Do you still enjoy the Warriors?

The Golden State Warriors were the darlings of the NBA for two years. We wrote a compilation post celebrating their amazing 73-9 season! That was a lot of fun!

And yet, it seems like the tide of public opinion has turned on them in the last year. That was especially true after they signed Kevin Durant, but it was starting to happen even beforehand. Eventually, that led to Warriors backlash, and now here we are, wondering how we should view the Warriors as they sit one series away from another title.

Rather than dissect if the Warriors should really be heroes or villains, we asked several SB Nation NBA (and other) contributors a simple question: Do you still enjoy the Warriors?

Here are the responses. Let us know how you feel in the comments section.

Let’s talk about the evolving nature of aesthetics. A critical consensus may form at any given time — the Warriors are venture capitalist mercenaries bent on world domination — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to change. Why, it was barely more than a year ago when watching the Warriors held the promise of transcendence.

I know. Things change.

Many of them don’t, however, and there is still ample room on my basketball palette to appreciate Steph Curry’s wizardry or a well-timed Klay Thompson flurry. I’ll further cop to loving Draymond Green and prefer to think of him as an eccentric, if slightly tortured, genius. Kevin Durant still makes my spine tingle when he gets going. Even their role players are respected veteran sages. There’s a lot to like here.

My ultimate judgment will come when we can see the Warriors as a fully realized team concept. Will they represent the best of pure basketball or rely on their individual talents to carry them when times get tough? There’s no right or wrong answer here, either. I just want to see it play out in these Finals before I figure out what to make of the Warriors.

Yes, I enjoy the Warriors, because the Warriors play absolutely spectacular basketball. I also enjoy their players — I think Draymond’s bluster is entertaining, I find Steph likable still, and I’ve always been a Durant fan. I do, however, enjoy the Warriors less when they’re steamrolling other teams, but this is because I find blowouts boring in general. I prefer games that are neck-and-neck the whole time or end with surprising and mind-blowing comebacks. When the Warriors just sink threes for 48 minutes over the heads of the Jazz, I start to tune out.

Given that I enjoy the Warriors most when they’re playing a team that can give them a run for their money, this — by process of sweeping elimination — means that I enjoy the Warriors most when they play the Cavs. Remember that Christmas Day game? Holy hell. The rivalry represents the purest form of excellence we’ve seen in a while in professional sports, and the back-and-forth battle to reign supreme delights me to no end. I do think it makes for lackluster playoffs, which is kind of a bummer, but I’m not holding that against the Warriors. Or the Cavs. I kind of think it’s just how everything’s shaken out.

Bottom line: The Warriors are great. But then again, I’m a Pats fan.

Yeah, absolutely.

If you’re a fan of any other team in the NBA (except maybe the Cavaliers), then the Warriors at times can be a bit annoying. It’s not that we don’t enjoy them, it’s just that they’re so much better than the teams we cheer for THAT it can hurt. I watched Klay Thompson score 60 points against my Pacers in 29 minutes, only taking 11 dribbles. Who does that?

They’re an incredible team and we’re literally witnessing history with this era of the Warriors. We’ll look back at this period for years to come and talk about how great the Warriors were. We’ll reminisce on how Stephen Curry became arguably the greatest shooter in history — and if it wasn’t for Steph, then it would have probably been Klay Thompson. We’ll remember Draymond Green kicking everyone and every thing, but also being the fire starter this team needed. Who knows how we’ll remember how Kevin Durant played into all of this, but I imagine it will still be historic. I know how every Warriors game is going to end, but I never want to turn off the television early.

That said, I’ll always be hoping KD and Russ get back together one day.

I still enjoy watching the Warriors, and don’t hold any hate in my heart for them. It’s probably because I’m an Atlanta Hawks fan and know that for the foreseeable future, they can’t touch the Warriors. Their surgical offense is fun to watch, and seeing teams attempt to keep up before the Warriors step on their necks never gets old. They’ve had some great players with fun personalities outside of Curry, Thompson, Green, and now Durant. Those role players made me enjoy the Warriors more last season than I did this year, but still look forward to watching them take the floor every night. I realize they’re changing the game, and want to just enjoy good basketball while it’s happening in the present.

Now, if the Hawks start competing and can’t get past the Warriors in the Finals, this might change. For now, that’s just an impossible dream.

I do and I don’t still enjoy them. Every player on their roster is a joy to watch individually. I adore Draymond Green’s defensive uniqueness, Stephen Curry’s carefree explosions, Kevin Durant’s overwhelming superiority, and even how Klay Thompson makes something that could be so bland and basic — cold, calculated spot-up shooting — thrilling. I think the frenzied pace they play at is good for basketball, encouraging relentless back-and-forth volleys that the game should aspire to reach.

But I miss last year’s Warriors. It’s hard to describe exactly why this team feels different, but I think it has everything to do with Durant. And to be sure, Durant makes this team better, but it feels like he also makes them more predictable. Curry is sensational but also not quite the player he was last year, where he had the nerve to attempt any shot if he felt like it was makeable. Durant exposing a defender with tactical precision in isolation is a joy to watch, but it just doesn’t feel like the Warriors I grew to love over the past two seasons. And it also makes Golden State feel even more unkillable. It’s nice when even the heroes have weaknesses. That’s why Spiderman will always be a better superhero than Superman.

I’m constantly processing my feelings towards these Warriors, and I might have another way to explain why they’re just not as appealing as they were last year if you talk to me in a week or a month or a year. I can say that this year’s team records more assists and yet throws fewer passes, but I’m not sure tangible evidence totally explains it. No, it’s just that the Warriors were magical for a couple seasons, and now they feel like when you grow up and realize magical fairy tales are all make believe.

Yes, kinda. I think I enjoy watching the Warriors play more than the thought of the Warriors playing.

