Hardcourt Hard Knocks and Heroes: A History of Warriors Basketball

A Feature Article by Ram Charan

As the NBA season heads toward the All-Star break, the Warriors look to emerge once again as the most powerful team in the NBA. However, as of right now, they have the fourth best record in the western conference and the fifth-best record in the league. Their recent ascent to basketball domination began in the 2014-15 season, but the Warriors had won it all well before Stephen Curry came along. Previous championships by older Warriors teams and memorable playoff runs still linger in the back of the minds of some Warriors fans.

This season at Oracle Arena, the home stadium for the Golden State Warriors, will be the 47th and last season for the team, as they are moving across the bay to the brand new Chase Center. This final season at Oracle provides the perfect opportunity for fans to gain a higher basketball IQ of the Bay Area’s only local basketball franchise–a franchise that has sunk to the bottom of the league and risen to the top time and time again.

First of all, the Warriors did not originate in the Bay Area. They were actually based out of Philadelphia when the league first started and were called the Philadelphia Warriors. The team was originally part of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), a basketball league that combined with the National Basketball League (NBL) to form what we know as the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the late 1940s. They were relatively successful during their time in the BAA, securing a championship win in the 1946-47 season. The championship they won is now considered to be the first championship won in the NBA, despite the fact that there were multiple basketball leagues that made up the NBA at the time.

When the BAA and the NBL merged, the Warriors did not find immediate success. While they found great players like Joe Fulks, a forward who eventually became a Hall of Famer, the Warriors did not have a significant impact on the NBA community until 1959, two years after they won an NBA championship under the leadership of Paul Arizin, a revolutionary jump shooter, and other players such as Tom Gola, a clever two-way player who dominated both ends of the court.

1959: Enter Wilt Chamberlain, a seven-foot-tall center, drafted by the Warriors to revitalize the team. At the time of Chamberlain’s joining the Warriors organization, the three-point line did not exist, the exploitation of which forms a large part of the team’s winning strategy today. Still, Chamberlain still found a way to score exactly 100 points in a single game. Chamberlain boasted many records, averaging 50 points and 27 rebounds per game in the 1961-62 season, the same season that the Warriors moved to San Francisco, at the time changing their name to the San Francisco Warriors. While he averaged just over 34 points per game in the inaugural season in the Bay, he averaged 44 points and 24 rebounds in the 1963-64 season.

Chamberlain’s height and skill close to the basket made him a national sensation. However, his theatrical performances on the court as a towering giant were not enough to get the Warriors a championship win, despite reaching the finals in 1964. Chamberlain would leave the Warriors, later joining the L.A Lakers to finally win a trophy. The Warriors of the 1960s helped to popularize both the sport and the league, much like what the present players are doing. The Warriors are a staple in NBA culture and have helped propagate basketball as a sport from its early days. By promoting the NBA, basketball has helped expose foreigners to a staple in American sports and entertainment.

After Wilt Chamberlain left the Warriors in 1965, the Warriors drafted future Hall of Famer and all-star Rick Barry, pairing him with 1963 draft pick Nate Thurmond. Barry is a player known for his diverse offensive playing style and unusual “granny” free throw form. Barry went on to leave the franchise in the late 1960s, but returned in the 1970-71 season. With more talent in the form of Jeff Mullins, the Warriors made it to the finals in 1967, losing once again. As the Warriors made the transition into the 70s, they moved to Oracle Arena, changing their team name to the Golden State Warriors.

The team unsuccessfully tried to reach the finals until the 1975 season. Ricky Barry led the Warriors past the heavily favored Washington Bullets in a devastating 4-0 sweep to win the team’s third championship title. The nature of the win and Barry’s important role in the accomplishment earned him a Finals MVP and cemented his status as an all-time great.

For the next 40 years, the Warriors did not win the finals again. While this is true, there was no shortage of entertainment at Oracle Arena. After Barry left the Warriors in 1978, the newest squad of Warrior all-stars appeared: Run TMC, a play on the name of the popular Hip Hop Duo Run DMC, was a trio that consisted of point guard Tim Hardaway, shooting guard Mitch Richmond, and small forward Chris Mullin. Each was drafted in the early 1990s, and alongside Latrell Sprewell, they wreaked havoc on the court. Hardaway popularized a new move now dubbed the crossover while Richmond, Mullin, and Sprewell all demonstrated unparalleled scoring ability. The group never gained traction, though, and usually got eliminated in the first or second round of the playoffs.

The Warriors began their descent to the bottom of the league into the early 2000s. Playoff runs were few and far between, and the Warriors main stars included Baron Davis and Monta Ellis, a shooting guard who actually used to shoot Stephen Curry’s now famous tunnel shot. The highlight of this era was when the Warriors ended up as the eighth seed in the Western Conference and eliminated the top-seeded Mavericks in the playoffs. Shortly thereafter Davis and Co. unceremoniously lost to the Utah Jazz in the second round.

In the span of 2010-2012, the team drafted Curry, Thompson and Green. Under the leadership of their coach Mark Jackson, the Warriors made the playoffs, but could not reach past the first and second rounds, losing to the Clippers in the 2013-14 season in a best of 7 series. This constant lack of progress led team managers to hire Steve Kerr as head coach, and the rest is history.

The Warriors now aim to win their fourth final in the last five years, completing a three-peat. Only a few great teams before the Warriors, including the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, have reached such a milestone. As favorites to win the NBA championship, the Warriors look to join that club. Although many fans claim that the Warriors have ruined the NBA, they were actually founding members of the association and have gone on to provide the NBA with some of the best basketball squads to ever grace the court.