The Power of Three

Warriors dynasty ended, the Knicks will be the “New Spurs”

Many sports journalists and self-proclaimed basketball-purists view the 2000s Spurs as the pinnacle of team basketball. Basketball nirvana. 50 win seasons for 20 years straight. More passes per shot than peak Petey-powered Princeton could have ever imagined. The sullen obelisk of a superstar serving as foil to Kobe and Iverson and all that the Player-Empowerment Era* (Read: Confident Defiant American Black Male Era) represented.

To me, and to the 1/3 of Americans who have ever lived in the New York MSA, they were dreamkillers. The grim reapers of reality, that New York teams (with soul) get close to championships. They don’t win them.

The Spurs dynasty demolished the title hopes of my Houston Sprewell Knicks and the eternally thrilling Kidd New Jersey team, moving at Break-Nets speed. As far as adolescent Christian knew, we couldn’t rule out Duncan-Robinson’s involvement felling the actual Twin Towers, given their demonstrated antipathy for the Tri-State area.

(…)

The Knicks are really the Bulls legacy. But we want them to the the Warriors so bad.

The Thunder are the much scarier trio, who closer resemble Run TMC or the Kidd-RJ-Kenyon Nets. But dammit if we don’t want to call them the Spurs.

Now, for the 1/3 of Americans who have lived in California, and for those fortunate enough to call the beautiful Bay Area home, as I did from 18 to 27, let us come together. It is time, to eulogize the Dubs. 😭

The Warriors, the front-running, most prolific joy-generators of the NBA for the past decade, are dying. And as we mourn the impending string of Splashless finals teams, a queasy feeling over one’s stomach. A definitive end to 90’s kids 20’s, after one optimistic, twilight hurrah of a swan song title in 2022.