is rewriting
the history of the game.

Speaker 3 (02:19:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:19:35):
You know, That's that's how impactful that Curry was. But
you know he had to change as well, you know,
and as the game is changing around him and others
are helping to mold him. So let me do some
some some quick math on Curry.

Speaker 3 (02:19:52):
Here, lease do so. His first year he.

Speaker 1 (02:19:55):
Makes one hundred and sixty six three pointers. Right, His
second season makes aundred fifty one three pointers, and the
third season he makes fifty five. Again, he's he's hampered
and limited to like twenty five twenty six games because
of the injuries. So that's three hundred and seventy two
to three pointers right in his first two in a
quarter season. Wow, that unanimous MVP season at twenty fifteen

(02:20:16):
to sixteen, he makes four hundred and two three points.

Speaker 2 (02:20:19):
I was just going to say, doesn't he have over
four hundred And it's.

Speaker 1 (02:20:22):
Like yep, yeah, So you know, more in one season
than he did in two in a quarter season. So
it's not like he came in right away intently, but
like he had to be a he had to be
encouraged to do it right and then allowed to do it.
But a critical thing, the war is actually benefited from

(02:20:43):
the slow start, the injury plague start.

Speaker 2 (02:20:45):
Oh. I was just gonna say it. You know, if
he doesn't have ankle problems, Kevin Durant, never, this whole
thing doesn't happen, correct, because.

Speaker 1 (02:20:56):
He was coming off that injury the twenty six game,
the lockout shortened twenty eleven twelve season. You know a
few months after that night where Joe lakob Is roundly
booed it's time for a new contract for Kurt and
they signed up for four years, forty four million dollars
in October of twenty twelve, and that was actually seen

(02:21:17):
as a risk and maybe even an overpay again given
the the the injury risk and you know, the frailty.
But you wonder again the fact that Lakeub said that
that night, the booing, the reception you receive that night
really encouraged him to double down on his convictions. He uh,

(02:21:41):
if you're gonna trade Monte Ellis and get booed for it, Yeah,
and you're moving Mante to clear the way for Steph Curry,
well you better be in on Steph curkr.

Speaker 2 (02:21:48):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (02:21:49):
So they're into the tune of forty four million. But
it's not a you know, it's extreme dramatic content, but it's.

Speaker 2 (02:21:54):
Still I mean, just the just the opposite. It turns
into built they don't have if this, if they don't
have this small of a contract for Curry, there's no
cap flexibility. There's probably no Iguadala. There's certainly no Duran Durant, right,
because you know, let's say Curry had not been injury

(02:22:17):
plagued and we saw earlier he'd have gotten a max extension, right,
and then he's Dame Lillard, right, he's by him, probably
by himself on the Warriors.

Speaker 1 (02:22:29):
So this gets into what I said about how the Warriors.
The latter theme and story of the Warriors is them
extracting the most out of the worst, right, turning the
bad time, turning the booze into chairs, literally, but turning
the bad situations in the good situations. So they turned
Curry's injuries and his shaky starts and dubious and uncertain

(02:22:52):
future into one of the great contracts of all time
and underpaid. So, for example, he's by the time his
first MVP season in twenty fourteen, he's making ten million dollars.
He's not in the top fifty highest paid players in
the league. He's making less than half of what the
highest during his MVP season. Right, yeh twenty three millions, Yes, yeah,
a super bargain, right. Joe Johnson was number two at

(02:23:15):
twenty three million in twenty fifteen. In the twenty sixteen
NANIMS mvpc'son.

Speaker 3 (02:23:20):
Making eleven million dollars. Light raise. Kobe and Lebron are
the top two.

Speaker 1 (02:23:23):
Maybe it's a little more palatable, but yeah, still again,
not in the top fifty, and you're getting an MVP
for not one of the fifty highs paid players his contract.
You know, in the midst of all this, Klay Thompson's
it's his turn to re up and he gets four
years and sixty nine million dollar extension in twenty fourteen,
so for.

Speaker 2 (02:23:41):
A brief period of also, Clay makes more than Steph.

Speaker 3 (02:23:44):
Right, yeah, but this also speaks to.

Speaker 1 (02:23:49):
Steph's mentality and the fact that something like those type
of things could tear up a team. I was just
Seattle SuperSonics of the nineties basically got broken up because
Sean Camp was mad about what other people were.

Speaker 2 (02:24:00):
I was just going to say, there is no I mean,
that is the hardest thing to manage. I mean, look,
even in the early Warriors days, the owner knew whatever
he gave Barryer to give Thurman right, like you just
you know, you couldn't. They were worried about that superstar
chemistry even back then.

Speaker 1 (02:24:17):
And so the Curry's credit, you know. I talked to
him about this. I'm like, hey, you know, Clay, he
hadn't signed it yet, but he was looking like he
was going to get this type of contract. And I
asked Steph what he thought about that, and he says, look,
it's selfish and human nature to look around and see
these other contracts. But his words, you're not hating on anybody.
You're happy for everybody that's making money for themselves. And

(02:24:38):
using the game for benefit. For me, I just feel
like I'm blessed to be paid well to play a
game I love, and hopefully be able to stay healthy
long enough to get two more deals before I'm done.

Speaker 2 (02:24:46):
Well, let me let me throw something. Let me throw
something at you. That because Steph Curry grew up with
a dad in the NBA, that financial security was I
wonder if it just gave him more patience, if that
makes sense.

Speaker 1 (02:25:06):
But it's still the opportunity for generational wealth. I get
it right, and this is still the way that people
measure themselves at this point.

Speaker 3 (02:25:13):
He hadn't won an in.

Speaker 2 (02:25:14):
I think if he had grown up poor, he might have.
We don't know how he might have reacted. He might
have held out and said I want my contract renegotiated now, right, It's.

Speaker 1 (02:25:25):
Possible, But I think it also it's funny. It benefits
them in two ways. First, it benefits the warriors and that,
as you mentioned, if they have the flexibility and of
the salary cap to bring in Iguadalin and later Durant
and then it uh. But it also it almost ensures
that Curry is not going anywhere because the way the
NBA has structured you know, the Larry Bird exemption, which

(02:25:47):
allows you to go over the salary cap. Basically you
can resign your own free agents for any amount up
to the you know, the maximum contract level. So the
fact that he was underpaid and now he'd be seeking
to kind of recoup his losses so to speak, you know,
and he'd be seeking as much money as possible. Well,
he could only make the maximum amount of money if
he stayed with the Warriors. So it really the fact

(02:26:10):
that he was interested that he would want to recop
you know, in addition to the fact that obviously he
was happy there.

Speaker 3 (02:26:14):
But it really it.

Speaker 1 (02:26:16):
Really almost eliminated the chance that he would go somewhere else.
So wound up helping them in aricar flip side too.
So not only was Steph not jealous of the money
that Clay was making, maybe just as importantly, Clay was
not jealous of the attention that Steph Curry got as
he's becoming the.

Speaker 3 (02:26:33):
Face of the team and then even the face of
the league.

Speaker 2 (02:26:35):
Well it's also possible Steph was making more off the court.

Speaker 1 (02:26:40):
That helped, But but Clay didn't talking to Clay about that,
he said, he said he was like actually happy for
the popularity, Like I don't think he'd want that amount
of popularity, but he almost marveled. He was like, you know,
he'd been overseas with Steph on a Feedbworld Cup championship team,
and he just marveled at how popular stuff was around

(02:27:00):
the world, and not out of a place of jealousy,
just out of place in marble. So this culture that
the Warriors had, this lack of jealousy between these two
key players, and they weren't resentful over who got more
money or who got more attention. Again, we think about
things that ended prematurely. The Lakers ended prematurely with Kobe
and Shack because they didn't have that same type of

(02:27:20):
lack of jealousy.

