The Golden State Warriors are not a super team

Call them dominant, call them bad for the league, call them unfair — but don’t call the Golden State Warriors a super team.

When Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors, many had the same thought: This isn’t fair. A team coming off a record-breaking 73-win season had just added one of the best three players in the NBA.

They are on the verge of doing things we’ve never seen before. They will be unprecedented in many ways. They are going to be even better than most can imagine before seeing them live.

What they are not, however, is a “super team.”

Being very, very good — historically good — does not make you a super team. Nobody called the 1986 Celtics, Showtime Lakers, title-winning Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers, or any iteration of Jordan’s Bulls a super team.

The notion of a super team, as I chose to understand it, is the establishment of a juggernaut overnight in a stunning, unexpected way through acquisitions. Durant declaring his plan to go to The Bay was stunning to a degree. Rumors had swirled that it might go down, but the fact that he would actually join the Dubs was — and remains — shocking.

Read More: Can Kevin Durant become the GOAT?

But ultimately it was just one man making a decision. Thus, this was a player acquisition — not the formation of a super team.

The term super team should be defined simply: a team that in one offseason adds two or more All-Star-caliber players alongside at least one incumbent player on a similar level.

It must be an Avengers- or Voltron-like assembly that all happens at once.

In this millennium, that leaves us with: the 2003-04 Lakers that added Karl Malone and Gary Payton (with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant), the 2007-08 Celtics that added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (with Paul Pierce), the 2010-11 Heat that added LeBron James and Chris Bosh (with Dwyane Wade), and the 2012-13 Lakers that added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash (with Kobe and Pau Gasol).

Adding Durant (even with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala) simply doesn’t fit the bill. This is a great team making a — while not actually routine — routine free agent signing.

That said and nomenclature aside, even all super teams aren’t created equal.

The Boston Celtics new-age “Big Three” wasn’t viewed the same as the LeBron/Wade/Bosh Heat. That is largely because Danny Ainge, a man in a suit paid to assemble teams, put together that Celtics roster with managerial guile. On the other hand, the Heat were an abomination unseen before in which superstars sidestepped historical norms to put themselves in a position to crush the competition.

We don’t need to deeply delve into all the racial and strangely anti-labor views that cloud the reason the two teams were seen so differently. Just know that they were not remotely the same in the mind’s eye of many. (And LeBron throwing a televised press conference to tell everyone added another layer of, for most, unpalatable uniqueness).

It will be interesting to see how the Warriors are treated.

Will they be closer to the Cs that were respected for their workman-like excellence or the Heat that were mocked for shortcomings even while going to four straight NBA Finals?

The meme culture already surrounding Golden State suggests the latter.

Then again, they might just earn reverence through brilliance.

People really are not prepared for how beautifully this team is about to annihilate all comers in the regular season.

There will be nights — maybe most nights — where this looks like the Dream Team taking on Angola in Barcelona.

It all starts with shooting.

3-Point Accuracy of Various Legendary Shooters

Kevin Durant is one of the best shooting Hall of Fame-level scorers in history. He isn’t quite Larry Bird or Dirk Nowitzki, but he isn’t that far off either.

His career 3-point percentage of only 38.0% is weighed down by a few middling years early in his career, but he has become a high-volume sniper of late. He has hit 38.7% or better from deep in each of his last five seasons while taking at least five attempts per game in four of those years.

And he has been able to maintain steely efficiency even while launching so many shots from behind the arc. His overall field-goal percentage has been over 50% in all of his last four seasons — on 17 or more shots per game. This is high volume, with Durant averaging at least 25 points per night (and 28 or more in three of his last four years).

Those numbers are incredible.

But compared to Steph and Klay — shooting-wise — they are unimpressive.

Steph has widely been accepted as the best shooter basketball has ever seen. The numbers are impossible to deny at this point. And alongside Klay, the label of “best shooting back court of all time” has become common vernacular.

What fewer realize, however, is that Klay is probably the second-best 3-point shooter the league has ever seen.

Here are some fun numbers just to use some legendary shooters for comparison:

• Reggie Miller shot 40% or better from 3-point range in 10 of his 18 seasons.
• Ray Allen wasn’t far behind, with 9 out of 18.
• Kyle Korver, while more of a specialist than an offensive focal point, has outdone them both, hitting 40% or better in 9 of 13 years.
• Curry and Thompson? Combined, they have done it in 12 out of 12 seasons. (Steph is 7-of-7, Klay at 5-of-5.)

Again, Steph’s numbers are just bonkers and don’t make any sense — in terms of accuracy or volume.

But Klay is right there.

He has only once shot below 41%. He has already hit 42.5% or better twice (the last two seasons). Reggie Miller did it twice in 18 years.

Now, by adding Durant, the Warriors have two of the best three overall players in the NBA currently. And they probably have the two best 3-point shooters ever.

The possibilities and potency of an offense featuring all this firepower is mind boggling. We can’t really understand it until it begins.

Once it does, we will either be so in awe that we all fall in love or so bored that we wish this unprecedented combination shot-making never came to be.

It isn’t a super team.

But everyone’s first reaction was correct: This isn’t fair.