What I mean by that is Golden State plays an incredible brand of basketball that thrives on selflessness and defensive trust, and at first I was against it. Once Kevin Durant made clear he was joining the same team that just won 73 games and eliminated him from the playoffs, I was anti-Golden State.

But it’s something about watching this team execute its offensive sets, gets stops defensively, then turn those stops into flawless transition buckets that captivates you and never lets go.

Plus, they’ve turned JaVale McGee into a legitimate NBA player.

The root of my interest has always been with what happens on the actual court. In that sense, the Warriors leave me conflicted.

On the one hand, it’s fascinating to see them approach the game in a completely different way than anyone has in league history. Adding Durant only makes them more unique in that regard.

On the other hand, there was an element of problem solving with the old Warriors that I miss. They were a great team that was also structurally flawed. They needed to win unconventionally (at least according to the norms of the history of the game, if not the present) and it was fun watching them attempt to shatter all stereotypes and, frankly, reinvent the game. There was an element of vulnerability that the Warriors had to overcome by being more like themselves.

Signing Kevin Durant kinda removed that vulnerability. All power to them for doing it, but it makes them less intellectually interesting to me. That is, unless Cleveland makes them overcome a different weakness that I haven’t anticipated.

Every other NBA superteam has stopped at three. The Warriors got to four. In the end, I think that’s what causes apprehension with this Golden State team: It’s not about liking or disliking them as much as it’s about fearing no one else will have a chance for a long, long time.

In signing Kevin Durant, the Warriors not only added one of the three best players in the world, they also delivered a death blow to their second-biggest rival. If LeBron can’t get them this year, I worry the Warriors’ streak of dominance could reach well into the next decade.

Ultimately, LeBron’s Heat made the NBA a more interesting place. I’m not sure if that can be said about Durant’s Warriors.

Nope.

The diplomatic and writerly answer is to say that one should appreciate that they’re playing basketball at the highest level. They’re technically perfect, and in turn, Warriors basketball must be described as high art. Like J. Cole music, one needs a certain level of intelligence to understand and like it.

But that’s just another way of saying that they’re boring. Which they are.

The Warriors are like The Empire, if The Empire went and got Starkiller Base to go along with their Death Star after losing one battle. And we’re complimenting them on their efficiency of destroying planets without anyone really standing a chance. There’s no conflict.

That has no emotional pull. It’s bland.

I loved the Warriors before this year. I wrote about them more than I wrote about anything else. They were fun. They were vulnerable. They were tested constantly, and adjusted. Steph Curry went from being locked down by Kawhi Leonard one season to turning Leonard into dust the next. Andre Iguodala achieved redemption when he was moved into the starting lineup in the Finals two years ago. Klay Thompson was truly a Splash Brother and not just the weird-looking adopted child. So on, so forth.

Sporting perfection is only fun if it’s challenged. You don’t know how good a team is if they never even have to leave third gear to run through the Western Conference. That’s what made the 73-9 team fun. They had to fight. They had to constantly reach new levels to break that record.

The 2016-17 edition team has made LeBron James, the greatest player of our generation, a massive underdog in the Finals. That’s absurd. That’s boring, and no amount of technical proficiency can change that.

TOM ZILLER, SB Nation NBA columnist, Good Morning It’s Basketball editor

The Warriors were appropriately humbled in the 2016 Finals. When Klay Thompson dared — dared! — to tell LeBron that “this is a man’s league” and LeBron laughed in response, and then LeBron led the Cavaliers onto the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history? That humbled the Warriors appropriately. Joe Lacob is still a little loose with his boasts, but otherwise Golden State has showed LeBron and Cleveland its proper respect.

That’s all I wanted after 2015, when the Warriors needed six games to beat a dilapidated team without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Golden State acted like it was the greatest team ever on the strength of that one championship. That is its right, but it wasn’t right. LeBron put them in their place a year ago. They largely shut up about their own superiority (even though they are seriously superior). I no longer have a problem with them, or take joy in their struggle.

On the court, of course I find joy in their play. They are amazing! Watching Kevin Durant play has been one of the greatest sports joys of the past decade. Curry is still a wildly stylish player, Draymond’s defense is a one-man chaos symphony, and Klay is a ticking time bomb of buckets. You can prefer the 2015 and 2016 versions of the Warriors and still acknowledge that the 2017 edition is beautiful.

Hello, I’m a Warriors fan. I have thoughts.

I don’t want to overplay my Warriors-used-to-be-bad hand. I’ve written about that already. There’s only so much Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy a person can take, and that goes for the person reading and writing it.

But just want to share one little thing: a collection of Warriors-Lakers games from 1996 through 2012. They played 67 times, and the Warriors were 12-55. Those were supposed to be the rivalry games, and in a way, they were. The tickets were priced higher. The stands were filled, but with Lakers fans. And I would watch with half-fury, half-envy at a real basketball team — one that didn’t just make the playoffs, but occasionally won titles — systematically dismantling my team.

I used ... I used to dream of ways to lure Kobe Bryant away in free agency.

I don’t remember how many pages I had to refresh for my Kevin Garnett trade news in the pre-Twitter days, but I’m thinking it was all of the pages, constantly, for several hours at a time. The Warriors didn’t have an All-Star — one lousy All-Star — between Latrell Sprewell and David Lee, and this was their chance.

They blew that chance. Brandan Wright did not save them.

So, yes, this is still fun to me. Indescribably fun. What’s more is there is absolutely no guilt. When the Warriors missed the playoffs 17 out of 18 years in a league where half the teams make the cut, they banked that happy-fun time, and it collected compound interest.

It made me nauseous and regretful when all the losing was going on, but I’m withdrawing and cackling right now. This is fun. This is so fun.