Speaker 2 (02:27:22):
That's a fair Let me just tell you one thing
about how Steph. So my kids were playing youth basketball
starting in essentially twenty ten through twenty fifteen. So here's
what that meant. And I watched it. I remember with
my son doing five year old basketball. This is twenty

(02:27:45):
twelve by twenty thirteen, is all Steph is the rage,
particularly among little kids. Why do I know this because
every basketball game became you'd see these seven year olds
hoisting it up from as far away as they could.
This was true of my daughter's girls team and my

(02:28:07):
son's boys team. Steph the it. There was something about
youth basketball in that moment that it was Steph was
the player every kid wanted to be because step seemed like, oh,
he's little like me, right, you know, you're you have
that thing, and compared to everybody else in the league,

(02:28:27):
Steph's the little guy, right or certainly smaller. The I
could tell you.

Speaker 3 (02:28:33):
Every youth basketball game back then was like that.

Speaker 2 (02:28:35):
It was just a bunch of little kids just hoisting
it up from as far away and you know they
would get excited if they just hit the rim.

Speaker 3 (02:28:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:28:43):
But that's when you knew how much of a cultural
icon he was. The fact that literally it goes back
to anything when we were kids, we joke, right, you
imitate what you see, right, and who you see and
who everybody in that era was imitating Steph.

Speaker 1 (02:29:00):
I also give Steph Curry some credit for the place
that we're at now in women's basketball and the elevated
place of women's basketball, because the knock against the women's
game used to be that well, the game is played
below the rim, right, at a time when the NBA
was high flying and Michael Jordan and everybody is doing
all these incredible dunks. Well, you didn't have any women
that could do that. As Steph brings the game back

(02:29:21):
down to earth and now it becomes about shooting from
great distances. Well, the women can do that, like Haylen Clark. Well, right,
it's funny. It's like seeing less difference between the men
and women game.

Speaker 2 (02:29:30):
You look at a Britney Griner, right, who's great on
the inside, but it is sort of it is funny
how everybody's gravitating to the shooters.

Speaker 3 (02:29:37):
Yeah, and the women's game now too, And so Steph
kind of he called it.

Speaker 1 (02:29:41):
And in addition to really going out of his way
to promote women's basketball players and you know, do youth
camp for girls in addition to boys. And then of
course that moment he had when he has that shootout
with the SABRIENI and ESCO at the All Star Weekend
in twenty twenty four. You know, like he always has
an eye on what he can do to promote the

(02:30:01):
women's game in women's sports too. So you know, transformational
in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (02:30:06):
He's I've seen him at Look, I've I've been lucky
enough to be at events where he's sort of a
special guest and in different areas and stuff, and there
is something he is on the same level as Jordan
and Lebron. People are like, WHOA, well, that's staff, that's staff.
It's the same. And I think I think that basketball

(02:30:26):
people already know this. But I'll admit as somebody, I
don't consider myself a basketball person. I consider myself a
sports fan. But is it Steph's in an is is
much higher in the hierarchy than I think non basketball
fans fully realize.

Speaker 1 (02:30:44):
So from a practical standpoint, right, So, honestly, even before
he's having such an impact on the sport in the world,
there's a practical matter of his thing. And you alluded
to it that they probably don't get Iguodala and if
they don't have Kurry at this bargain deal and the
Eguadala later, Bob Meyer is the general manager that put

(02:31:06):
this championship run together, would say that the Egudala thing
was really a pivotal moment. You know, they really wanted him.
They didn't really have the salary cap even with that
Curry contract to do it. Initially, so they had to
trade some contracts and some draft picks to Utah to
clear up that cap space to sign him as a
free agent, and Myers said that the deal zapped much

(02:31:26):
of his life for us. But but what Meyer said,
the lesson was he learned is that if you if
you want something, you got to figure out a way
to do it right. And there was not an easy
path to get Eguadala, but it was something that they
really wanted, and so he says, you know what will
make it happen, and they make the trade and they
give up maybe a little bit more than they wanted,
but they wound up bringing in.

Speaker 2 (02:31:47):
Now the irony is let me, let me throw a
sliding doors at you. Eguadala stays healthy and the Warriors
beat the Clippers.

Speaker 3 (02:31:59):
Right, he gets hurt in twenty fourteen down the stretch.

Speaker 2 (02:32:02):
This is another pivotal moment in the in the in
this sort of run to run to become dynastic. Here
is that it's the it's the series that leads to
the Mark Jackson firing.

Speaker 1 (02:32:16):
Yeah, because so they lose in seven games. Curry goes
down swinging. I mean they the series.

Speaker 2 (02:32:22):
Has known for something else. By the way these days.

Speaker 1 (02:32:24):
Yeah, it happened to be the series in which, in
the middle of the series the Donald Sterling recordings come
out in which he made the disparaging remarks about black people,
most notably Magic Towns were including Magic Towns.

Speaker 3 (02:32:38):
Yeah and yeah, so that you know he's uh.

Speaker 1 (02:32:42):
Before the series ends, Donald Sterling is suspended for life,
as Adam Stover says in that press conference. So that happens,
so people kind of forget about. Some people might even
forget the Clippers or the Warriors or even involved in it.

Speaker 2 (02:32:56):
I you know, I do, right, you forget, but it's
in hindsight, my goodness. What a And in fact, if
it wasn't for the Sterling saga, the firing of Jackson
might have been the biggest story out of their playoffs, right.

Speaker 1 (02:33:07):
Yeah, and another move that was unpopular by leg So
Lakub could use a win here because the trade of
Montealis was unpopular. But people have gotten over it because
in twenty thirteen, the Warriors win their first playoff series
in a while, and since the we Believe team give
a pretty good run against the San Antonio Spurs, who

(02:33:29):
eventually go to the finals.

Speaker 3 (02:33:31):
So there's that.

Speaker 1 (02:33:33):
So there's some good feelings, there's goodwill generated, there's belief
in this team. And then this year again Mark Jackson
had really got them playing defense. They win fifty one
games for the first time in twenty years in the franchise. Right,
So what he's doing is working, but you know, the

(02:33:54):
offense isn't fully unleashing the potential. And then just you know,
just the simplest thing. You know, there were some things
where Jackson wasn't getting along with the front office, and
you know there were some things he was doing that
that was rubbing the front office the wrong way. Without
getting too detailed into it, you know, there was a
personality and somewhat of a culture clash there.

Speaker 3 (02:34:14):
Right, There wasn't alignement.

Speaker 2 (02:34:16):
I don't mean to say the league's spoken, but the
fact that Mark Jackson hasn't coached anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (02:34:22):
But you wonder if part of that is because of
the you know, the the way that they just took
off like a rocket ship under Steve Kerr.

Speaker 2 (02:34:29):
Right, that is that just leaves a bad taste.

Speaker 1 (02:34:31):
And yeah, yeah, and then and then there's there's but yeah,
like there there's been some other coaching opportunities that came up.

Speaker 3 (02:34:39):
Mark Jackson's name was mentioned.

Speaker 2 (02:34:40):
I mean, I'm sorry. This is the NBA. Usually fifty
wind coaches get a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chance.
It's odd to be that Mark Jackson has it.

Speaker 1 (02:34:52):
But people forget the players all came out like strong,
you know, strongly in support. A lot of times there's
just kind of lip server. It's like we like ho,
It's like, no, I was in that locker room. They
really they loved him. I mean he was beloved Urry especially, Yeah, yeah,
and not not in.

Speaker 3 (02:35:07):
All parts of the locker room. Andrew Bogan wasn't the
biggest fan.

