Golden State Warriors are resilient
Every team in the NBA, no, every person in the world deserves a bit of credit for making it through the last year and a half of life. I won’t pretend that the Golden State Warriors had it any more difficult than others, but as far as basketball goes, this was a tough year for the Dubs. Global pandemic and insurrection attempt aside, the Dubs had plenty of adversity to overcome in the realm of basketball.
It all started when Klay Thompson suffered a season-ending injury for the second straight year. This took the wind out of their sails before the team was even able to hit the floor for preseason. Nevertheless, they pushed forward.
The start of the season wasn’t anything pretty. The Warriors’ planned revenge tour quickly took on a different meaning as the opposing teams unleashed fury on the Dubs as payback for all the years Golden State terrorized the rest of the league. As Stephen Curry said at one point, the Warriors were feeling the wrath of their enemies after five years of dominance.
Steph Curry said Draymond Green reminded the team at halftime that the Warriors still have a target on their back:
— KNBR (@KNBR) March 1, 2021
"Even when we're playing well, we won three in a row, teams still want to beat us and beat us bad. They still have a lot of memories from the last five, six years." pic.twitter.com/tSVPuAFhrB
Even with the injuries, which caused them to out 16 different starting lineups throughout the year, and numerous blowout losses that had everyone questioning why the team wasn’t simply tanking for a higher NBA Draft pick — the Warriors prevailed and did so in such fashion that they earned a top-eight seed in the West.
A 39-33 season might not seem like much to be excited about. But, when you consider everything the Warriors had to overcome this season, it is pretty impressive. Especially when taking into account how much the team grew over the course of the year.