Just a phenomenal article with so many needed doses of reality checks, why no *true* fan should ever doubt (at minimum) the degree to which these guys care and crave more, and general reminders of why (in my opinion/to me) this team, even during its rough stretches, is the best team in all of sports to root for.
I recommend reading the whole article, it really is worth the time, but for tl;dr sake, here are some excerpts:
“And so, one afternoon in October, Housen set about clipping and laminating a large piece of newsprint, before carefully hanging it in the locker of one Klay Alexander Thompson. It was one of the quirkier asks Housen has fielded in his 30-plus years with the team. But then, Klay is one of the quirkier souls to have passed through this franchise.
…
The newsclip, torn from the San Francisco Chronicle, features 26 faces—some in color, some black-and-white, some smiling, some stoic—arranged in tiers. They now stare back at Thompson every night at Chase Center, silently reminding the four-time champion of everything he hasn’t done yet, of all that he still hopes to accomplish.
There’s Bill Russell at the top, and beneath him K.C. Jones and John Havlicek, who sit a tier above Robert Horry, who glances down at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan, who hover over a scrum of 13 others, including Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan. They are the only men in NBA history with more rings than Thompson—from Russell (11) down through Horry (seven) and the Magic/Kobe tier (five).
…
“The Five Rings and Above Club,” Thompson says on a recent off-day. “I didn’t know the list was that small. And the players who played in the modern era? It’s even shorter. So it’s like, Wow, that’s the only motivation I really need.”
——
“By all rights, they should be fretting, fuming, perhaps even freaking out. This isn’t how an NBA dynasty, built around three future Hall of Famers, should be performing. But there’s something about being part of a living dynasty that seems to inure everyone in its orbit to panic or despair.
…
‘I think you learn as you go in this league, both as a player and as a coach … (that) there’s going to be stretches where you’re hot and you’re getting all the breaks and things are clicking and it feels like you can’t lose,” Kerr says. “And then there’s stretches where you lose a bunch of games in a row, and it feels like the end of the world. And both of them are false.’
The Warriors’ vets implicitly understand this, because they’ve already been through the highest highs and the lowest lows this league has to offer.”
——
“A fifth seems further off now than the fourth did at this time last year. But these Warriors have a way of reinventing and reviving themselves, and finding new ways to surprise us all.
So they’ll try to regroup once more in the weeks to come, with the confidence Curry will be back soon, and with the comfort of playing their next eight games at home in San Francisco, where Thompson will be greeted by those 26 faces, daring him to keep up the chase.”
cock-a-dooodle-do
All this motivational BS just to jack up the dumbest of shots in the game.
aught-o-mat
Must be a little weird to see your coach listed. Then again, perhaps Steve inspires everyone on the team to step up.
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Just a phenomenal article with so many needed doses of reality checks, why no *true* fan should ever doubt (at minimum) the degree to which these guys care and crave more, and general reminders of why (in my opinion/to me) this team, even during its rough stretches, is the best team in all of sports to root for.
I recommend reading the whole article, it really is worth the time, but for tl;dr sake, here are some excerpts:
“And so, one afternoon in October, Housen set about clipping and laminating a large piece of newsprint, before carefully hanging it in the locker of one Klay Alexander Thompson. It was one of the quirkier asks Housen has fielded in his 30-plus years with the team. But then, Klay is one of the quirkier souls to have passed through this franchise.
…
The newsclip, torn from the San Francisco Chronicle, features 26 faces—some in color, some black-and-white, some smiling, some stoic—arranged in tiers. They now stare back at Thompson every night at Chase Center, silently reminding the four-time champion of everything he hasn’t done yet, of all that he still hopes to accomplish.
There’s Bill Russell at the top, and beneath him K.C. Jones and John Havlicek, who sit a tier above Robert Horry, who glances down at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan, who hover over a scrum of 13 others, including Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan. They are the only men in NBA history with more rings than Thompson—from Russell (11) down through Horry (seven) and the Magic/Kobe tier (five).
…
“The Five Rings and Above Club,” Thompson says on a recent off-day. “I didn’t know the list was that small. And the players who played in the modern era? It’s even shorter. So it’s like, Wow, that’s the only motivation I really need.”
——
“By all rights, they should be fretting, fuming, perhaps even freaking out. This isn’t how an NBA dynasty, built around three future Hall of Famers, should be performing. But there’s something about being part of a living dynasty that seems to inure everyone in its orbit to panic or despair.
…
‘I think you learn as you go in this league, both as a player and as a coach … (that) there’s going to be stretches where you’re hot and you’re getting all the breaks and things are clicking and it feels like you can’t lose,” Kerr says. “And then there’s stretches where you lose a bunch of games in a row, and it feels like the end of the world. And both of them are false.’
The Warriors’ vets implicitly understand this, because they’ve already been through the highest highs and the lowest lows this league has to offer.”
——
“A fifth seems further off now than the fourth did at this time last year. But these Warriors have a way of reinventing and reviving themselves, and finding new ways to surprise us all.
So they’ll try to regroup once more in the weeks to come, with the confidence Curry will be back soon, and with the comfort of playing their next eight games at home in San Francisco, where Thompson will be greeted by those 26 faces, daring him to keep up the chase.”
All this motivational BS just to jack up the dumbest of shots in the game.
Must be a little weird to see your coach listed. Then again, perhaps Steve inspires everyone on the team to step up.