Speaker 1 (02:35:10):
But you know, certainly the people whose voice is mad
at the most, like Stephen Curry, were coming out, you know,
on the record very publicly supporting Mark Jackson. But he
lost the most important person, and that was Joe Lacub.
And there's this incredible image of Lacub sitting on the
sidelines of you know, a few feet from the warrior's
bench and like looking at Mark Jackson's got this look

(02:35:34):
on his face. The camera's caught it where he's just
like I can't believe this guy. I can't wait to
get rid of him. So like his fate was stealed.
Mark Jackson knew it.

Speaker 3 (02:35:40):
He wore was all black to that game seven because
he's dressed for a funeral.

Speaker 1 (02:35:44):
The game is becoming more offensive minded, right And and
that's not Jackson's fortale. You know, another sliding doors moment
suck is that Steve Kerr wasn't the first choice of
the Warrior's brass they they were thinking Stan van Gundy.
But it's amazing Detroit comes along and offers Van Gundy
not only coaching position, but basically general manager duties as well.

(02:36:08):
And uh and so he he cho has some interest
from Phil Phil Jackson to go coach the Knicks to
that job was opening, but he was thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (02:36:21):
But he chooses the Warriors.

Speaker 1 (02:36:23):
In part they were a good match because him and
Laca bed golfed together and they were kind of golf buddies.
So sometimes that's not the best criteria, but in.

Speaker 3 (02:36:32):
This case it was.

Speaker 2 (02:36:33):
It was like, you know, it's it's as you were
pointing out, you know, Kerr's philosophy and what he'd learned
in Chicago, what he'd learned playing for Phil, and then
what he what he what he saw work in Phoenix,
in my goodness, in.

Speaker 3 (02:36:50):
San Antonio too, and going all the way back to
college with Loudelson, it's so important coaches that.

Speaker 2 (02:36:55):
He really is. I mean he gets to learn. He
plays under Phil Jackson, Popovich, loude Olsen.

Speaker 1 (02:37:05):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (02:37:07):
It's pretty good. It's a pretty good set of teachers.

Speaker 3 (02:37:10):
And just picks the right things. Right.

Speaker 1 (02:37:12):
So I remember talking to some other players gone into
coaching about the trial and I remember when of the mastering,
like do you think the triangle cool? Because the triangle
really wasn't set for the three point era.

Speaker 3 (02:37:24):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:37:24):
I was just gonna say the facing.

Speaker 3 (02:37:26):
Of that offense.

Speaker 1 (02:37:27):
And Phil Jackson wasn't a big believer in three point
like up to a point, right, He didn't think a
team should take more than maybe twenty five twenty.

Speaker 2 (02:37:35):
They shot the three pointer enough that Kerr got got
to be on the bulls.

Speaker 3 (02:37:41):
It's what got him to the bulls.

Speaker 1 (02:37:42):
And yeah, you know, and I mean there's memorable John
Paxson three point shots right, like Michael Jordan's shrug game,
right is because he was making a bunch of three.
So it's not like he was like never shoot a three,
but he didn't. He didn't feature it, right, So I
always say just because Kerr was a good higher didn't
mean that the Jackson firing was a good fire.

Speaker 2 (02:38:04):
Interesting and kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:38:04):
The way it went down, it felt like it didn't
have to be that way. Of course, it works out
better than anyone could ever imagine. Kerr really puts in work.
He never coached before. That's the other thing that makes
it risky. You hire someone who just won fifty games
for you, for a guy who never coached before. But
as you said, he had all these great influences, right,
multiple great coaching trees that he's a part of. And

(02:38:28):
then he really he really you know, digs in and
he even flying down to Australia to meet with Andrew
Bogan and going all around to meet with his guys,
but before they before he embarks on this journey with them.
But he also had some it's not always analytics. Some
of it was just numbers and some of the advanced

(02:38:50):
tracking numbers. So now with the data and the cameras
that they have, they can track the number of passes
and the number of dribbles and all these things. So
I think he set a goal is like two hundred
and fifty or three hundred passes a game for example, right,
and this is something that you could track very easily.
You know, he wanted to have twenty five to thirty
assists per game. You know, he just wanted the ball moving.
He wanted the players moving around. Like to him, that

(02:39:12):
was the whole key ball movement, incorporating the three pointer,
the exploiting matchups on the pick and roll, all these
things that went into his offense. And you know, it
clicks right away, right so surprisingly, so.

Speaker 2 (02:39:26):
He's got the right I mean, he just has the
right people and it look, I mean, this gets its something.
And we're not going to talk a lot about this
one player, but I'm always been curious, is Draymond Green
and great because of Steve Kerr and because of the
type of offense and type of and what you know

(02:39:49):
that that Draymond doesn't succeed with in some other under
some other coaching situations.

Speaker 1 (02:39:57):
So this is an interesting moment. So I worked the
first game that Mark Jackson returns. So Mark Jackson, inspired.

Speaker 3 (02:40:04):
By the Warriors, goes back to his job with with
with with ABC and or ESPN, and so him and
Van Gundy and Mike Green, So I'm on that crew.
I didn't always work with them, but I'm on that
crew when they go back for Mark Jackson's first came back.

Speaker 1 (02:40:21):
Actually know what it might have been, I never been.
It might have been with day Patch, might have been
the full A crew, But I just explains what I
was doing there.

Speaker 3 (02:40:29):
It definitely wasn't the full eighteen.

Speaker 1 (02:40:31):
But so but as Mark Jackson's first came back, and uh,
somewhat awkward, we do the pregame interview with the coach,
so he's talking to his replacement.

Speaker 2 (02:40:41):
Just painful. I mean, I don't I feel for anybody
in that situation. You know, the person that replaces you,
and everybody knows it wasn't a nice transition.

Speaker 3 (02:40:51):
Steve Kerr made it easier. He comes in. He's very
friendly and outgoing and just kind of you know, takes
the first steps. So he made it easier. Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:40:59):
Mark noteafullly signed as day Passion me asking most of
the questions. So at the end, Mark says, I just
have one question, you know, what have you noticed about Draymond?
And Kurr starts raving about Drayvon and versatility. So it's
like it's like they were connecting, right. It was like
like Kurr new and Mark. Mark's like Hey, this Draymond

(02:41:22):
guy is something special and different. The other thing about
Mark Jackson, I mean, the one thing he did offensively,
he might not have done anything promoted, but if you remember,
he was out front calling proclaiming Kerr and Clay Tom
I'm sorry Curry and Klay Thompson. Mark Jackson's called them
the best shooting backward ever before they'd really proven it.

Speaker 3 (02:41:43):
And so at the time we're like, hey, whoa.

Speaker 2 (02:41:46):
Your mouth?

Speaker 1 (02:41:46):
And that turned out to be extremely accurate. Right, It's
like a lot of what Mark Jackson said and believed
was right. And now Joe lacup and and Bob Myers
come walking it, and now it feels tense, right, and
so the producer and the director kind of screwed out.

Speaker 3 (02:42:03):
They passed.

Speaker 1 (02:42:07):
I was in a position where I couldn't like I
was on the other side, so I couldn't just sneak
out because I haven't had to walk past all of
them to get out.

Speaker 3 (02:42:15):
So I'm kind of stuck in there.

Speaker 1 (02:42:17):
Like so comes in and you could just feel the
tension in the awkwardness, and so Lacob says, hey, Mark,
did you get my text?

Speaker 3 (02:42:27):
And Mark says there wasn't a text. And then it
was like, oh, well, yeah, yeah, what I mean, well
or I meant to text you. I guess that's why. Man,
that's awful, but I get the credit. At least they
came in.

Speaker 1 (02:42:43):
And then during the game, Mark Jackson's there and they
do something on the on the scoreboard during one of
the time, I was like, welcome back coach Jackson.

Speaker 3 (02:42:50):
He got a good and he stands up in waves.
So they got that out of the way.

Speaker 1 (02:42:54):
And then the problem for Mark Jackson, of course, is
not only does Steve kurb do great in his seat,
but they're going to the finals every year and who
has the finals ESPN and Mark Jackson, so he's back
there all the time.

