Out with the old, in with the new … maybe.
The Golden State Warriors season is, at this point, long over. The obituary has been written, the service has been held, and the tears have dried. It was a weird season. A frustrating season. And above all else, a disappointing season.
And now, as the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs trundles towards a conclusion, the Warriors are starting to be joined by other teams. It’s hardly a consolation for a Play-In Tournament elimination, but Kevin Durant won the same number of playoff games as Steph Curry this year. LeBron James won all of one more game than Curry and KD.
Those three aging Hall of Famers will not add another ring to their collections, at least not this year. Instead, it will be 29-year old Nikola Jokić, unless it’s 26-year old Jayson Tatum, unless it’s 25-year old Luka Dončić, unless it’s 25-year old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, unless it’s 22-year old Anthony Edwards.
But it won’t be 39-year old James, whose Los Angeles Lakers were swiftly eliminated by Jokić’s Denver Nuggets on Monday night. And it won’t be 35-year old Durant, whose Phoenix Suns were swept by Edwards’ young Minnesota Timberwolves. And it won’t be 36-year old Curry, whose season ended in a way that none of us are keen to rehash anytime soon.
It’s a changing of the guard, it seems. Then again, when the Warriors lost the 2019 NBA Finals, more broken than beaten, a changing of the guard to the young teams was advertised, only for James pull the Lakers to a title the next year. And when a youngster finally broke through in 2021, with then-26 year old Giannis Antetokounmpo leading the Milwaukee Bucks to glory, it was again assumed that the youth takeover was here in full, only for Curry and the Dubs to shock the world the next season.
The hiatus is getting longer this year. Jokić and the Nuggets won last year, and it will be another upstart team winning this year, barring the unlikely funny gray area that would be Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, James Harden, and the LA Clippers finding championship hardware.
In all likelihood, the old veterans will be dealing with a two-year title hiatus when the next NBA season gets underway in October. Is there another push? Can Curry and the Warriors access the championship bones that they showed glimpses of this year, and take home a third shocking title? Will Durant flee to the next attempted superteam and finally find the success that has eluded him ever since he left Golden State? It’s hard to believe he’s only won two total playoff series since he was on the Warriors. And can James add one final moment of achieving the impossible, in a career and lifetime defined by them?
It sure feels like there’s a changing of the guard. Perhaps not even in present tense, but in past tense: there was a changing of the guard.
But then again, it’s always when it feels like the changing of the guard has arrived that these teams and players show us just how much remains in their tank.