Team of Destiny: Warriors Will Be Immortalized for Truly Iconic Season
No one could have truly predicted how the Golden State Warriors' 2014-15 season would unfold. Their brilliance was such that by campaign's end, the body of work behind them—including their title—defied even the most optimistic forecasts.
These Warriors are not just NBA champions, or just a meticulously crafted group that ended Golden State's 40-year championship drought, or even simply the best team in franchise history.
They are a team of destiny, one that won't only be remembered for years but forever, standing the test of time and its tendency to yield bigger and better stories and titles.
These Warriors, after the season they just had, are officially basketball immortals.
This is not the hyperbolic outgrowth of the Warriors' still-fresh championship. The sample of collective greatness they provided is much bigger than one six-game series against an injury-decimated Cleveland Cavaliers squad. It is bigger than their entire postseason push, the 16-5 jaunt that paraded through a brutally built Western Conference bracket.
The Warriors finished the 2014-15 crusade with 83 victories. Chop off any two fingers, and the number of teams to top that total could still be counted on one hand, per ESPN.com's Baxter Holmes:
"Most total wins (regular season & playoffs) in NBA history: 1. 1995-96 Bulls: 87-13 2. 1996-97 Bulls: 84-17 3. 2014-15 Warriors: 83-20
— Baxter Holmes (@BaxterHolmes) June 17, 2015"
Basketball deification is indeed about far more than wins and even championships these days. The ever-expanding emphasis on advanced analytics has heightened the flow of available information, which, in turn, has increased the demand for that information.
Spots in the record books are not earned haphazardly. They are doled out only after providing absolute perspective.
And these Warriors, beyond just their 83 wins, have that covered. They ranked in the top two of both offensive and defensive efficiency and outscored opponents by 11.4 points per 100 possessions during the regular season—a two-way performance that ranks among the best ever, as NBA.com's John Schuhmann explains:
"With a big improvement on offense and a smaller uptick on defense, the Warriors became just the third team in the last 38 years, joining the '95-96 Bulls and '09-10 Magic, to rank in the top two in both offensive and defensive efficiency. And they came pretty close (0.1 points per 100 possessions on offense) to leading the league in both.
Great offense and great defense leads to a big point differential. In the regular season, the Warriors outscored their opponents by 11.4 points per 100 possessions, the fourth-best mark of the last 38 years, trailing only the '95-96 Bulls (plus-13.3), '96-97 Bulls (plus-12.0) and '07-08 Celtics (plus-11.5).
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Looking at the Warriors' adjusted offensive (ORtng+) and defensive ratings (DRtng+) is an even better way to contextualize their dominance. It offers a glimpse into how their offense and defense compare to the league's average in 2014-15—and how that difference stacks up throughout history.
You can then take those two marks, average them together and get TeamRtng+, a cumulative score that functions in the same way, allowing us to compare the results of a team on both ends of the floor throughout history. (Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal goes into further detail on this process here.)
Adjusted offensive ratings are determined by dividing a team's offensive rating by the league's average offensive rating and then multiplying that number by 100. The Warriors pumped in 111.6 points per 100 possessions against a league average of 105.6, giving them an ORtng+ of 105.68.
Adjusted defensive ratings are calculated in similar fashion. Take the league average, divide it by a team's defensive rating and voila, you're done.
The Association's average defense allowed 105.6 points per 100 possessions in 2014-15. Golden State's defense relinquished an NBA-best 101.4, giving the Warriors a DRtng+ of 104.14.
Average those two scores together, and the Warriors have a TeamRtng+ of 104.91. That checks in as the eighth-best single-season TeamRtng+, per Fromal's rankings:
If we repeat this process for the playoffs, the Warriors end up with a postseason TeamRtng+ of 104.01. And if we average that with their regular-season TeamRtng+ (104.91), they get a cumulative score of 104.46.
Using Fromal's rankings for championship contingents, the Warriors' total TeamRtng+ overtakes the 1997 Bulls as the sixth-highest among all title-winning franchises since 1974:
Basketball-Reference.com also uses a Simple Rating System (SRS) to generate tidy, rankable scores for every team in league history. It weighs the strength of schedules against net ratings and allows for easy cross-season comparisons.
Golden State finished the regular season with an SRS of 10.01, the seventh-best score in NBA history and highest since the 69-win Chicago Bulls of 1996-97.
Other than teams with Michael Jordan on the roster—the Bulls of 1991-92, 1995-96 and 1996-97—the Warriors are the only outfit to crack 10 on the SRS scale since the early 1970s. So, in essence, their lone peers of the last 45 years are a few Jordan-led Bulls teams.
Irrespective of how we're looking at the Warriors' 2014-15 campaign, they consistently pop up among the six and seven best teams in any chosen category. They are that good. And the way in which they marched toward a title makes them look even better.
Stephen Curry, the once injury-prone point man-turned-league MVP, just wrapped up one of the best individual seasons ever.
Only two other players have averaged at least 23.5 points, 7.5 assists and 2.0 steals while appearing in at least 70 games: Jordan and Allen Iverson. Curry now also has the highest true shooting percentage (63.8) of any guard to attempt at least 1,000 shots and 300 free throws in a single season.
Andre Iguodala went from sixth man to Finals starter to Finals MVP.
Draymond Green posted one of the most complete playoff stat lines the league has ever seen. Just two other players have averaged 10 rebounds, five assists, 1.5 steals and one block through at least 15 postseason contests: Larry Bird and LeBron James. And even when you remove the games restriction, only eight total names, including Green, have done the same.
Steve Kerr, a rookie head honcho, not only steered Golden State toward a title but did so while championing an unconventional and innovative style unique to the Warriors. They didn't run small; they ran super small, frequently trotting out 6'7" Green at center.
The Warriors, these title-toting pioneers, were new, hip, nearly flawless and, as Kerr readily admits, per the San Francisco Examiner's Karl Buscheck, just the right amount of weird: "We always rode that line between reckless, careless and explosive."
Statistically speaking, the Warriors must go down as one of the best teams to grace the hardwood. But it isn't just those numbers or the degree to which they won that seals their legacy.
It's how they won. Their 40-year drought and unorthodox style are part of their mystique, and it will invariably help them climb further up the ladder of discussion, enhancing their all-time standing in ways all-encompassing metrics have not.
These Warriors are not just a top-10 team of all time. They are not merely in the top-five conversation. They are not only candidates to repeat as champions and, inevitably, forge the next great dynasty.
These Warriors are destiny's team—a collective so unbelievably good, in so many unbelievably abnormal ways, that its legacy will transcend the bounds of reason. This Golden State squad will only lose luster once a similarly atypical powerhouse comes along.
Which, truthfully, won't happen any time soon.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