Speaker 3 (02:43:07):
You can't abord.

Speaker 2 (02:43:07):
I'm not I'm not a religious person, but if if
somebody were, they'd say, oh, Mark Jackson was living in
his own hell.

Speaker 3 (02:43:13):
You know, he was a very religious person. Is religious.

Speaker 2 (02:43:18):
Yeah, that's uh. You're wondering what that means. You're being tested,
that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:43:23):
But you know, everyone was fine. Everyone was adult. You know,
Mark Jackson never made it a big deal. He could
have made it a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:43:31):
It was and so I was just gonna say Mark
Jackson showed I mean, you know, it's it was easy
for everybody else to handle that moment. It's you know,
the real, the real maturity moment. There's Mars.

Speaker 1 (02:43:45):
You know, everyone acted like growing ups, Mark Mark in particular,
so you know, and after a while adventure and then
also he couldn't deny that, like things worked out great
for the Warriors, right like, and things walked out great
for Curry, et cetera. So everything came to fruition and
so obviously Kerr's system and encouraging them to shoot more
threes work. But then the key development was Equidala. And

(02:44:09):
one of the first big ask that Kerr had was
he asked Gudala, hey, it would help our team if
you came off the bench, and you know, it was
it was a tough ass. Gudala had been a starter,
had been an All Star. You know, he didn't see
himself as anybody's bench player. But he does it for
the sake of the team. And then the key adjustment
during the playoffs. So remember the Warriors fall behind Memphis

(02:44:32):
two one, yeah, in that series, and then they fall
behind the Cavs to one. Even though Kevin Love wasn't
available for that series, he heard his shoulder, and then
Kyrie Irving goes out with the knee injury, and it's
just Lebron and Lebron is kicking their butt. So Lebron
personally has them up to one. So in Game four,
at the suggestion of one of his so one of
the things that had developed with this Warriors team is

(02:44:54):
that they would go small to close out games or
in particular stretches. So they put e Guadala in along
with the other four starters. So it's Curry, Klay Thompson,
Raymond Green, Harrison Barnes.

Speaker 3 (02:45:07):
Who was the at Harrison Barnes.

Speaker 1 (02:45:10):
Yeah, the forward, and they put Gudala in as the
other forward and moved Draymond Green to center, and it
became known as a death lineup. I think Vincent Goodwill
of the Yahoo Sports at the time it gets credited
with coming up with that name, the death lineup. So

(02:45:30):
the big adjustment in the finals is that Kerr, instead
of going with the death lineup to close games, goes
with the death lineup to start the game. He swaps
Iguidala for Andrew Bogut in the starting lineup, does that
for Game four, they win Game four, stays with it
for Game five, and Dave Blatt, the coach of the Cavaliers,

(02:45:53):
who at first had kind of refused to get caught
up in this and stays with his starting center Timothy
moscoff does that throughout Game four. They lose Game four,
starts Game five with with Moscoff in and then the
Warriors get off to a good start, and very quickly
he subs in j. R. Smith for Timothy moscoth the

(02:46:15):
guard j R. Smith and moscow So now they go
small and basically Lebron, but they have Tristan.

Speaker 3 (02:46:19):
Thompson, I guess is out there. I think Thompson's on
the court too, but.

Speaker 1 (02:46:23):
They definitely don't have a center, right, so you've got
basically Lebron has kind of becomes your big man out
there n the center and that team.

Speaker 3 (02:46:32):
Yeah, you know, and j R.

Speaker 1 (02:46:34):
Smith is basically playing a Ford but it's very small
and just all of a sudden, And this is what
I noticed, and this is what I wrote about and
my column off that game was that this was the
future of the nbated rite. There was this small fluid,
you know, anyone likely to throw up a three point
shot at any given time, and the future had arrived
and Kerr had brought it in and it to me

(02:46:58):
it was just noticeable and and somewhat shocking in that moment.
And yeah, so they win, the championship winds up being
the finals m v P. So in some ways that's
certainly a salute to Curve that, you know, he turns
them into the starter. I don't think anyone who had
started a started a series on the bench for the

(02:47:22):
first couple of games.

Speaker 3 (02:47:27):
So, uh, they win it, wins, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:47:31):
And then at the start of the next season, the preseason,
the Warriors were down in l a for a couple
of games and I kind of overhear Gudala saying, like, man,
last year, we didn't even know what we were doing,
you know, like we were just learning, just figuring it out.
And now this year, yeah, I mean that was a
trial period. And they win a championship and Curry wins
the m v P, and a brief moment kind of

(02:47:54):
along the way, they're in New York for the everyone's
in New York, at least in New York for All
Star Weekend and noticed Curry hasn't won the MVP yet,
but he's a made man already. Why because they all
when they all farm out to do different day of
service they call it in different community service events. Curry
gets the plumb seat next to Lebron and Commissioner Adam

(02:48:16):
Silver at the event. That's the closest to the hotel
where the players are staying, right, So.

Speaker 3 (02:48:20):
That was just notable. Like the stage he was on.
This is the NBA three point shot out that year too,
But the NBA is.

Speaker 2 (02:48:25):
Very aware that young fans were gravitating towards Steph. Yeah,
and that's what that is where at this Adam Silver's
NBA is well aware of what fans are doing in
every single second at that point, and he realized Steph.
You know, even if the NBA elite hadn't yet decided
that step belonged in the same seat as Lebron, the

(02:48:47):
younger fans had decided that.

Speaker 1 (02:48:50):
So maybe he's not on the throne yet, you know,
he's not the champ, but he's on the dais right
like like at the wedding or at the event. Right,
there's the people at the dais and as people at
the regular he's up on the days now.

Speaker 3 (02:49:03):
So they do win the championship. Eudald is the MVP.

Speaker 1 (02:49:07):
Uh again that next year, they gave the warnings, so
I kind of wrote it that, hey, they you know, this.

Speaker 3 (02:49:14):
Is what they're saying. They're saying last year was nothing
like this is the real words that they're going to see.

Speaker 1 (02:49:19):
And what happens. They win, you know, they win the
first twenty four games of the season. Very player driven
by the way, and that's also when I learned something
about Curry and his mo and what motivates him. So
you know, they're talking about, you know, the opportunity they're
going for that they want to have the best start.

Speaker 3 (02:49:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:49:38):
Ever, I think I think fifteen wins would have given
them the record for the best start to a season,
and you know there's already some pushback like should they
be going for it?

Speaker 3 (02:49:47):
Should they be going all out this early in the season, and.

Speaker 2 (02:49:52):
Young legs you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:49:55):
You know it helped, and Curry says something that stuck
with me. He said, anytime you have a chance to
do something that's never been done before in the history
of the game, you know you want to do it.
And that's really what drives him. You know, he's trying
to do things that no one else has done, both
on a team level and on an individual level, and uh,

(02:50:16):
I've always kept that in mind. That that that's when
you when you're wondering what's motivating Curry, Like that's it.
He wants to He does want to rewrite the history
if he wants to do something, things that are unprecedented.

Speaker 3 (02:50:27):
Right, So.

Speaker 1 (02:50:30):
You know, seventy three wins Donald MVP, you know, and
then you get to the incredible comeback from uh from
Lebron and and that stinging loss I'll never forget. I
get to the parking lot in game seven and there's a.

Speaker 3 (02:50:47):
Turns out there. There's a woman who works for the
Warriors next to me, and she reaches under the trunk
of her car and pulls out this this box of
Warriors Championship patch. Right. You know that she was going
to give some of the sponsors, right you know, so
I wonder what became of them.

Speaker 2 (02:51:01):
But you know, I didn't grab one.

