The Golden State Warriors have officially tossed decorum to the side.
So much for the stiff upper lip. So much for the stoic, stone-faced demeanor of veteran professionalism.
No, amongst a laundry list of issues the Warriors are juggling in recent weeks, one grievance has stood out above the rest:
The schedule has been too hard.
I’ll give you a moment to roll your eyes and blurt “ughhh.”
Yes, it comes off as embarrassing. Great champions complaining about having to play too many games? That sounds like the old guys admitting that the modern game has passed them by.
Steve Kerr literally dropped a “back in the day” in his most recent complaint.
But here’s the thing:
They’re not wrong.
Wednesday’s road-trip-capping loss to the Miami Heat (Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, and Al Horford — combined age, 147 — all sat) marked the team’s 17th game in 29 days, spanning 12 different cities.
If that seems like a lot of basketball in a small amount of time, it’s because it is. It’s absurd.
In fact, the Dubs just completed an 11-game, 18-day stretch.
As of Thursday morning, the Warriors have played the most games in the NBA this season. That’s four more than their Western Conference rivals, the Houston Rockets. It’s three more than the Spurs, Nuggets, and Clippers.
The Warriors have already slogged through five back-to-backs this season. No other team has played four. The Rockets have yet to play one. The Lakers, the league’s precious children, just came off a stretch where they played only two games in nine days.
I missed the league memo instituting bye weeks. When’s the Warriors?
So yes, the Warriors have gotten the short end of the stick from the league’s ScheduleTron4000 supercomputer.
“We literally have not had a single practice on this road trip,” Kerr said Tuesday. “Not one… It’s just game, game, game. So not only is there no recovery time, there’s no practice time.”
This is all happening while the NBA has apparently decided to collectively play Doug Moe basketball. The Dubs are being put through their paces at a time when the pace of play is off the charts.
“I’m very concerned,” Kerr said. “The pace difference [from prior years] is dramatic.”
So while the Warriors might feel aggressively mediocre at this point in the season, perhaps a more optimistic viewpoint is warranted.
One could argue they’ve handled this unquestionably adverse and borderline preposterous situation quite well.
The Dubs have nine wins in those 17 games. They sit eighth in the Western Conference. Crucially, they haven’t picked up any month-long injuries in the process.
Yes, they are old. Yes, they are slow. Yes, they are short and generally undisciplined with the basketball. But they have survived and are right in the thick of things.
The Clippers — who are tall but otherwise carry those three other traits — can’t say the same thing.
And here is the reality: The tough times won’t last.
The Warriors will always travel a lot of miles over the course of a season—that is just basic geography. But the back-to-backs? Those will ease up.
The Warriors have 10 remaining this season, which is unsurprisingly tied for the lowest number in the league. There are only three more trips to the Eastern Time Zone.
And, yes, every team plays 82 regular-season games. (I don’t think the Warriors are at risk of playing in the NBA Cup Final, which would be an 83rd game).
Things are going to turn the Dubs’ way. It’s simple math.
“But we need to take advantage of it,” Kerr said.
That starts Friday at Chase Center. The Warriors have their next five games at home.
Come January, they’ll go 11 straight games without leaving California (10 home games and one trip to Inglewood).
And, pivotally, they’ll play seven of their final 10 games of the season at home.
This strange start will be forgotten in due time because the Warriors didn’t disqualify themselves. And if such brutal stretches are inevitable for every team over the course of the six-month schedule, perhaps the Warriors have been looking at this all wrong.
No, the NBA wasn’t punishing them. (How does that even make sense — they’re the league’s cash cow?)
You could argue the league did them a favor.
The beginning of the season is when this rickety team was physically most equipped to handle this kind of run.
They handled it.
And now that it’s over, they need to start handling their competition.