The Golden State Warriors have been the NBA’s latest dynasty over the past decade, winning four championships and advancing to the Finals twice.
However, their era of dominance can often be defined by one tall, nearly seven-foot scorer: the team’s success with Kevin Durant and their success either side of his three-year tenure with Golden State.
Durant’s arrival to the Warriors in 2016 was controversial, with many fans believing the 2014 MVP took the easy route to forming the league’s latest superteam. Golden State had just won a record 73 regular season games, but fell in the NBA Finals after taking a 3-1 lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Unsurprisingly, the Warriors were nearly unstoppable in winning the next two championships, with Durant winning Finals MVP both years. They likely would have won three straight titles if not for serious leg injuries to Durant and Klay Thompson, leading to a 4-2 loss to the Toronto Raptors in 2019.
Speaking to Warriors veteran forward Draymond Green about a recent podcastNBA legend Isiah Thomas boldly claimed that Durant’s arrival cemented Golden State’s dynasty and saved the basketball legacy of fellow stars Green, Thompson and Stephen Curry.
“Kevin Durant came in that summer and really saved your basketball legacy, and you win two championships after that, and now the Golden State Warriors dynasty and Hall of Fame legacy, it’s cemented .”
– Isiah Thomas
Thomas’ comments on the Warriors dynasty are obviously subjective, largely because that word itself is up for debate. What exactly makes a sports dynasty? In which championship has this become this?
But in the case of individual players and their legacies, Thomas is demonstrably wrong. Maybe he’s right to some extent – maybe there was an idea that Durant had come to save the Warriors’ core after one of the biggest collapses in NBA history.
Yet any notion of that was erased two years ago when Golden State, three years behind Durant, won the Larry O’Brien Trophy again. Stephen Curry’s legacy was cemented with that elusive Finals MVP, rather than during the Durant era that Thomas stakes a claim for.
This championship changed the perspective of every major player in this dynasty, including Curry and Durant. It’s no longer about Durant saving Curry and the Warriors, but maybe Curry and the Warriors saving him. The 35-year-old hasn’t even been back to the conference finals since, despite star-studded teams in Brooklyn and now Phoenix.
Durant was one of the key pillars in building an NBA dynasty that will be remembered forever. He didn’t cement it. Nor did it cement the legacies of Curry, Green and Thompson, each of whom will tell you 2022 was their favorite championship. For what? Because he’s the one who most validated… he’s the one who forever refuted the idea that “Durant saved them.”