Speaker 1 (02:51:04):
Everybody does this, you know, collectors at them. But she says,
you know, you know, these hats are for the sponsors,
you know, if we win. She didn't say, when we're
gonna win, I'm gonna pay you know, Like you know,
this is just like you have to prepare for the parade, right,
like it's not arrogant to like have parade plans because
you can't.

Speaker 3 (02:51:19):
Just draw these up overnight. So they lose that.

Speaker 1 (02:51:22):
But again coming back to profiting and extracting things from
the lowest moments, which to me is the theme of
the Laker Bar. What happens after that?

Speaker 3 (02:51:32):
They get Kevin Durant in the off season, and maybe
if he wins the championship, he's probably if they win
the championship, are they less inclined to go for him? Well,
I think that's did not see the need for him.
And does he say like I can't go right after that?

Speaker 1 (02:51:46):
Like, does he say, no, there's no way I can't
go if they're the champion, it would just look it'd
be too bad of a look like this way, he
can at least come to the rescue. And I mean
that that's to me a Phetherland caplip. I got to
rescue the seventy three win team, right, But you know,
to them, you know it's it's they needed him. What

(02:52:06):
Kurr said, they realized, you know, what got exploited was
that they you know, they when when things got bogged
down and things got tense and locked in and the
motion the offhinse couldn't move is freely. They needed someone
who could go get a bucket.

Speaker 3 (02:52:20):
Well, and you know that's what they like.

Speaker 2 (02:52:22):
So not everything. I mean, this is where there's a
moment where it feels like this six' nine and under
thing is going to. Work but then it's not bad
having a seven foot or is, it especially one that
can shoot and get a.

Speaker 1 (02:52:34):
Bucket everyone, right And, kevin when we come, back we'll
get into the story of How durant became A warrior
and how The warriors became virtually unbeatable in the, Playoffs.
Chuck our next moment in time Is july, first twenty.
Sixteen the location is one eighty nine Further lane in The.
Hamptons it's a house That durant has been one hundred

(02:52:56):
thousand dollars to rent out for ten. Days those figures
are in The New York. Times this was at his,
Agent Rich cleiman's. Request rich was A New york native
and he wanted to spend some time near his family
before he And durant had a trip planned To china.
Afterwards so if they were going to be on the
other side of the, world and this is his.

Speaker 2 (02:53:15):
Agent, ye, right this Is july. One this is the
start of the courtship, process, right.

Speaker 1 (02:53:22):
And so The warriors had called. First Bob myers put
in the first, call so The warriors get the first.
Slot there were also meetings with The, spurs The, heat The,
clippers and The celtics all setten up getting a chance
to make their, pitch and then he promised The thunder
that they get one last chance to make their case
to keep them the only franchise he'd ever played for

(02:53:43):
right after he was, rapped, well the only, team BUT
i was just going to say places he was drafted
as A seattle SUPER i HAVE.

Speaker 2 (02:53:51):
I have a p s a ten Rookie Cardiff durant
in A SuperSonics. Uniform so the.

Speaker 1 (02:53:58):
Only, franchise, right not the only uniform he'd ever. Worn
but you know he really has put The thunder on the,
map right and wins AN mvp as A. Thunder you
talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:54:08):
Sliding doors final, ONES i Gotta i'm gonna GET i
gotta Give simmons credit for. This, Uh he's got a
theory On durant that If seattle doesn't, Move durant loves
living In seattle and never. Leaves that The SEATTLE i.

(02:54:30):
DIDN'T i don't, know but it's an interesting. THESIS i
just thought i'd give him credit for. THAT i have
no idea if that's.

Speaker 3 (02:54:35):
True, mean that's that's one of the REASONS i never
really was mad At durant for, Leaving, like, yeah you're
a young man your. Twenties rather be In Oklahoma, city
rather be in The Bay. Area so the thunder do
get Last.

Speaker 1 (02:54:45):
Dibbs but apparently they kind of found out late in
the going when they were making their travel, Plans So
hampton's for The july, Weekend, like there's not a whole
lot of places, available, right so they wind up squeezing
their nine person contingents into six rooms at the holiday In.

Speaker 3 (02:55:05):
Express that's according TO i just love this.

Speaker 2 (02:55:07):
Story you, know we all know how rich people, are
and you, know they don't wait IN tsa. Lines they
don't go to things we call airport in, private, right you,
know and they have to. EXPRESS i, mean WHAT i
want to know is did they make their own? Waffle
did he make his own? Waffle did he go out
there and do the squeeze and make that might as

(02:55:28):
well take advantage, That, yeah you got the pre, waffle
fun free breakfast. Waffles, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:55:35):
So The, Warriors, Curry Andre, Gudala Bob, Meyer Steve, Kerr Joe,
Laca Kirk, lacob they, all you, know fly the private
jack cross. Country clay was already out. There he was
doing some other. Stuff so he's getting some tennis in
on the. Court they stay at at a friend Of
lacub's had a house. Nearby so like already the lake

(02:55:57):
of circles, coming.

Speaker 2 (02:55:58):
You, know because we all have it's under, it you,
know you know.

Speaker 3 (02:56:04):
We need better. Friends, yeah we need better. Friends you,
KNOW i would, say if you can't be, rich have
rich For i've thought, that, like you, know being In
i've gotten.

Speaker 2 (02:56:14):
Friends.

Speaker 1 (02:56:15):
Yeah, yeah but LIKE i thought about that ONCE i
was swimming at the pool And Mike wilban's second house
in Scott, Still. ARIZONA i, said you know, what it's pretty.
Nice you can't be rich a ridge Friends Draymond green
meets him out. There so they all take the same.
Car i'm guessing it's like a cat like escalator or
something to accommodate all of. Them and just the optics

(02:56:37):
of that taking that car to the meeting might have
been enough To. Duran he later told the.

Speaker 3 (02:56:42):
Athletic he. SAID i was, like, man this already looks like.
FAMILY i want to be a part of. It that
was Pretty they haven't walked in the door. Yet it's pretty, clever, RIGHT.

Speaker 2 (02:56:50):
I promise you that Isn't it was just Pat riley showing.
Up Pat riley And foster and maybe Maybe Mickey, harrison
but it wasn't going to be.

Speaker 1 (02:56:58):
Well riley and his bag of rings was apparently enough
to Get lebron, Right and that's the. Story when he
meets With, lebron he takes out his rings.

Speaker 2 (02:57:04):
And, Well ron hadn't had a ring, yet so that
must have mattered exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:57:08):
Exactly the cavaliers showed like some cartoons that they had
made up For lebron because they knew he liked. CARTOONS
i don't think that was the.

Speaker 1 (02:57:17):
Right but, this this this, togetherness right that this this
coming together ensemble and this this team. Outing it was
a manifestation of really what appealed to him about the
words with this this culture of. Togetherness kerb brought some
clips of the offense and how he thought it would work.

Speaker 3 (02:57:34):
With durant in.

Speaker 1 (02:57:35):
It but what came through there was an oral history
of the meeting That Tim kawakami did for the athletic
was That durant generally felt flattered that this group that
it had so much success without, him really felt like
and indicated that they needed. Him right and And, chuck
you talk about the the athlete ego and sometimes even

(02:57:56):
the fragility of, it but just someone who was accomplished
as The ran, already who won AN, mvp led a
team to the, finals wanted to feel. Needed by the,
WAY i will tell, you living In, washington.

Speaker 2 (02:58:10):
The Entire durant courtship was one of these you want
to talk about feeling extra rejected.

Speaker 3 (02:58:19):
Fomo and on the.

