Stephen Curry has had a lot to digest this offseason, both good and bad. The Warriors couldn’t cap off their historic season with a championship, but they did revamp their roster with the Kevin Durant addition.
Their stunning loss in the NBA Finals to the Cavaliers after being up 3-1 in the series definitely caught everybody in the basketball world by surprise.
They joined squads like the 2001 Seattle Mariners and 2007 New England Patriots as teams with the best regular seasons in their league’s history that didn’t end up winning a championship.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins went undefeated and eventually won the Super Bowl, but there were only 14 games in the regular season back then.
The Patriots are the only team in NFL history to go 16-0 in a regular season. These three teams will forever be linked in the annals of strange sports occurrences.
The Warriors and Patriots both made the championship, but lost. Despite winning 116 regular season games, which tied an MLB record that the 1906 Chicago Cubs had held, the Mariners lost in the ALCS that season.
Incidentally, the Mariners haven’t made the playoffs since that historic season, but they still stand as perhaps the definitive example of peaking in a regular season without sealing the deal with the ultimate prize.
Curry knows that there will be a lot of pressure on the Warriors after this eventful offseason, and his goal is simply to win a championship.
In an interview posted by the Warriors’ twitter account, Curry explained how his team is going to go about approaching this next season.
.@StephenCurry30 took some time out of his ongoing Tour of Asia to speak with the media about the upcoming season… pic.twitter.com/MRrPhocgjd
— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) September 5, 2016
“74 isn’t really a goal,” said Curry, referring to speculation that this team could surpass their record-breaking 73 wins from last season. “All our energy will be spent on getting ourselves ready for a championship run.”
This implies that key players might end up getting more rest this season down the stretch once a playoff berth is firmly entrenched.
This doesn’t mean simply sitting out quarters, but perhaps sitting out entire games during the regular season.
However, I don’t necessarily agree with the notion that the reason this team faltered in the Finals was because the 73 win season had exhausted them.
Many of those wins were blowouts that the starters got to sit in the 4th quarter of, so it’s not like the core components were being overused.
No Warriors player ranked in the top 20 in minutes per game this past season. Draymond Green ranked 23rd in the league with 34.7 minutes per game, which lead the Warriors.
Curry ranked 26th in the league with 34.2 minutes per game, and Klay Thompson ranked 36th with 33.3 minutes per game.
Curry’s knee injury in the playoffs was a freak accident caused by slipping on a wet spot on the court.
His shoulder issues are harder to pinpoint, and he was certainly breaking down by the end of those Finals, but there’s really no objective data to indicate that Steve Kerr mismanaged their minutes.
Of course, that’s from a purely physical standpoint. The mental grind of trying to win 73 games is harder to measure, and maybe the team was emotionally drained by the end of the season.
However, it’s also important to note how close this team came to winning the championship.
Game 7 was tied with less than 2 minutes left. When an entire season comes down to a couple minutes between two squads, luck plays an instrumental role in who comes out on top.
As far as I’m concerned, those two teams were about as evenly matched as two teams could be. The Warriors just happened to miss shots at the most inopportune time possible.
The dramatic response would be to overreact and blame the pursuit of 73 wins for the Warriors losing, but not only is that rash, but also slightly disrespectful to guys like LeBron James and Kyrie Irving who put up amazing performances to elevate their team.
It’s not as if I’m disagreeing with the message that Curry is conveying. A championship should be the top priority any season.
I’m just hoping that it doesn’t lead to massive regret about going after the wins record last season, because I truly believe that it wasn’t the reason the Warriors lost in the Finals.
Dray got a 1 game suspension. Bogut was injured at the end. Curry had been playing hurt. Barnes was lost in space. Even so.. it was close.
Coulda-shoulda….. but WHO thinks GSW ain’t BETTER now? Nobody thinks GSW is not the Alpha Predator now.