The Tragic Fall of the Golden State Warriors' NBA Dynasty

The Tragic Fall of the Golden State Warriors’ NBA Dynasty

There is a snippet of “The Illiad, or The Poem of Force,” Simone Weil’s 1940 essay about the blind poet Homer’s Trojan War epic, that has always stuck with me: “The progress of the war in the Iliad is simply a continual game of seesaw. The victor of the moment feels himself invincible, even though, only a few hours before, he may have experienced defeat; he forgets to treat victory as a transitory thing.”

The Golden State Warriors seemed invincible once. Now, far from it. Nobody saw this coming five years ago, when they looked like the most dominant NBA team possible, winning their third title in four years. But what every new basketball dynasty teaches us, over and over again, is that pride comes before the fall. Everyone goes out sad, eventually.

Klay Thompson was one of the NBA players who most defined this generation, stylistically. LeBron James may have been the best player, Steph Curry the one who ushered in modernity, but when you were thinking about the guys on your team who weren’t good enough, your mind drifted to Klay. Why can’t they be as big as Klay? As good at defending? Why can’t they just shoot like Klay, move off the ball like Klay, not demand the ball all the damn time, not feel the need to prove themselves by going on silly dribbling adventures? He was so good at playing a role that he became a guaranteed Hall of Famer.

But he tore his Achilles a few years back, managed a decent season, and has just not been the same guy. Sometimes he shows glimpses of his former self and lights it up, but time and injury have shaved off the extra precision that made him a force on the court. Now, Klay is just OK.

Athletes try to project calm as this happens to them. They’re focused on the process, taking it one day at a time, all that jazz. Klay, a serene presence for most of his career, has instead opted to rage against the dying of the light. After getting benched during the end of a close game against the Suns, he didn’t hold back with reporters: “Of course it frustrates me. You think I’m gonna just chill? I’m freaking competitive, man. At the end of the day, I’m one of the most competitive people to put this uniform on. I can say that with confidence, too. But whatever. I guess I didn’t bring it tonight. I deserved it.”

He is shifting between anger with himself and the creeping fear of what happens next, lamenting the slow end of his life as an elite competitor.

Then there is Draymond Green. If Klay is a perfect platonic ideal, Draymond is a pile of imperfections that cohere into a complete player. Too short, too hot-headed, not athletic enough, not a good shooter. But he has massive arms, a first-class basketball intellect, and a doggedness that made him an unnerving terror who devoured opponents’ offensive systems whole, night after night.

He also punched and kicked guys in the balls on occasion:

He’s got trouble controlling his testicle-smashing impulses, apparently. Or stomping people’s chests, as in the case of poor Domantas Sabonis:

Just a hot-headed guy with quick hands and very little shame. The qualities that make us great are so often our downfall, sooner or later:

Anyway, as the Warriors have fallen off, Draymond has exhibited the characteristics of a sore loser. First, he throttled the Timberwolves’ Rudy Gobert during a fracas, earning a four-game suspension from the league. Then, this week, he smacked Suns center Jusuf Nurkic in the dome. Lots of digital ink has been spilled seeking answers about Draymond, but he’s always been like this, I think, and it’s just spilling out as the end runs up on him.

The Warriors used to act like this phase was above them, and that the spoils of victory would be theirs forever, even despite the departure of sharpshooter Kevin Durant. When Steph and Klay were injured a few years back, the team secured a few high draft picks. Joe Lacob, the VC billionaire who owns the team, said that this rebuild would be short and efficient, and would ultimately be good for the team in the long term, because they would now be on “two tracks” – the one they were on before the injuries (the Steph/Klay/Draymond core), and the new timeline, where developing stars like Jordan Poole and No. 2 overall draft pick James Wiseman, as well as high picks Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, would develop behind that vanguard into the unstoppable New Warriors, destined to christen their new $1.4 billion Chase Center in San Francisco with a bunch of banners.

Unfortunately, the first track – and Draymond in particular – wasn’t too thrilled about being regarded as old news while they were still on the team, and the players they acquired were either fake-good (Poole) or actively bad (Wiseman). So, even after the team got one for the road in 2022, that dream… fell apart real quick. First, Draymond punched Poole in the face on camera during practice. Then came a slow start where they simply could not win on the road. They rounded into shape and were “pretty good” by season’s close, and made the second round of the Playoffs by disposing of a very young Sacramento Kings squad, only to fall to LeBron and the Lakers. Then they let their GM, Bob Myers, enter the open market upon contract expiration, hired one of the most hated players in franchise history to replace him, shipped off Poole (for an aging Chris Paul) and Wiseman (for role player Gary Payton II and some second-round picks), and spent all summer getting older, as we all did.

Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors during Game Three of the 2018 NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena on June 6, 2018, in Cleveland, Ohio.

We are left to observe the wreckage – a great team with the league’s highest payroll ($211.8 million) going out sad. It feels unfamiliar and strange, even though it’s happened so many times before. The late Kobe Bryant Lakers teams were a pathetic excuse for Kobe to prove he was still willing to go out there and fire like a lunatic. Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets made a series of desperate moves that didn’t work out. Walt “Clyde” Frazier played for the Cavaliers as the Knicks sank into a swamp. The Bad Boy Pistons were sore losers after getting swept by the Bulls, then got worse for a few years before bottoming out. Greg Popovich’s Spurs almost avoided such a fate, right up until the moment Kawhi Leonard demanded a trade.

“But what about the Bulls?” you ask. It’s true: Jordan’s Bulls did go out in a blaze of glory back in ‘98. But that team was scattered to the wind not by on-court malaise, like the Warriors, but because owner Jerry Reinsdorf is a cheapskate and GM Jerry Krause is a world-class maladroit. An ignoble ending in its own way.

Not to mention, much as the Achaeans were slowly picked off for the insults they slung at the Gods during the sacking of Troy, the Bulls simply delayed their fates. Jordan, antsy in retirement and living without the Juice for the first time in his life, returned to the Washington Wizards and missed the playoffs twice before Mariah Carey sung him out of the league for good. Without Phil Jackson to massage his psyche, Dennis Rodman flailed around for a while and retired. Then he went to… North Korea. Scottie Pippen fell off hard, was involved in the worst NBA game of all time, and then his ex-wife got engaged to Michael Jordan’s son, something that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

The Warriors were the team of their era: a shining, optimized, Bay Area squad, born from a pile of tech money, light years ahead of their competition, the future of basketball now and forever. But the future has passed, the technocrats have congealed into something creepier and scarier, and everyone on the squad is getting old. It’s over now. Mourn or don’t, but take this sign to heart and know: you’re next.

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