Speaker 2 (02:58:19):
Outside, right you, know here's a kid FROM Pg county
here in THE, dmv and you know The, WIZARDS i don't.
KNOW i believe they didn't get their phone call return
by the. Agent they wanted to be, there they wanted
to make a. Bid there was this whole. Thing and you,
know the word In washington always was he just didn't

(02:58:41):
want to play at. Home it was Just i'm not doing.
That he didn't. Lie apparently he didn't love coming here
to play when he played. Away all the demands that
came from stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:58:52):
With right exactly know what happens when you go back. Home,
yeah is everyone comes out of the woodworks wanting to take.

Speaker 2 (02:58:57):
It so can you imagine and he's already we all,
right and we kind of now we all Know durant's
kind of, like you, know he's got he's set in his,
ways right we say this with with you, know AND
I i feel like The durant we've all gotten to,
KNOW i can see that he wanted no part of.
That but at the time of this, COURTSHIP i, MEAN

(02:59:20):
i just, remember you'd have fans were upset at the,
owners why aren't you in? This you, know and wanted
to blame The wizards for not being able to be you, know,
well if you were a better, franchise maybe he'd he'd consider,
that you know WHAT i. Mean it was when it
turned out The wizards never had a chance because he wasn't.

Speaker 3 (02:59:38):
Coming and maybe through no fault of their, own maybe that's.

Speaker 2 (02:59:41):
Right as much as we want to give the, yeah
as much as fans want to give the it, was
it just was never going to. Happen it is one
of those you, know it's it's a it's a it's
a what if that only only the handful Of wizards
fans think about.

Speaker 3 (02:59:57):
Anyway So durant the one thing he wanted to.

Speaker 1 (03:00:02):
Hear you, know it was Great Steve kurr and his
videos And draymond and everything that they had to, say
but he wanted to hear From. Curry you know that
The curry did and. Why And curry just told him straight,
up if you can help us win and let's, go you,
Know i'm.

Speaker 3 (03:00:16):
Good with, it you, Know. Curry curry took the.

Speaker 1 (03:00:20):
Risk you, Know curry had to wear that he he
didn't win that FINALS mvp the first, time and If durant's,
there he might not get that FINALS.

Speaker 3 (03:00:27):
Mvp you, know which would be a slight blow to
his you, know his.

Speaker 1 (03:00:31):
Resume but that that was an important. Thing AND i
remember when they did win it that next year And
durant's the m V p And curry looked perfectly.

Speaker 3 (03:00:42):
Happy he wasn't.

Speaker 1 (03:00:43):
Looking you remember that famous shot At Russell westbrook looking
at THE mvp.

Speaker 3 (03:00:47):
Trophy and like there was none of.

Speaker 1 (03:00:50):
That, later the five players they went outside for walking
around the, grounds and the group that would come to
be known as The Hampton's. Five you, know they replaced
the death lineup when they played. Together they call him
the Hamp is, five and they just they just bonded
and it was solidified Everything durant was.

Speaker 3 (03:01:04):
Thinking he still went through with all his other.

Speaker 1 (03:01:07):
Meetings but you, KNOW i think some of the people
said that they could tell he didn't give The warriors
any official. Word no, one in fact knew Until durant
has his first person essay going up on The Player's.
Tribute it goes up at eleven thirty eight Am Eastern
time on The Player's tribute and announcing that he is
choosing The warriors with the picture taken at that in

(03:01:27):
the backyard of that at That hampton's.

Speaker 3 (03:01:29):
House AND.

Speaker 1 (03:01:31):
I was kind of happy. That, AGAIN i was fine
with him. GOING i had no problem with the, decision
AND i was really fine with him announcing it at you,
know about nine Am pacific, time so on the fourth Of.
July SO i had my story written by, Noon, yeah
and THEN i could go on my way and enjoy
the barbecues and the fireworks.

Speaker 3 (03:01:48):
On the fourth Of.

Speaker 1 (03:01:49):
July SO i was not mad at him at. All,
chuck how did you feel leaving the fact that he you, know,
well we were.

Speaker 2 (03:01:55):
Butt, Look i'm not going to get it.

Speaker 3 (03:01:56):
Right just overall it's a basketball.

Speaker 2 (03:01:58):
FAN i just remember and disappointed off the wrong, word
but it felt, like oh, great, okay so The warriors
are just, gonna you, know are just going to dominate
the rest of the. Decade you.

Speaker 3 (03:02:13):
Know it JUST.

Speaker 2 (03:02:15):
I felt like it immediately minimized the next. Season does
that make, Sense, like, well, yeah we gotta fast forward.
Now it's, LIKE i, mean no chance The warriors uh
not make, it you know WHAT i? Mean it was, like,
Okay AND i remember something my son said when The

(03:02:37):
calves and The warriors met that third straight, time, like,
HEY i wish other teams could break. Through, right there's.
This you, know we're weird as sports, fans, right we
look what we're. Doing we lionize. Dynasties we love to
talk about. Dynasties but when you're in the, moment you

(03:02:57):
hate the. Dynasty you get. It if it's not your, team,
right you're, like, GOD i want to knock them. Off
like you, know when when when it Was alabama And
clemson every year in college, football college football is. Boring
it's Always alabama And, clemson you, know or something like,
That and it got that way a little bit in the. Eighties,
well there's Just lakers And. Celtics it didn't matter about anybody.
Else and yet we love to look back and we

(03:03:20):
love those, teams and look what we're doing now with these.
Teams we love. It But i'll admit at the, MOMENT
i thought it just diminished the rest of the. League
that's the WAY i. Think i'll say.

Speaker 1 (03:03:33):
That during the you know, AGAIN i grew up my
First World. SERIES i remember Watching it Was dodgers and
The yankees like three times in four or five, years right.

Speaker 3 (03:03:43):
And eighty, one so you.

Speaker 1 (03:03:46):
Know and then in THE nba it Was lakers and
Six ers three times in four, years and Then lakers
And celtics three times in four.

Speaker 3 (03:03:53):
Years so that's WHAT i was used. To so it
didn't bother me that it's always the same teams. Fighting.
Now that's that that was normal to.

Speaker 1 (03:04:01):
ME i didn't just, say oh it's, over Because i'd
seen enough would be sure dynasties and would be super.
Teams it's, hard it's hard to win.

Speaker 2 (03:04:11):
It The heat didn't win it his first year with
The great with The grete three they and and they
probably don't win the next two if they lose. That
if they don't lose that first, one, right they kind
of needed, that this.

Speaker 1 (03:04:22):
Sort of gained, experience it's, right you, know and then
we forget that The Houston rockets are up three to
two on The durant.

Speaker 2 (03:04:29):
Team you, know the year, two the Greatest James harden
sliding door that there is for his, legacy.

Speaker 1 (03:04:35):
Right if only then missed twenty seven straight three pointers
In game. Seven so So i've just seen enough sports
to know that nothing is. Inevitable but, yeah that first,
year and the problem was that the that the finals weren't, competitive,
Right so we had that competitive conference finals in which
they almost, lost.

Speaker 2 (03:04:54):
Right but then they just Through, cleveland, right but game one.

Speaker 1 (03:05:00):
Went to, overtime right, THAT i mean that was, Dramatic
and then it just started to become. Inevitable So durant
wins both finals. MVPs and it's funny that people are asking, him,
oh he's going to regret. IT i just remember he
gets out of his car in the parking lot after
they win the first championship in the parking lot back
At oracle Are.

Speaker 3 (03:05:15):
Ina and he just like lets out of.

Speaker 1 (03:05:16):
It whooa like this primal. Screen, right he seemed. Happy
BUT i think eventually ith you know the fact that
he was never. Blowup there was an awkward moment at
the parade the first year when When Bob myers basically
separates you, know the real warriors who who'd been there

(03:05:36):
the whole time From. Durant is completely, unnecessary.

Speaker 2 (03:05:40):
But it only ISOLATED i mean, that AND i think
we all know Now Kevin durant never misses a.

