Good thing the Warriors got Kevin Durant

Consider for a moment that the Golden State Warriors will only return to the NBA Finals after their opponent missed 27 straight three-pointers, many of them open, in a Game 7 after setting all sorts of three-point shooting records during the regular season. Consider, too, that said opponent, the Houston Rockets, was without their second-best player for that game.

Good thing the Warriors signed Kevin Durant.

There is nothing guaranteed in the NBA, not even for a collection of stars like the Warriors. The competition is too good, especially in the Western Conference this decade. This is why it could never be dishonorable for the Warriors to sign Durant as a free agent. That came after Golden State won 73 games but fell short in the 2016 Finals due to a trail of unfortunate dominoes knocked down by LeBron James, perhaps the greatest player ever at the peak of his powers.

Signing Durant was an awesome sign of respect for James and for the challengers to come. Any team would have done it.

You damn well know the Rockets would have done it. Odds are they will make a play for James or Paul George this summer, gunning to take the throne of dominance from the Warriors. Houston, led by the simultaneously patient and impatient Daryl Morey, made a huge couple of swings in 2017 to try to chase down Golden State even though Golden State hadn’t ended their season. (The forgotten Spurs get credit for that.) Chris Paul was the headliner, and he was excellent until betrayed by his hamstring at the very end of Game 5. (A game CP3 essentially won for Houston.)

Beyond Paul, Houston tried hard to poach Andre Iguodala from the Warriors. That resulted only in Golden State spending a little more coin to keep the glue-ridden vet. Morey pulled in P.J. Tucker and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, beautiful fits in the wing frenzy Houston style. He believed in Mike D’Antoni to make it all work. It did, until it just barely didn’t.

And now Morey’s going to do everything in his power to make another blockbuster upgrade to a 65-win team that came one remarkable cold streak short of a trip to the NBA Finals and, perhaps, a championship.

Complacency is death in the NBA. Had the Warriors moved forward with their 2014-16 core — Stephen Curry as the headliner with Klay Thompson and Draymond Green serving up repeat all-star appearances — Golden State might only have won one title in this era. Instead they have two, and money is on No. 3 coming down the pike in three weeks’ time. There is nothing dishonorable about getting better, about stretching your margin for error ever wider. Why leave anything to chance when you can tilt the table in your favor? You do it every time.

(The most dishonorable thing the Warriors have done: intentionally fouling Clint Capela twice with just under four minutes left in Game 7. The Warriors were up about 10 points, and the Rockets had just snapped a streak of 27 straight missed threes. Intentionally fouling Capela at that point was an affront to the Basketball Gods, and Steve Kerr, for once in his life, should be ashamed.)

(I know that this mini-rant was incongruous with the previous paragraph, but I don’t make the rules. I just preach them.)

The question now becomes this: if complacency is death, what the hell do the Warriors do next? Houston will try its best to counterpunch in free agency and on the summer trade market. If James is mad enough at Golden State (plausible) and sees light in James Harden’s heart (questionable), and if new Rockets franchise owner Tilman Fertitta will pony up for Chris Paul too, and if Morey can juggle all this while clearing a helluva lot of salary space, maybe that jam works out.

If somehow that happens, or even if the Rockets “just” manage to somehow, some way pull Paul George in with Harden and CP3, and you’re the Warriors, how do you respond?

When the Warriors signed Kevin Durant, they stretched their margin for error way out. The Rockets reeled it back in, and almost blew it up in this series. Others will try, too: maybe a healthy Celtics club or the Sixers, should James venture that way, or the Cavaliers in either this NBA Finals (riding a wave) or the next (riding yet another retooling).

In 2016 the Warriors had an epic club that fell just magically short, and went for broke to make things better. In 2018, whether the Warriors finish the job or not, the margin is as tight as ever given how close to the brink the Rockets pushed them. Will Golden State again turn the cards to stack their deck, or has that hand already been played?

The Warriors are on the brink of their third title in four years. Questions about legacy and dynasties will come in the future. But the decisions Golden State makes to react to what just damn near happened to them in the West finals will shape what we talk about years down the line when we talk about these Warriors.