How long an NBA offseason brought underdogs Warriors together originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – One by one, they walked into the Chase Center interview room radiating a similar vibe. It was as if they had been trained. Or read the 2024-25 version of the “How to be an Ideal Warrior” handbook.
No one used the old bromide – “there is no ‘me’ in the team” – but the words coming off their tongues were more “we” than “me”.
That said, morale was off the charts for the Warriors on Media Day.
Some of this is the result of Golden State having an exceptionally long offseason, 166 days of absolute freedom, plenty of time to winterize, hydrate, hit the weights and rejuvenate. Some of the credit also traces back to the way the Warriors went out last season, a a humiliating 24-point NBA Play-in Tournament loss to the Kings in Sacramento.
I asked Draymond Green how much he missed the intensity and interest of the playoffs, and his answer was predictable:
“I missed it a lot,” he said. “I tend to play my best basketball at that time of year.”
There is an obvious desire among the current Warriors to wash away that unsavory ending in Sacramento and there was no shortage of energy and enthusiasm to return to basketball and the brotherhood that can come with it. They’ll have plenty of both this week on Hawaii’s Oahu Island.
“I think we’re ready and itching to get back,” Gary Payton II said.
“Early exit last year,” Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “Guys had time to rest. Guys got time off.
“Now we’re hungry.”
Stephen Curry, fully aware that his NBA years are numbered, expressed a sense of urgency that could only be felt by someone who has won every significant individual honor. Now, at the age of 36, his only interest is to be part of something special.
As in a team capable of making a serious run at another NBA Finals triumph, which would put him in the ultra-exclusive Five-Ring Club of the NBA. He is completely uninterested in resting on his laurels and earning seven-figure salaries.
“It’s going to be fun from the first day on Tuesday when we hit the court and start getting our reps because every day — we say this all the time in training camp — it’s a way of thinking if you want to be great in this league,” Curry said. . “But it’s true for us more than ever. Every day it’s important for us to be able to figure this thing out.”
The Warriors have grown comfortable in the role of underdogs. Not since 2018 have they opened the season among the championship favorites. The squad that once ran the league was projected over 50 wins only once during the last five seasons.
The NBA has caught up by then and zoomed ahead in many ways. How else to explain Golden State finishing third in the Western Conference in 2022, sixth in 2023 and 10th in 2024?
Most projections have these Warriors fighting to avoid another Tournament run to the postseason. And they are fine with that.
“We won a championship my first year coming in, but even that team was a good team,” Moses Moody said. “But it wasn’t like before the season everyone said, ‘Oh, you already know it’s going to be a championship.’
“So that means we’re not that far off. Things happen, a lot of things happen during an NBA season. I feel like we’re not that far from where we need to be.”
Golden State should benefit from the fact that its roster is heavy with players having significant incentives and motivations. With Curry and Green, it’s age. With Jonathan Kuminga, there is a burning desire to be worthy of a massive contract. With Kevon Looney and GP2, it’s an attractive contract next summer. Buddy Hield wants respect. And Andrew Wiggins, well, he wants to get back to the level he reached in 2021-22.
That’s when the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft made his first and only NBA All-Star team. The A 2025 game is scheduled for Chase Center. And, yes, Wiggins envisioned joining the league’s best players on his home court.
“That would be awesome,” he said. “I will strive for it, work hard and do what I can to hopefully achieve it. Just gotta stay consistent, stay on it.”
When I asked Wiggins what it would take to make this a reality, he took a figurative look into the invisible handbook:
“We have to win.”
If words are gospel, Wiggins’ mind is in the right place. The same can be said about his teammates. They talk. The next six months will reveal if they can walk the walk.