Speaker 1 (03:05:46):
Slight and so the last year With, durant, yeah you,
know there's kind of this tension the whole time Because
kevin's not committing, that Like i'm going to be, Here
like they really want to have him when they go
into the new, building, right but like he's not sending
it any signals that he's going to be, there and
it sort of you, know plays, out and then he gets, hurt,
right and then he comes back in the finals disastrously

(03:06:10):
tears his. Achilles. Right he also disastrously had to blow
up With Draymond green in full view of everyone on
the court where they're going at it during the time,
Out draymond calls him a word that starts with a
bee for everyone to. See and so it's just not
fun anymore for any of, them, right and so and So,

(03:06:30):
durant you, know when.

Speaker 3 (03:06:32):
He, leaves but this is what's. Important he.

Speaker 1 (03:06:36):
There wasn't a lot of, bitterness and there wasn't a
lot of sniping back and, forth and you, KNOW i
kind of want, to you, know move on to the
next segment. Here when when when he, leaves you, know
The wars immediately say, hey Thanks, kevin thanks for the two.

Speaker 3 (03:06:51):
Banners and you know, what no one's gonna wear number
thirty five.

Speaker 1 (03:06:54):
Again and that's in stark contrast To Oklahoma. City When
durant leaves in a year, later they gave number thirty
five to someone NAMED. Pj, doscher who plays a grand
total of two games for The. Thunder, Although, chuck you
let me know what you would. Choose If I'm, Durant
i'd actually rather have what happened to him where some you,
know no name was wearing my. Jersey at least a
jersey is still. Alive i'd rather have that than when

(03:07:16):
it happened To Carmelo anthony In, Denver because remember Mellow
ware number fifteen when he was drafted by The nuggets
score the third most points in franchise history while he
was there in seven and a half. Seasons but then
he forces that trade to The, knicks and that didn't
sit well with The, nuggets so they give the number
first To Anthony randolph and a name that'll mean something

(03:07:38):
To warriors.

Speaker 3 (03:07:39):
Fans that's who drafted him right and never quite worked
out there for.

Speaker 1 (03:07:42):
Him and then number fifteen goes to a second round
pick in twenty, Fourteen nikolie Okicch so now that number
is definitely getting, retired but it ain't gonna Have anthony above.
It and so, again would you rather have someone wear
your number who's not worthy of? It and would you
have someone else retire your number and is not your?

Speaker 2 (03:08:04):
NAME i GUESS i want to say both and. Please
AND i say that because The warriors actually have a
double a, number they could double. Retire Paul. Aarrizon he
played for The Philadelphia warriors from fifty to sixty. Two
he's the first great. Player he Was rookie of The
year in fifty to fifty, one top scorer in the.
League in his second, Year hall Of famer part of

(03:08:24):
THE nba fiftieth and seventy Fifth anniversary, teams he was
the number two leading all time scorer until a guy
Named steph showed. Up he was only about fifteen hundred
points Behind, wilt and he would have been first if
he had not spent two years in the military during
the having to fight in The Korean. War he retires
in sixty, two so he never actually plays in The

(03:08:45):
california side of The warriors, history and they actually. Didn't
The warriors used to have a hard time even honoring
Their philadelphia. Heritage now they. Do they didn't Retire wilt's
number thirteen until after he died in ninety, nine So
wilt was actually the only player to have his number
retired by three, teams The, warriors The, sixers and The

(03:09:06):
lakers for what it's, worth But Paul arizon shares a
number it.

Speaker 3 (03:09:11):
Was still, alive so they do this For.

Speaker 2 (03:09:13):
Will, yeah he doesn't die in the six but that
was during The Chris cohanno, ownership who never got anything
right with The. Warriors he was just didn't know how
To he never did things. Right So arizon's number eleven
has remained. Active it's been worn by eighteen players after,
him and it is going to stay at eighteen because
number eleven Was Klay thompson's number with The. Warriors SO

(03:09:36):
i know WHAT i would. WANT i would want. BOTH
i would WANT i think IT'S i think you honor
a number in the rafters with the player's name on,
it and you never retire a, number but you certain
numbers should only go to first round draft picks great,
players LIKE i think that that's WHERE i would go

(03:09:57):
with this. Retail you, know not everybody gets a shot
At i'll Give Mario crystabal because you, KNOW i have
to make everything about The university Of. Miami Mario crystabal
reserves number zero and. One you have to earn. It
if you want, that you have to earn. It And
i'd like to see more quote unquote retired numbers treated this.
Way you're so good In, Boston we're gonna let you

(03:10:20):
wear thirty, Three or you're so good In. Chicago you,
know you get if you win AN mvp and a,
title then you get throw any three or something. Like you,
know maybe that one never gets, repeated but you get my,
Drift LIKE i think there's something that you still keep
it as an honorific BUT i don't. KNOW i just you,

(03:10:42):
know the retired number. Thing you, know the longer these leagues,
survive you know you're gonna run out of, numbers AND
i don't want more double, zeros AND i don't want
to see us go to triple digits.

Speaker 3 (03:10:53):
Like ninety six or. Something, yeah, yeah it gets.

Speaker 2 (03:10:55):
Funky so let's whip through the rest of these retired.

Speaker 1 (03:10:58):
Numbers, yeah so just one stands out to, me and
that's number fourteen For Tom.

Speaker 2 (03:11:04):
Mesher you Love meshry, story don't.

Speaker 3 (03:11:06):
You, WELL i mean it's very.

Speaker 1 (03:11:09):
Unique, Right he's not in the top twenty currently in
franchise points or as, sis he's not in the top
ten and. Rebounds Steph curry has more rebounds than he
did you know who losts, Shorter but The messry story
is not one of his toult the numbers right there
are his stats in Account for a man whose lineage
includes The russian Author Leo, TOLSEN i can't.

Speaker 2 (03:11:28):
Believe that his grandmother's maide name is a Toll. Stoy
you gotta love that he's.

Speaker 1 (03:11:33):
A man who survived in in tournament camp In japan
During World War. Two he's AN nba player who's also
a published. Poet so what's funny is that you Know
jolie really loved, him when when he, didn't they didn't
just retire his. Number they made the number fourteen a
part of The warrior's logo during one of the logo.
Changes like The warrior's logo they had a fourteen in

(03:11:55):
it From messry, like now that's WHAT i. Want i'd
want that more than anything. Else have my number part
of the. Logo, well there's not a lot of posts Like.

Speaker 2 (03:12:04):
Messery, No and there's something about you know it is
there's something about his story, though that they've honored it That,
actually that feels Very San francisco to, me, right of,
Course San francisco's got to honor a poll.

Speaker 3 (03:12:17):
Exactly it feels, like, okay only this.

Speaker 2 (03:12:19):
Franchise only you're not gonna play Yeah Oklahoma, city no.
Offense they're not honoring a Poet, dallas isn't you? Know, no, no, no.
No that feels like a Very San francisco thing to.
Do so in some ways you're playing the Type Golden
state AND i like.

Speaker 1 (03:12:32):
It so one last thing on On, curry because we
need to look at the Post durant version Of, curry, Right,
so So curry was willing to Let durant have the
THE MVPs and take on the risk of having THE.

Speaker 3 (03:12:47):
MPa by the, way For. Durant it, actually to me
was a risk that he went. To everyone, said, oh
he took the easy.

Speaker 1 (03:12:53):
Choice, now the easy choice would have been to stay
In Oklahoma, city and everyone, says, oh that's so, great
you're so, loyal that's. FAIR a hard choice was you're
gonna take all the you, know people are going to criticize,
you and guess, what you have to win a. Championship
otherwise you're going to be mocked mercilessly for the rest
of your.

Speaker 3 (03:13:09):
Career so that was the hard. Thing that was.

