http://blogs.mercurynews.com/warriors/2017/06/07/open-letter-bored-nba-fans-cant-stop-talking-warriors/
Dear NBA writers,
I’ve seen a few of you claim that you’re bored lately, and I have to laugh. It’s silly. Nothing in your personality screams “easily bored!” I don’t think many people actually think of you as bored. Ratings for the NBA Finals are at historic highs. You can’t stop talking and writing about the “trilogy” of match-ups between the Warriors and the Cavs. The boredom is a contrived storyline in an NBA spring when most of the storylines are contrived.
You’re stumped. That’s all. Our Golden State Warriors are 14–0 in the NBA playoffs. They’re 29-1 over the last 30 games, with the only defeat a meaningless game against Utah that Steve Kerr had to work hard to lose (McAdoo threes!). The Warriors are going to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers for the championship unless LeBron James does something incredible, like turn Tristan Thompson into Anthony Davis. And then we will celebrate with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Steve Kerr, and … well, here’s the truth:
I’m more impressed by each of them than I was a year ago. Really. A year ago, the Warriors assembled the best NBA team I’ve seen in my lifetime. And this year, they built a team that’s even better — smarter, tougher, deeper, wiser. Last year, Steve Kerr and his team overcame the adversity of their coach missing the start of the regular season. This year, Kerr and his team overcame the adversity of suddenly missing him for the first three rounds of the playoffs. You take the Warriors’ success during his absence as a sign of his irrelevance. I take it as a sign of the ethic he’s managed to instill. Curry is a back-to-back MVP with the humility to take a diminished role in his prime to improve his team. Green and Thompson are players who could be the best players on average teams, but like Curry have shown the character and wisdom to trade the fleeting glory that comes from being the best piece of something not that good, to be essential pieces of something historically great. In a culture that fetishizes “teamwork,” they’ve been hypocritically criticized for putting the good of the team above their own individual glory. You would have been happier seeing them play more selfishly and inefficiently, to see more triple-doubles, to see them lose more.
And Kevin Durant … who, with his Oklahoma City Thunder, nearly beat the 73-win Warriors in the playoffs last season. His team — up 3-1 against the Warriors — might have won had they played a system that emphasized the quality of shots rather than the people taking them, or if they spent more time on their defense and less time being defensive about their individual acclaim. The match-up could have set up an epic duel this spring, except Durant had the nerve to seek out teammates he believed would make him better, a system where he thought he would be appreciated, and a city where he hoped he could start a new rewarding chapter in his life. Durant and the Warriors broke no rules to make this overwhelming collection of talent possible. They were the beneficiaries of a front office that resurrected a two-decade joke of a franchise by making one savvy move after another. They collected smart, high-character individuals who created a culture in which others wanted to play. Like most success stories, they had a fair amount of luck. And here we are: on the verge of a record-setting ring, and some people writing articles for major sports publications are claiming they’re bored.
You may not care what I think. That’s fine. Nobody can make you care. But I’m going to explain it anyway.
The problem with your Warriors experience is that revenge is more fun when you’re not the target. You joked endlessly for a year about blowing 3-1 leads, you took one petty personal shot after another at a player for having the audacity to make a decision he believed would improve his life, you lived one hot take at a time, basking in clicks and likes and comments. It was not surprising or interesting. Everyone rubbernecks. You enjoy mocking failure more than admiring success. You brushed aside undeniable injuries and lobbied-for NBA intervention. You blasted one “super team” while portraying another — created by signing the NBA’s best player as a free agent and a statistically improbable series of number one picks — as the archetype of franchise-building purity. It reeks of condescending double-standards — comparing grown men at the top of their profession to a Little League team assembled by parents. They’re going to win, and they’re going to do it by playing at a level we’ve rarely — if ever — seen. You can denigrate it if it makes you feel better (and don’t forget to cavalierly dismiss their coach’s debilitating and career-threatening pain. Please.). But your pettiness will put you on the wrong side of history.
You whine about the overwhelming talent on the Warriors, but the three finalists for MVP wear other jerseys. You spend the last year talking about how overrated they are, how they choke at the biggest moments. But now that they’re living up to expectations, thriving under the brightest lights, you dismiss it as expected. You bow down to the self-proclaimed “greatest basketball player in the world,” and in the next breath portray him as the victim of bullying. You breeze past the heroic comeback of Shaun Livingston, the veteran intelligence of Andre Iguodala and David West, the rugged toughness of Zaza Pachulia and rare poise of Patrick McCaw and Ian Clark as “special effects.” You forget all the supposed “super teams” that came before them that ended up not being that super because often these stories don’t have movie script endings.
If I see one more writer construct false narratives about fan responses the Warriors’ success, I’m going to get physically ill. Warriors fans claim their team has overcome so many hurdles this year to succeed? Hardly. We were laughing about being “light years” ahead last July. Warriors fans care so much about others liking their team? Come on. We’ve embraced the heel turn, but don’t lie to yourself about why you hate us. This is like a guy who bailed on Microsoft stock in 1990 or kept shorting Warren Buffet picks. Your bitterness isn’t admirable; it’s foolish.
This Warriors team isn’t unprecedented in my time watching the NBA. There have been dominant NBA teams in the past, and — like this team — the principals all had to build toward dominance. Against San Antonio in 2013, Curry, Thompson and Green had to learn what separates exciting teams from dominant ones. After losing to Los Angeles in 2014, Warriors’ management had to risk disrupting something comfortable to create something great. And after losing to Cleveland in 2016, the Warriors had to come to terms with suffering the NBA’s worst playoff collapse, then get back to work to avenge it. There have been times when the Celtics, the Bulls, the Lakers, the Spurs and the Heat have towered over their competition. People took shots at their greatness back then too. You just don’t remember them, because they ended up — like the current complaints inevitably will — in the dustbin of history.
So, get it all out while you can. Deliver embarrassing pop-psychology lectures to Kevin Durant about how “there is no way this championship will be as gratifying as a championship with the Thunder would have been.” Preach from your all-knowing perch about how “no intelligent basketball fan believes you found a missing quality inside yourself this year.” From behind your keyboard, with nothing on the line but the Google Adsense revenue from your white hot take, explain to a 28-year old man how he “didn’t have to become a better leader, or become mentally tougher, or learn how to will your team to victory, or finally beat the last guy standing in your way. You just got better teammates. The End.” Tell us all how “we, as a sports-loving society, have become absurdly narrow-minded in our assessment of great players,” while you become absurdly narrow-minded in your assessment of a great team.
Ultimately, we will enjoy our next two wins. We will enjoy our championship. I will gush that we “finally did it,” because this one-season steamrolling is a natural extension of all the suffering, adversity and growth that came before it — for Warriors fans, and for the Warriors’ players. I will compare Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron James, because they will have made different choices, carried themselves differently and exemplified different values. But you’re right that this series will not tell me anything I didn’t already know — because those differences ultimately have nothing to do with whether the Warriors win or lose.
I do know that winning won’t be easy forever. Players age and get injured. Opponents rise. In a year or two, the Warriors will trail in a playoff series and be in real danger of losing. And maybe that’s when when you’ll be interested again. That’s your loss, but not my problem. I’m not missing — or taking for granted — a second of this.
Take care,
Adam
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I've got seventh row seats to Game 2 of Dubs-Spurs tonight 
