Wiedmer: Warriors' NBA title is a win for teamwork

Golden State forward Draymond Green and his team-first approach was central to the Warriors winning their first NBA title in four decades, writes Time Free Press columnist Mark Wiedmer. The Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-97 on Tuesday night to take the best-of-seven series 4-2. Photo by The Associated Press.
Golden State forward Draymond Green and his team-first approach was central to the Warriors winning their first NBA title in four decades, writes Time Free Press columnist Mark Wiedmer. The Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-97 on Tuesday night to take the best-of-seven series 4-2. Photo by The Associated Press.

Anyone who ever watched Draymond Green play so much as a single half of basketball at Michigan State should have known he was the kind of player who makes everyone around him better. He might never be able to lay claim to being the "best player in the world," as LeBron James can so easily anoint himself. He might never even win an NBA Finals MVP award, as Golden State Warriors teammate Andre Iguodala did Tuesday night.

But he's the kind of guy who can help make this year's regular-season MVP, Stephen Curry, a world champion.

He's the kind of guy who James and the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers so desperately needed if they expected to keep Curry, Iguodala, Green and the rest of the Warriors from becoming world champs for the first time in 40 years with their 105-97 Game 6 win.

So when Green talked to Yahoo Sports early Wednesday morning about why the Warriors won the title against the world's best player, it might behoove James, his teammates and the rest of the NBA talent pool to give a listen.

Said the Warriors' glue gun: "So many guys made sacrifices. David Lee took a lesser role. Andre Iguodala took a lesser role. Andrew Bogut, in the Finals, took a back seat. Throughout the year, everybody made sacrifices. We sacrificed for each other. Whether it's numbers or anything, nobody cared. The only number that mattered was wins. That's why we're champions."

Repeat the words. Everybody made sacrifices the only number that mattered was wins that's why we're champions.

Kentucky spoke eerily similar words during its ill-fated attempt at a 40-0 men's basketball season this year. Handed an embarrassment of recruiting riches, Wildcats coach John Calipari elected to try a "platoon system" in order to keep his eight healthy McDonald's All-Americans happy. The experiment produced a 38-0 start before five really bad minutes near the end of a Final Four semifinal loss to Wisconsin erased their grand work from the history books before it was ever written.

Likewise, the St. Louis Cardinals have successfully preached sacrifice and teamwork for a decade or more on the baseball diamond, enough to win a couple of World Series crowns during that span - though it now appears as if they may have been guilty of lifting some of the details from the Houston Astros, with the FBI currently investigating whether or not the "Cardinal Way" includes the cardinal sin of cyber theft.

But the bigger point is that a team of pretty good athletes pulling together as one, unperturbed by which individual gets the glory, can sometimes topple the best player in the world.

This isn't to say the Warriors shouldn't have won. It isn't to knock LeBron, who makes a stronger case each year for being the best player ever, regardless of how many more NBA championship rings Michael Jordan owns (six to two).

Let King James be surrounded by a fully healthy cast a season from now - especially point guard Kyrie Irving - let the Cavs add a reliable sub off the bench to knock down 3-pointers (as Warriors coach Steve Kerr did so beautifully as a player) and Cleveland could easily win its long-suffering fans their first world championship in any team sport since 1964.

But that doesn't mean the Warriors' Way isn't worth applauding today, especially since their victory celebration looked so much like a Final Four scene, kids being kids, overcome with joy if not downright amazement at their success.

Or as Curry so wonderfully stated in victory: "You dream about what it would be like to pour champagne on yourself. And when that moment comes, holding the trophy and the champagne is falling in my face, that's when it all sinks in. This is real. It's the best champagne I ever tasted in my life."

The Warriors are certainly one of the best teams by cold, hard, numbers, regardless of the audacity of their approach, crazily believing that 3-pointers, if launched both often and well, can eventually topple 2-pointers.

According to one ESPN.com analysis, one of those metrics-driven studies that's all the rage today, the Warriors put together the seventh-best regular season ever (67-15) and the eighth-best championship run, neatly sandwiched between the 1992 and 1998 Bulls titles won with major help from that Jordan guy.

And if that's true, regardless of Iguodala's Finals MVP honor, the reason is Curry and his golden right arm. Say what you will of Iggy's commendable defense on James, his timely 3-pointers and his team-first attitude by accepting a reserve's role during the regular season after being a career starter, but Curry is why the Warriors won.

Maybe he didn't always play his best in this series, but the threat of his ridiculous shooting skills is what drives the Golden State offense. And as good as his teammates often were, it was Curry's fourth quarter in Game 5 - when he scored 17 of his 37 points on a variety of 3-pointers that would have beaten even Larry Bird in a game of H-O-R-S-E - that did the most to secure this title.

Said Iguodala of his point guard's brilliance: "Steph's been really smart this whole series. He's always stayed in that zone of not getting away from what the team needs to do to win. He's just been an MVP for us."

The NBA needs the best player in the world in the Finals. Cleveland deserves the stars to align to allow the best player in the world to soon win a championship for all those tough-luck, tough-minded souls who continue to proudly call northern Ohio their home.

But it's also nice to see a team, a real team, a team proud to embrace the concept of team, win a championship in a league that too often promotes the individual over the team.

Now let's just hope the Warriors have never exorted to cyber theft to build that team.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com

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