What fan base wouldn’t trade their last fifteen years for what the warriors had 

They have spent most of the decade not actually going all in to build around him..

But that’s ok, right? 

They’ll almost certainly never have someone like him again. 

He continues to effectively print money at their new arena. 

They will be fine with another year or two of this before disappearing into the abyss of a “rebuild”. 

Except they’ve done a poor job putting talent around him since 2019. Andrew Wiggins was a (successful) reclamation project. OPJ was a flash in the plan.

Wiseman and Kuminga didn’t hit the was GS needed.

Jimmy Butler felt like a Hail Mary - probably too late for that move to matter in a meaningful way now given their ages.

This is so dumb. They didn’t “build around Steph” after 2019 or 2022

They drafted wiseman and kuminga and refused to trade picks for win now players

The warriors mediocrity now is because a bad meddling owner tried to build for the future while using Steph and dray to single-handedly carry the present 

They should’ve traded all the picks years ago. They all became nothing 

And they made the playoffs led by Baron Davis, previously of the Hornets!

they still woulda been contenders. i mean they were a game away from goin b2b. not as dominant but theyd still be favorites out the west for a few years depending on if kd went anywhere else

They would’ve had a max contract to offer to another star or get a couple of good roles players with

See 2022

You know who else hasn’t missed playoffs in 17 years of basketball…James Harden

He made the playoffs 19 times in 19 years

19 right? Spurs were never never in the playoffs during his reign.

Fucking wild

In 19 years not 17

19 I’m pretty sure. Although he did miss the 2000 playoffs with an injury

The greatest PF to ever play, if he wasn’t “Mr. Fundamental” and had a bigger personality then more people would recognize him as a top all-time player

His biggest advantage was that he was drafted to a team that had Tim Duncan.

He was also drafted to a good team that kept drafting good players while he was there

These are the Spurs’ draft picks from 1998-2016

When you say something like “they kept drafting good players” you should add “that no-one else believed in”.

Even if we add the 2011 acquisitions of Kawhi Leonard & Davis Bertans, the Spurs had to trade George Hill for guys picked at 15 & 42, respectively!

We Believe erasure

The Spurs were doing that before they had Duncan though. From 94-96 they won 55, 62, and 59 games with David Robinson. Then David Robinson got hurt in 97, which allowed the Spurs to draft Duncan. They then resumed winning 50+ games a year for the next 19 seasons, even when Duncan stopped being the teams best player. The 2016 Spurs that won 67 games their best player was Kawhi, and Aldridge was their best big, not Duncan. 

Then when Duncan retired, the 2017 Spurs without him won 61 games.Their 50+ win streak ended in 2018 because Kawhi only played 9 games (similar to it ending when Robinson got hurt in 97), and even then led by Aldridge they still won 47 games. Then in 2019, after the Kawhi drama led to his departure, the Spurs won 48 games with DeRozan and Aldridge.

Duncan’s career is the perfect blend of him being amazing and also his organization being so good that they were successful before he was drafted, successful when he was young, successful when he was in his prime, successful when he was past his prime, and successful when he retired. 

Even the 2012 season was also shortened to 66 games due to a lockout, and the Spurs still managed to go 50-16 that season.

The same Kobe who has an identical TS% to TD as a big and whooped his ass in the playoffs all the time throughout their careers? Just say you’re too young and didn’t watch

I agree but even there it’s kinda crazy how they have the same number of championships given LeBron has played for more seasons and missed the playoffs less total times. Obviously this doesn’t really mean much it’s just weird to think about

My b

Can’t believe he’s 43 and still playing.

It’s sad to say but the dubs definitely win this game if he plays even average. Can’t blame him too much though. He was visibly limping bad out there. Dude is not healthy and getting past the Suns just to face Lu Dort was not gonna do him any favors. Surprised he even mustered up 17 points on 1 leg. This coulda been one of his patented single digit scoring stinkers. Man tried his heart out, I’ll give him that. Probably for the best they missed the playoffs. Old man Steph has no business playing the Thunder on one knee in the first round.

draymond is far less of an issue than the fumbling of the Wiseman pick

Steph is like Michael Scott. He’d rather go broke betting on his own people than to get rich all by himself.

Draymond’s fantastic defense has won us a lot of games. Like the game against the Clippers.

Bro did you watch the playin game? Draymond for sure still has it, and he is not the reason for these failure years

I personally have never missed a 3-point shot in the NBA.

I think LeBron James has the most turnovers and missed the most shots in NBa history that means he’s a garbage player.

right, which is why these stats are almost never actually interesting lol. like, derrick rose didn’t miss the playoffs 7 times because he spent his last eight years as a backup team hopping. other guys have team hopped and forced their way out of bad situations. nothing meaningful or interesting here really at all.

Steph averages 31 points in play-in games even after including last night. Losing those games wasn’t on him.

And how has Harden played in most of those playoffs?

Hardens good but he gets traded to contenders as soon as shit starts hitting the fan (see his last 4 teams), not a good comparison

Harden hops from team to team when stuff starts sucking, completely unlike Steph. Tim was drafted to the Spurs, which was making the playoffs before and after he got there. Still super impressive for both players but I think the contexts were real different for them then Steph.

Tim Duncan was great. But Harden? Now I know you’re not serious.

Those are more a “wow Timmy and harden” stats too then guys like Steph and Jordan sucks stat

He would’ve made the playoffs as the 8 seed in 2021 if the play-in didn’t exist. That was a hell of a carry job of a very poor team.

I don’t know. 2021 Steph is the best form of Steph and one of the goats imo. He did his all.

You’re right but 2021 specifically isn’t the best example. The warriors played at a 50 win pace in games wiseman missed despite being pretty mid around Steph. Wiseman was just that bad that he drug them down to the 38 win pace almost singlehandedly

I don’t agree. To avoid the play-in that season, they’d need 60% win rate, equivalent to 49 wins in a full season. That’s better than what Jokic did in the 2022 season when he won the MVP with a better supporting cast than Steph had. They lost in the play-in in games Steph went off. No player in today’s NBA can win with what he had as supporting cast.

perfect clapback