Speaker 1 (03:13:12):
Pressure and he fulfilled what he said out there to,
do and he was particularly in the twenty SEVENTEEN Nba.
Finals he was the best player on the court on
a court that Had Steph Curry Lebron james on. It
SO i give him, that but there was this apparent unfulfilled.
Thing and here's another great thing for The. Warriors so
again my theme for The lake Of Barry warriors is

(03:13:32):
that they find you, know they find resolve and they
find absolution in the. Downtime so a big setback to
Have Kevin durant leave the team and now they're no
longer have the benefit of like a spike in the
salary cap that can go out right and have them
sign a FOREIGNER, mvp, Right so they're kind of. Stuck
they got to go with what they, have, right and

(03:13:55):
they make the best of. It they trade.

Speaker 3 (03:13:58):
For Andrew, wiggins who is number one overall, pick who
kind of at that, POINT i.

Speaker 2 (03:14:02):
Mean they're the only team to Make wiggans work for a.
Season god. Bless.

Speaker 1 (03:14:05):
YEAH i, mean he's so important in that title run
in twenty. Two But curry brings them, home right and
they're down to. One has an all time great game
In game. Four and my thing going into that series
was That curry didn't need a lot of people, like,
Oh curry's got to get A Final i'm, like he
doesn't need a FINALS mvp because he was already on
this list of players who had multiple MVPs and multiple.

(03:14:28):
Championships in the, LIST i might not get everybody, here
but it Includes Tim, Duncan Michael, Jordan Magic, Johnson, Lebron
James Kareem Abdul. Jabbar there's one or two, more, right
but that's that's the company he's keeping with, that. Right
shack's not on that. List kobe's not on that list
because they don't have multiple. MVPs so my thing is
if he never does anything in this, league he's on that.

(03:14:50):
List and yet something in him felt the need to
like That game four was driven by a need to do.

Speaker 2 (03:14:58):
MORE i tell you something about his makeup is if
we didn't, know, Right and.

Speaker 1 (03:15:04):
You know what told me even more was the fact
that he broke down in tears when they. Won, right
this is his fourth. Championship we never some cry like
this after any of the previous, three but this was
the final stake that says, like, Oh Steph curry can't
do it in the.

Speaker 3 (03:15:22):
Finals always never been FINALS.

Speaker 1 (03:15:23):
Mvp he went out there and won the FINALS, mvp
and that emotional breakdown showed. That, well you know, what
that's the difference between him and somebody like. ME i
would have been, Like i'm, Good i'm on this list
with these. Guys curry, said, NO i need. More there's
a level of greed that you have with the greatest,
players read in a good, sense you, know to, go you, Know,

(03:15:46):
gordon get one.

Speaker 3 (03:15:47):
Way that's. Right, yeah he needed something, more and that's
me is the ultimate testament to his.

Speaker 2 (03:15:54):
Greatness All, right it's mount rushmore. TIME i think this
is among the Easier Aunt rushmore's we've had so, far because,
well first of, all there's one we just. WRAPPED i,
mean the first thing you're chiseling in Is Steph, curry
like it's it. Is he feels like the easiest not.

Speaker 3 (03:16:16):
Only, achievements you, know to this date at least has
played his entire career.

Speaker 2 (03:16:19):
There but, hey let's focus on Our. Warriors Mount. Rushmore
so you Got, kerr So i'm going to give. You
i'm gonna give you. Mine, Well i'll Go. Kerr you
have any disagreement On?

Speaker 3 (03:16:29):
Kerr, Yes SO i THINK i think the three where
we're aligned.

Speaker 2 (03:16:34):
Is we're Aligning, Curry wilt.

Speaker 3 (03:16:39):
And Rick.

Speaker 2 (03:16:40):
Berry, right Rick berry has a title for The, warriors
SO i think.

Speaker 3 (03:16:44):
He definitely does first Gold Golden state.

Speaker 2 (03:16:48):
Title the question, FOUR i, Say, steve the hardest part
of this debate was not those, three it's the. FOURTH i,
Went Steve, kerr and you have you you you win another.

Speaker 1 (03:17:00):
DIRECTOR i, Mean i'm not gonna Say kurr has got
no place. There you can make a. Case Rolvin atales.
Too again he played on The. Warriors jersey was retired
for The warriors and coaches combined With Wil chamblain to
score one hundred and seventeen points in a game. Once
and THEN i think the longest tenured coach in The warriors,

(03:17:23):
history you, know was there from the seventies obviously the championship,
coach and is there through their through the early. Eighties
like the first COACH i remember for that team Is Alvin. Apple,
yeah But i'm gonna go a little bit of a wildcard,
here and this is someone who is not just great
for The, warriors but in my, opinion was the greatest
to ever do what they, did and that is THEIR acepr.

Speaker 3 (03:17:45):
Guy Raymond.

Speaker 1 (03:17:45):
Ritter i'm putting them on my route much for what
Makes raymond so, Great i've been asked this by by by.
Students SOMETIMES i, say, oh, man so he just has
this ability to be, everywhere just kind of the classic pr.
Sense so you, know even as the media been seated
further and further away from the, court And raymond usually
sits down by the court and the radio and the
broadcast crews during the, games but like he'll make sure

(03:18:07):
to stop by and just kind of check in with
everybody in person up up in the media. Seating he
was among the last of the they used to when
you get to the road, team when you get to,
town get your. Hotel like they used to like. Distribute
they'd bring your packet over with the game notes and your.
Credential now that the notes are available online, people but

(03:18:28):
they were like the last to stop doing, that, right
that that little touch of delivering your stuff to your.

Speaker 3 (03:18:32):
Hotel.

Speaker 1 (03:18:34):
Uh he'll stay after the, game late into the night
and you, know until the last person or some of
the last people are done writing their.

Speaker 3 (03:18:40):
Stories and what Made raymond great he got THERE i
think in the late. Eighties so he gets there.

Speaker 1 (03:18:44):
During The coen era and when The warriors are, terrible
and he was always just so desperate, to you, know
get any type of coverage of The warriors locally or.
Nationally but what was great was that when The warriors
became this top, team he never lost that mentality and
so he was still like going out of his way
to help through a story or pitch a story to.

Speaker 2 (03:19:03):
You there's nothing like a good pr a good good
press person that knows how to that will help you
out on deadline those what you're actually looking. For it
as actually, Useful SO i get.

Speaker 1 (03:19:13):
It SO i actually think in part he's helped shape
the way that These warriors are thought of because he's
so good at. Working he goes so far out of
the way to make, sure like The Steph curry you
can talk To Steph, curry you, know The, durance whoever
the stars, are he makes them available to the, media
and that's going to reflect well on the coverage of their.
Team and it's like he never lost that mentality of,

(03:19:36):
Like i'm a guy that has to, like you, know
work hard to get this. Team so the fact that
the best team could also be really the most accessible
and available team as. WELL i think it in part
the people that write about and describe The warriors they
write in glowing terms in part Because Raymond ridder is
so good as his.

Speaker 3 (03:19:53):
Job so what does he mean to The? Warriors i'm
going to put him on them out? Rushmore all, Right
so this about, Him but he's on My mount Rudfor.
Ray there you have.

Speaker 2 (03:20:03):
It that Means ray's got to deliver for our next,
episode which is going to feature one of the all
time uh uh Great. Warriors we can't wait for, it
and we hope you you are there. Too this was
this was a labor of life once again.

Speaker 3 (03:20:19):
On this interesting, team, right.

Speaker 1 (03:20:22):
Fascinating interesting, team and we hope you enjoy learning as
much about them as we did in the course of
working on this.

Speaker 3 (03:20:28):
Episode we'll see in the next.

Speaker 2 (03:20:30):
Episode

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Dynastic - Chuck Todd & J.A. Adande tell the fascinating (and frustrating) history of the Warriors

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dynastic - Chuck Todd & J.A. Adande tell the fascinating (and frustrating) history of the Warriors