NBA players whose heyday was 20+
years ago love to shit on the Golden State Warriors. Despite the fact that they
are the defending NBA champions, have the defending MVP and reigning MVP, and just
won 73 fucking games, these players can’t stop themselves from shitting on this
team. Scottie Pippen says his Bulls team would sweep the Warriors in the Finals
and Charles Barkley can’t shut his damn mouth about this team. Everyone else
vehemently disagrees with these players, because we’re semi-rational and
competent human beings, but that hasn’t stopped the mindset of many former
players who think Golden State is just a fluke and a flash-in-the-pan versus
the dominant Goliath we know they are. The reason many players feel this way is
because The Game and how Golden State plays it is radically different than it
was when these players were playing it. These players saw what it took to win
and that’s drastically and fundamentally different than how the Warriors win.
Truthfully, what the Warriors are doing is just different, but these retired
players are conflating “different” with “bad”.
What we are seeing in basketball
is also true of what we are seeing in baseball. I’m guilty of this as well. I
saw the 2015 Kansas City Royals and was just dumbfounded by how they were
winning. Even after the Royals won 95 games and first place in the American
League, I was convinced that a team like the Toronto Blue Jays, who had a
strong rotation and lots of power, was better suited to win the pennant. Cut to
a few weeks later and the Royals dominate the postseason to win it all and the
Blue Jays are just another asterisk in baseball history.
