The NBA season is now in full swing.
Things kicked off Tuesday as the Celtics beat the 76ers in Boston with a healthy Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, and the defending champion Warriors topped the Thunder on the night the team received the championship rings.
Side note: if you haven’t seen these rings yet, Google it and take a look.
Not only are they gorgeous. Who the heck thought to make the rings reversible? These things are just insane.
In a video I saw on social media, Kevin Durant said it best when describing these rings. “Ice.”
But on a sad note, this will be the Warriors’ last season at Oracle Arena in Oakland. Next year, the team will play across the bay in their new stadium Chase Center in San Francisco.
It’s amazing how the Warriors have transformed from lovable losers to the standard of the NBA.
For years, the team couldn’t give away tickets to fill up Oracle. Unless you’re one of those diehard fans, who would pay to watch a team have one disappointing season after another?
Then, that arena became a fortress — an indomitable force of sound — during the Warriors’ “We Believe” season in 2006-07.
Led by Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Monta Ellis, Matt Barnes and coach Don Nelson, that team went on an amazing run at the end of the year to claim the eighth seed in the West and swept the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks in the first round.
To this day, Warriors fans will tell you about those magical days and how Oracle Arena fittingly got the nickname “Roaracle.”
Now, I am an LA Lakers fan. I have been since I was a kid and was a Nick Van Exel fan because we have the same first name (for those of you who would believe I just jumped on the Shaq-Kobe bandwagon in the early 2000s).
But even so, as a native of the Bay Area, I cheered for Warriors during that run in ‘07 and I rooted for them again when Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Co. won their first title in 2015.
Between the Warrior’s era of dominance in the NBA and the San Francisco Giants winning the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014, it was a good time to be a sports fan in the Bay.
I was proud to see the Bay Area have its time in the spotlight of sports excellence perhaps not seen since Joe Montana’s 49ers of the 1980s (If you know more than I do, please give me a call and educate me).
Opening its doors in 1966 as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oracle Arena is the oldest NBA arena. (I’m surprised to learn that there have been four venues that’s used the Madison Square Garden name. The current MSG, home of the New York Knicks, opened in 1968.)
Fast forward to the Curry-led team that has won three of the last four championships and are now chasing a three-peat, Oracle Arena has seen its share of basketball history.
That building should be a friggin’ monument.
While it’s sad, it’s understandable why the Warriors would want to move into some new digs in San Francisco — which was the Warriors home prior to moving to Oakland and taking on the “Golden State” moniker.
It’s been reported Oracle Arena’s future is uncertain after the team relocates.
It’s future seems to be tied with the future of the multi-use Oakland Alameda Coliseum, which is also in limbo because the Oakland Raiders will be leaving for Las Vegas in 2020 and it was reported the Oakland A’s want to build a new baseball stadium elsewhere.
In any case, I hope the powers that be can find a way to keep Oracle open rather than just get it demolished. It would be a shame if that were to happen.
Now, moving on. Here are a couple of my (not so bold) predictions for the 2018-19 NBA season:
LeBron wins MVP
Even with young but promising players in Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball, the Lakers were just 35-47. Now throw in the best player in the league LeBron James, things can only go up, right?
There’s been a lot of hype since James made the move to LA. His career in Cleveland, mainly his first stint before going to Miami and last year without Irving, is predicated around him taking subpar teams and leading them to deep playoff runs.
James is largely considered the league’s best player for about the last decade, but he’s only won the MVP award just four times.
If the award is based on one player’s value to a team (a la James Harden and Russell Westbrook the last two years), then James should win it this year if the Lakers make a jump to clinch a top-four seed in the Western Conference — which I expect will happen.
Warriors get third straight title, fourth in five years
Thompson has said to the media the team is aiming to get the three-peat done for Oakland before moving to San Francisco.
You can make arguments that teams like the Boston Celtics, the Houston Rockets, the LA Lakers and a few others have the best chances of denying the Warriors another championship.
Even if I am proven wrong at the end of the season, for now, there is no reason to believe that the Warriors are not going to get it done.
This is a team that people are debating whether it is the greatest team ever in NBA history — better than Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, Magic Johnson’s Lakers, Larry Bird’s Celtics, better than all of them.
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Nick Celario can be reached at ncelario@thegardenisland.com.
