The Warriors constructed two profoundly different greatest teams of all-time

Saying that Kevin Durant made the Warriors both better and different is obviously not compelling television. Pointing at any team in the league and saying “you know what would help? Adding Kevin Durant” is like looking at a guy struggling to lift something and saying “you know what would help? HAVING THE STRENGTH OF MIGHTY HERAKLES.”

So bear with me, because while it sounds like I’m saying “the Warriors played differently after they got Kevin Durant” what I’m really trying to say is this: Without Kevin Durant last year, and with him this year, the Dubs played like two different greatest teams of all time. Sure, there were tons of similarities for the astute viewer, but really out of the corner of your eye you’d hardly even know you were watching the same team.

Consider Klay Thompson. Last year, as everyone knows, the Warriors were a handful of plays from staking “best team ever status” deep in the topsoil. They’d had the best ever regular season record and at one point it looked like they might win the NBA Finals in five games, just as they did this year. At that point, the team’s offense was more or less oriented around the “Splash Brothers” and that was never more visible than in the playoffs.

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When Stephen Curry got injured in the first dang playoff game, then missed six of the next seven games, the Warriors still dusted the Rockets and Blazers in 10 total games in large part because Thompson was a fiery ball of…fire. He had 23.4 points per game on .446/.442/.857 shooting against the Rockets, then 31 on .495/.500/.944 against the Blazers. And he kept that up even after Curry got back, averaging 24.7 against the Thunder in the series that brought KD west, then 19.6 in the Finals.

This year, after dropping 18.3 points per game on the Blazers in the first round, if on 38 percent shooting from the field, he stopped being a big-time offensive contributor. He averaged 14 against Utah, 11 against San Antonio and while he had a respectable 16.4 in the NBA Finals, it was more or less on the strength of Games 2 and 3 when he scored 22 and 30 respectively. In Game 1 he had 6 points, in Game 4, 13 points and Game 5, 11 points. This is, of course, by no means to say that Thompson didn’t play a big role in getting the ring — his ability to stretch the floor keeps defenses honest and his defense was crucial against a host of Cavalier players — but if you hadn’t seen him play in the playoffs without Durant, you wouldn’t know how good he really was.

Or, take Draymond Green. I can’t think of a player in the league who is as clearly valuable as Green with such mediocre counting stats. You tell me that a guy has averaged 10, 8 and 7, and I’m thinking of Jason Kidd at age 100, not an athletic and ferocious 27-year-old. He legitimately took a step back this year, and it wasn’t KD’s fault. Last year’s 39 percent from 3-point range now looks like the aberration from his career 33.4 percent, and this year’s 30.8 percent was his lowest since his first year in the league. But Green has always had the luxury of being on a team where he can focus on giving them what he’s best at giving and they absolutely rely on it.

Still, if Green had averaged 34.5 percent shooting from the floor in the 2016 NBA Finals, the series would have been over a lot faster. His 48.6 percent against the Cavs defense, 40 percent from the perimeter, is a big part of what helped the Warriors stake a big lead in the series, and his 32 points on .733/.750/.1000 shooting in Game 7 of the Finals almost righted the ship despite LeBron’s best efforts.

Again, none of this is to say that Thompson or Green were much less valuable this year than the last. It’s instead to comment on the weirdness of the fact that the best team in the league last year became a totally different team this year and stayed the best team in the league. From a three-man wrecking crew to a two-man wrecking crew when one of the two men was new and two of the three men weren’t on it any more, the Warriors rearranged their very DNA. And they didn’t do it by sidelining guys who were playing above their heads or role players who were returning to more fitting positions. They did this to All-Stars, to the death lineup, to two of the three most important players on maybe the greatest team of all-time.

In the Western Conference Finals this year, Curry (31.5) and Durant (28) combined for 59.5 points per game. In the NBA Finals it was 62 — plus 16.4 boards and 14.8 assists. Like an MLB team shortening the rotation, they became a two-man show at least on one end of the court. And what a show it was. Did you know that Curry scored 34 points in Game 5 despite making only two 3s? He was everywhere, and so was Durant, and it was like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Meanwhile, the guys whose talents seemed to guarantee a rematch of last year’s Finals already faded into the background. It was like adding Magic Johnson to those Larry Bird Celtics teams and then forgetting (at least a little) about Kevin McHale.

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So again, there’s a simple point here, which is that one of the best teams of all-time adding Durant performed predictably. You would think a team that did that would be even considerably better than it was, and that was true. The Warriors had a +34 point differential over five games with their only real rival, and that includes a 21 point blowout loss.

And then there’s the crazy point which is that the Warriors of the last two years were two profoundly different greatest teams of all-time. One was centered around Curry, Thompson, Green and a deep bench and the other around Durant, Curry and a supporting cast — except for the fact that pretty much all the same guys were involved. It’ll be interesting to see how they pick it up next year, but it’s hard to believe it won’t be even harder to beat.