When the Boston Celtics won the last, 2008th NBA championship in 17 (that record was reached 12 years later by the LA Lakers), Golden State could only dream of participating in the playoffs.
Twelve months later, the Warriors chose a man who will change their history, as well as the history of the strongest basketball league in the world.
In the 2009 draft, he was the seventh pick, only the fifth selected guard after James Harden (Oklahoma), Tyreke Evans (Sacramento) and the Minnesota tandem of Ricky Rubio and Johnny Flynn, a player that even passionate NBA fans probably remember only through a fog.
The name of the man who changed everything is, of course, Stef Curry.
The best triple in NBA history is with Klay Thompson, selected in 2011 as the 11th pick, and the 35th pick in the draft a year later, Draymond Green, the core of the team that played in five major finals from 2015 to 2019 and won three titles.
Everything under the command of Steve Kerr, who in 2014 was trusted and turned his first coaching job (he worked as a TV analyst and president and general manager of Phoenix) into gold...
After suffering due to injuries to Curry, and even more to Thompson, who was out for two and a half years due to tearing of the anterior cruciate ligament and then rupture of the Achilles tendon, the "warriors" returned.
With some new strength, most notably Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins, Kerr's team returned to the playoffs after two dry seasons and cruised through the Western Conference playoffs.
Now he is waiting for another awakened giant, who showed power in the East, but also psychological stability, because he knocked out the current champion Milwaukee, but also the leader of the conference after the regular course of the season, Miami.
Jayson Tatum has shown that he has grown into a great player, he is followed by Jaylen Brown and the best defender in the NBA, Marcus Smart, and the performance of veteran Al Horford, who no longer holds the record for the most playoff games without a final, is also very important ( 141).
It is interesting that the participants of the finals are connected by a similar thing - on June 30, 2019, Kevin Durant announced that he was leaving the "Warriors", and a day later, Kyrie Irving announced that he was leaving Celtic.
Both went to the Brooklyn Nets, who overnight became the main favorites for the title, but in these three seasons they fell twice at the first and once at the second hurdle in the playoffs. Last month Boston "cleaned" them with 4:0.
The first match of the grand final is played tonight, three hours after midnight, in San Francisco. Interestingly, the guests celebrated in both matches this season - the Warriors triumphed at TD Garden on December 18, 111:107, and the team from Massachusetts was even more convincing at the Chase Center on March 17 (110:88).
"No one in the Celtics organization was satisfied with winning the Eastern Conference. Now we want to finish the job. We played very well against Golden State this season, beating them very convincingly in the final part. We've played great all year against big teams, that's why we've come this far," said Celtics coach Ime Udoka.
Kerr also won five titles as a Chicago player, which gives him an advantage over his younger colleague.
"Anyone who needs to be reminded that in the NBA Finals they have to have some degree of fear, they shouldn't even show up. Let him go home and watch it on TV. Boston is one of the best teams in the NBA, they have a defense that is No. 1. We have to focus on what we do best. We must not just show up on the field and think it will be over," said Ke.
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