Golden State Warriors

Golden State Warriors, American professional basketball team based in San Francisco that plays in the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Warriors have won six NBA championships and one Basketball Association of America (BAA) title.

The Warriors were founded in 1946 and were originally based in Philadelphia. One of the original members of the BAA, the team won the league’s first championship behind the play of future Hall of Fame forward Joe Fulks, the BAA’s inaugural scoring leader. The Warriors lost in the BAA finals the next season, and in 1949 the team became a part of the NBA when the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (NBL). The Warriors finished higher than fourth place in their division just once in their first six seasons in the new league. In 1955–56, however, the Warriors, led by forward Paul Arizin and centre Neil Johnston, posted the best record in the league and captured their first NBA title.

In 1959 Philadelphia added local product Wilt Chamberlain, who would go on to become one of the greatest players in NBA history. While with the Warriors, he famously scored an NBA-record 100 points in a 1962 contest, in what would prove to be the team’s final year in Philadelphia. A group of San Francisco Bay area investors purchased the franchise after the 1961–62 season and moved the team, which became known as the San Francisco Warriors.

The Warriors reached the NBA finals in 1964 with a team dominated by Chamberlain and in 1967 with a substantially rebuilt squad that featured forward Rick Barry, centre Nate Thurmond, and guard-forward Jeff Mullins, only to lose on each occasion. Barry, who had led the league in scoring in 1966–67, became one the first stars to leave the NBA for the upstart American Basketball Association, when he signed with the Oakland Oaks the next year.

Former Warriors player Al Attles took over as the team’s head coach during the 1969–70 season, and he proceeded to lead the franchise for all or part of 14 seasons. In 1971 the franchise—which had been experiencing years of disappointing financial returns—relocated across the East Bay to Oakland and changed its name to the Golden State Warriors. In 1974–75 the Warriors, led again by Barry (who had returned to the team in 1972), upset the favoured Washington Bullets in the NBA finals, and Attles became the first African American full-time head coach to win an NBA title (Bill Russell had previously won a championship as a player-coach). After returning to the postseason in each of the following two years, the Warriors’ level of play fell off precipitously, and they finished last in their division in five of the nine seasons between 1977–78 and 1985–86.

In the late 1980s the Warriors became known for head coach Don Nelson’s characteristic up-tempo style, which relied on smaller players and an emphasis on scoring over defense. This era is best personified by the 1989–90 and 1990–91 squads that were nicknamed “Run T.M.C.” (a reference to the rap group Run D.M.C.) for the first names of the high-scoring trio of point guard Tim Hardaway, shooting guard Mitch Richmond, and small forward Chris Mullin. While Nelson’s teams were entertaining, they failed to advance past the second round in the playoffs over this period, and Nelson left the Warriors during the 1994–95 season. Golden State then entered into a period that saw them post last- and second-to-last-place finishes in every season but one from 1994–95 to 2005–06. Nelson returned to the Warriors in 2006–07, and the team made its first trip to the playoffs in 13 years that season. The Warriors then made NBA history by becoming the first eighth-seeded (lowest-seeded) team to defeat a top-seeded team in a seven-game postseason series by eliminating the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs. Golden State followed that remarkable campaign by missing the playoffs in three straight seasons, and Nelson was forced to resign in 2010.

Led by young star guard Stephen Curry, the Warriors returned to the postseason in 2012–13. The team brought in a new head coach, Steve Kerr, before the 2014–15 season, and the Warriors quickly turned into a juggernaut, racking up a franchise-record 67 wins that season—a tie for the fourth most victories in league history at the time—and advancing to the NBA finals for the first time in 40 years. There Golden State fought off a surprisingly strong challenge from LeBron James and the heavy underdog Cleveland Cavaliers to capture the NBA title in a six-game series. The following season, 2015–16, saw the Warriors make NBA history by winning an astounding 73 games to just 9 losses during the regular season, breaking the previous record of 72 wins that had been set by the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls. The Warriors faced a relative struggle in the Western Conference playoffs, losing at least one game in each series—which included Golden State overcoming a 3–1 series deficit to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the conference finals—en route to making a return to the NBA finals. There the Warriors were on the other end of a 3–1 series comeback, as the Cleveland Cavaliers stormed their way to three straight victories to win the teams’ finals rematch.

In the following off-season, the Warriors added superstar free agent forward Kevin Durant to their record-setting roster. While Golden State fell six wins short of its previous season total in 2016–17, the team again made history in the postseason by setting an NBA record for most consecutive wins to open the playoffs (12) while sweeping three straight series en route to a third straight Western Conference championship. The Warriors again matched up against the Cavaliers in the NBA finals—which was the first time that two teams met in three consecutive championship series in league history—and continued their dominance by losing just once to Cleveland en route to another NBA title, establishing that Warriors team as one of the best of all time.

In 2017–18, injuries and the team’s lack of urgency to expend maximum effort during the regular season resulted in a 58-win season. However, the Warriors once again stepped up in the postseason, winning the team’s fourth straight conference title to set up another NBA finals matchup against Cleveland, which ended in a dominating four-game sweep by Golden State.

The Warriors won 57 games in 2018–19, the fewest of the Kerr era to that point, but nevertheless posted the best record in the Western Conference. Golden State then lost four total games during the conference playoffs to clinch a berth in the finals and become the first team in NBA history to win five consecutive conference titles. (The 10 straight NBA finals appearances that the Boston Celtics made from 1956–57 to 1965–66 took place before the league had conferences.) However, the finals were a disaster for the Warriors in more ways than one. Not only was the team upset by the Toronto Raptors in six games to deny Golden State another title, but both Kevin Durant (torn Achilles tendon) and All-Star wing Klay Thompson (torn anterior cruciate ligament) suffered injuries that typically take about a year to recover from, putting the future of the Warriors dynasty in doubt.

In 2019 the Warriors returned to San Francisco after 48 years in Oakland, moving into a state-of-the-art arena on the city’s waterfront. The fresh start applied to the team itself, as Durant left for the Brooklyn Nets in the off-season and Golden State entered the 2019–20 season without two of its top players from the year before. Curry was then limited to appearing in just five games owing to a broken hand, and the depleted Warriors roster struggled to the worst record (15–50) in the league during the COVID-19-shortened season. Thompson tore his Achilles tendon before the 2020–21 season, but the team had Curry back at full strength and posted a winning record that year. The Warriors finally got Thompson back for the 2021–22 campaign, and Golden State tied for the third-best regular-season record in the NBA (53–29). The team’s vast postseason experience paid off in the playoffs as the Warriors methodically overwhelmed their four relatively callow opponents, losing just six games throughout the postseason to capture a fourth NBA title in eight seasons.