June 17, 2015, 12:30 pm
“
Being a loud boss in Sacramento can’t possibly be as fun as having been a silent partner in Oakland.
”
— Ray Ratto on Vivek Ranadive
MORE FROM RATTO
Not everyone in the world shares your exhilaration about the Golden State Warriors being the newest best team in the world. If you’ve watched the last three Giants World Series parades, you know this – joy is local, but schadenfreude is universal.
Hey, what do you want from me? It’s people. Blame them.
Thus, solely to remind you that not everyone has bought into the “THEWARRIORSRILEYCURRYTHISISTHEGREATESTTHINGEVEROHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD” narrative that will be your joy and burden to carry over the next few days, here is a list of people and organizations who are not happy that the Warriors are the new Face Of Everything. We’ll try to adhere to some form of chronological order, but we guarantee nothing.
1) DAVID KAHN: The spectacular failures of Kahn’s time as general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves have now been capped by his decision to draft two point guards just ahead of the Warriors in 2009 – Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn. He lasted four more years in his job, amazingly, but he’ll be the guy who let Stephen Curry get away.
2) JIMMY DOLAN AND PHIL JACKSON: Dolan, who owns the New York Knicks, and Jackson, who runs them, thought they had Steve Kerr signed, sealed and delivered to be their next coach, only they were slightly off on the signing, sealing and delivering. In addition, The New York Times extracted a fantasy scenario earlier this year in which the Knicks could have drafted Curry a spot after the Warriors, and got quotes from the Curry family that they preferred New York. But in a break with longheld tradition, Don Nelson insisted that Larry Riley draft Curry, and the rest is . . . you know.
3) THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS: For trading Andrew Bogut to Golden State and taking Monta Ellis, The Pre-Curry, in exchange. The Bucks made a postseason, got run out quickly, and remain middle-of-the-pack stragglers in the Eastern Conference.
4) THE LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS: The Warriors’ biggest rivals are now working at a dramatic disadvantage viz. their bête noires. In other words, the Warriors caught them and passed them, kicking up gravel on the hard shoulder while throwing the empties out the sun roof.
5) THE DENVER NUGGETS: Andre Iguodala was the first of many exodii from a going concern in Colorado, and now the Nuggets are one of the nine teams/cities that haven’t had a champion in either the NBA or ABA. Iguodala could have helped. Then again, so could have George Karl and Masai Ujiri, as far as that goes.
6) LEBRON JAMES: It must gall to suddenly discover that a new FOTL (Face of the League, you mopes) is now an equal, and that the drive to make people shut up about Michael Jordan comparisons has taken yet another detour – because when you say, “LeBron James is 2-4 in Finals,” what you’re really saying is, “I don’t understand basketball at all, and I never ever will.”
7) CHRIS COHAN: He must be somewhere pretending that this could all have been his, when in fact it never ever would have been because one thing we know about bad owners – they kill all good intentions of their underlings every single time.
8) LARRY ELLISON: He could be somewhere else, pretending that this could all have been his, too, but he screwed up and hurt Cohan’s feelings and managed to be one of the few people in NBA history to offer more money for something and be told no by people whose portfolios are worth approximately 1/50th his.
9) VIVEK RANADIVE: Being a loud boss in Sacramento can’t possibly be as fun as having been a silent partner in Oakland, especially now that he’s overturned his front office twice. The Kings are that rare combination of a team with a new arena in search of something interesting to put in it.
10) And speaking of which, SAN FRANCISCO, which got cut out of the championship parade even though it is the team’s ultimate desired destination. The decision to let Oakland have the day its citizens earned was a particularly smart one, for which the Warriors get full marks – but don’t think it didn’t come with some level of agony at the top levels, where real estate concerns are never far from the top of the in-box.
11) BASKETBALL FANS: This doesn’t make sense at first glance given how the Warriors captivated neutrals as well as diehards, but now that the Warriors are the be-all-and-end-all, the warming rumors about a lockout in 2017 can only be an irritant to fans who like to count their dynasties before they actually are. And we know a lockout is likely because commissioner Adam Silver said he thinks the two sides already have a fair deal in place and doesn’t anticipate a lockout. That means, “grab your wallets, kids.
12) And finally, THE EXPECTATIONS PIXIES: The Warriors had the easiest hand ride in recent, and maybe total, NBA history – fast start, no slumps, no injuries, no controversies, no bitching, no adversity of any kind. That will never ever ever happen again, trust me, and anyone within the organization or its diaspora of newfound fans think next year will be like this one is, frankly, stark-staring nuts.
The rest of you, of course, should enjoy to the fullness of your capacity to do so. This is a big deal – to finally win after decades of losing, to be the center of basketball fashion after decades of being in a place that didn’t actually exist. You’ve earned all the smug you can wear.
Just don’t be surprised when someone feels like arguing with you. Not everyone loves the team you think is the most beautiful ever, and the longer this run lasts, the more enemies it will collect. It is, after all, the way of our people to excite quickly, and get bored even faster.
http://www.csnbayarea.com/warriors/long-list-people-not-happy-about-warriors-winning-nba-title?p=ya5nbcs&ocid=yahoo
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