Golden State Warriors: Five Opening Night matchups

San Antonio Spurs

Ideally, these two teams could play a best-of-21 series together. They are the Western Conference and the league’s two best organizations. From top to bottom, they are the standard.

The Warriors have perfected what the Spurs became legendary doing. They drafted extremely well, but Golden State also became great at recruiting free agents. The Spurs were the model franchise until the Warriors found a way to do it even better while having fun, something seemingly impossible in that part of Texas.

Whenever these two teams get together, it’s fun. The Warriors hosted the Spurs in last year’s season opener. Jonathan Simmons and the rest of his team played spoiler in Kevin Durant’s regular season debut for the Dubs.

Then, much to the chagrin of fans and the NBA, both teams rested their best players. The Spurs took that game as well. Ian Clark scored 36 points in that contest.

Then, in San Antonio, without Kevin Durant, the Warriors did the unthinkable: win. And it wasn’t even just that they won, it was how. Golden State overcame a 20+ point deficit in the second to win by double digits in a shocking turn of events only they can pull off.

The two teams faced each other in the Western Conference Finals after finishing with the top two records. Unfortunately, Kawhi Leonard went down in Game 1 of the series after suffering ankle injuries. The Warriors would go on to sweep them.

Until the NBA proves that it has caught up to the Spurs, then they are Golden State’s biggest threat. Getting them again on Opening Night would be a unique challenge due to Gregg Popovich’s unparalleled genius and what should be an angry Leonard.