How long NBA offseason brought underdog Warriors together originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – One after another, they strolled into the Chase Center interview room radiating a similar vibe. It was as if they’d been coached. Or read the 2024-25 version of the “How to be an Ideal Warrior” handbook.

Nobody resorted to the old bromide – “there is no ‘I’ in team” – but the words coming off their tongues were more “we” than “me.”

Put another way, the esprit de corps was off the charts for the Warriors on Media Day.

Some of this is the result of Golden State having an exceptionally long offseason, 166 days of absolute freedom, plenty of time to hibernate, hydrate, hit the weights and rejuvenate. Some of the credit also traces back to the way the Warriors went out last season, a humiliating 24-point NBA Play-in Tournament loss to the Kings in Sacramento.

I asked Draymond Green how much he missed the intensity and stakes of the playoffs, and his answer was predictable:

“I missed it a lot,” he said. “I tend to play my best basketball that time of year.”

There is an evident desire among the incumbent Warriors to rinse away that distasteful finish in Sacramento and there was no shortage of energy and eagerness to get back to basketball and the brotherhood that can come with it. They will have plenty of both this week on the Oahu Island of Hawaii.

“I think we are ready and itching to get back,” Gary Payton II said.

“Early exit last year,” Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “Guys got time to rest. Guys got time off.

“Now we’re hungry.”

Stephen Curry, fully aware that his NBA years are numbered, expressed a sense of urgency that might only be felt by someone who has won every significant individual honor. Now, at age 36, his only interested in being a part of something special.

As in a team capable of making a serious run at another NBA Finals triumph, which would put him in the NBA’s ultra-exclusive Five-Ring Club. He is utterly uninterested in resting on his laurels and cashing seven-figure paychecks.

“It’s going to be fun from day one Tuesday when we hit the court and start getting our reps in because every day — we say it all the time in training camp – it’s a way of thinking if you want to be great in this league,” Curry said. “But it is true for us more than ever. Every day does matter for us to be able to figure this thing out.”

The Warriors have gotten comfortable in the role of underdogs. Not since 2018 have they opened the season among the championship favorites. The squad that once ran the league has been projected to top 50 wins only once over the last five seasons.

The NBA has caught up to then and in many ways zoomed ahead. How else to explain Golden State finishing third in the Western Conference in 2022, sixth in 2023 and 10th in 2024?

Most projections have these Warriors fighting to avoid another Play-in Tournament detour to the postseason. And they’re OK with that.

“We won a championship my first year coming in, but even that team was a good team,” Moses Moody said. “But it wasn’t like before the season everybody was saying, ‘Oh, you already know it’s going to be a championship.’

“So that goes to say that we’re not that far off. Things happen, a lot of things happen throughout an NBA season. I feel like we’re not that far off from where we need to be.”

Golden State should profit from the fact that its roster is heavy with players having meaningful motivations and incentives. With Curry and Green, it’s age. With Jonathan Kuminga, it’s a burning desire to be worthy of a massive contract. With Kevon Looney and GP2, it’s an attractive contract next summer. Buddy Hield wants respect. And Andrew Wiggins, well, he wants to get back to the level he reached in the 2021-22.

That’s when the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft made his first and only NBA All-Star team. The 2025 game is scheduled for Chase Center. And, yes, Wiggins has visualized joining the league’s best players on his home court.

“That would be amazing,” he said. “I’m going to strive for that, work hard and do what I can to hopefully get there. Just got to stay consistent, stay on it.”

When I asked Wiggins what it would take to make this a reality, he took a figurative peek into the invisible handbook:

“We’ve got to win.”

If words are gospel, Wiggins’ mind is in the right place. The same can be said of his teammates. They’re talking the talk. The next six months will reveal whether they can walk the walk.

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