Why Livingston believes the Warriors’ NBA dominance won’t be matched originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
They were the right team at the right time, with the right mindset and fortuitous financial timing. That’s why it will be decades, if ever, before another NBA team reaches the heights of the 2014-19 Warriors.
Five seasons, five trips to the NBA Finals.
Three championships – and a “five-peat” would be conceivable if not for the league’s intervention and a sadistic week from the health gods.
The last five of Shaun Livingston’s 15 NBA seasons were with the Warriors. He owns four championship rings, three as a player and one in 2022, when he returned as an executive with the franchise. After five years of retirement, he leaned on memories from the NBC Sports Bay Area podcast Dubs Talk.
“How did we do this? Throw in a little luck, spread a little luck with injuries,” he said. “Obviously, we got bitten in the end.”
This is a reference to Golden State losing Kevin Durant to a torn Achilles tendon in Game 5 of the 2019 Finals against the Raptors in Toronto and then losing Klay Thompson to a torn ACL in Game 6 at Oracle Arena in Oakland. The Warriors won Game 5 and had an 85-80 lead in Game 6 when Thompson limped off late in the third quarter. Toronto came back for the series-deciding victory.
Nothing has ever been the same with the Warriors. Except the memories.
“We had the right people,” Livingston said. “The people really mattered. Obviously great players, but also (our) dressing room. We had a very solid foundation, which is super underrated in professional sports with the salaries and all the status that professional athletes have and the attention they receive.”
“And so I think it was just our time. Ultimately, our time has truly come.”
Livingston was 28 when his arrival in the summer of 2014 coincided with that of debutant manager Steve Kerr. Stephen Curry was 26 years old. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green each had 24. The incumbent veterans were David Lee (31), Andre Iguodala (30) and Andrew Bogut (29).
Kerr and his staff added some flaws to the solid defense built under predecessor Mark Jackson, while also unleashing the team’s vast offensive potential. The results included a franchise-best 16-game winning streak, Curry and Thompson making the All-Star team, and a 67–15 record that was the best in franchise history.
The Warriors sang in unison on charter flights. There was music pumping during practice. There were bowling days. Even trips across the lobby to throw baseballs at the Coliseum.
These Warriors were, in their own way, a fresh and revolutionary breeze into the NBA. An environment unlike anything Livingston had experienced in his eight previous NBA franchises.
“My 10th year in the league, journeyman, obviously scratching and clawing,” he said. “And it’s a business. It is serious. You’re trying to figure it out, wins and losses.
But the difference in coming from my journey to the Warriors was precisely the lightness you felt in training. And it all starts with Steph. The way he operates. There is seriousness from a competition point of view. But from a competitive level? Him, Klay and Draymond, I’ll put them up there with anyone I played with, even the most competitive guys. They know how to turn it on.
“But from the point of view of finding that balance, I don’t know if I’ve ever played with someone like Steph. Just the general perspective of life, playing a children’s game, being able to enjoy what you’re doing.”
The Warriors were even better in Year 2 under Kerr, winning their first 24 games and posting a 73-9 record that stunned the league and put them in the record books. They took a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals and the NBA hit Green with a one-game suspension. Golden State lost the next three games and the series.
After that, the Warriors spent 16 sleepless nights before exploiting the ideal financial situation that allowed them, on July 4, to receive perhaps the greatest consolation prize in sports history: Kevin Durant.
What followed in 2016-17 was another 67-15 season, punctuated by a 16-1 postseason and a parade through the streets of Oakland. The Warriors were NBA bullies and a full-fledged global phenomenon. They repeated in 2018 but broke down in the 2019 finals.
“It takes a lot,” Livingston said of five consecutive extended seasons. “It takes a lot of unity. The chemistry, the star power, the talent, of course. But also a little luck, with the guys healthy, at their peak too. And being able to see guys at their peak.
“That’s why that ride was so special. You had the chance to see some of the best players playing, in their prime, forming teams, playing together. And I think that’s why we were able to get there five times in a row.”
Five basketball seasons from September to June may have taken its toll. Golden State during this period averaged 103 games. His 515 games in total are equivalent to six regular seasons and 23 more games.
This puts into perspective the “emotionally and physically, the guys are exhausted” comment from Denver coach Michael Malone when the 2023 champion Nuggets were kicked out of the playoffs in May after one 102-game season.
No team has repeated since Golden State in 2018. No team has gone to back-to-back Finals since the Warriors in 2019. It’s a different league, with increasingly restrictive luxury tax implications and fewer teams able — or willing — to maintain relatively intact beyond a season or two.
“They’re making it much more difficult,” Livingston said of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. “I think that’s the goal, honestly, from the league’s perspective. It’s just to create that parity, create more competition, create suspense.”
Can the 2024 champion Boston Celtics make the Finals their home for the next four seasons? They kept their key players. It’s a great start to another race, but four more seem inconceivable.
