A few weeks ago, as I watched the Golden State Warriors suffer a humiliating loss to the Sacramento Kings, my primary feeling wasn’t frustration, anger, or embarrassment. Rather, it was resignation: one day I will die.
The Warriors’ three core players, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, have been together since 2012. I remember watching their first playoff run end at the hands of the dynastic San Antonio Spurs machine and reveling in their limitless potential. They’ll be back, I thought, and I was right: In the years that followed they became the defining team of their era, combining a ferocious, swarming defense with a beautiful, egalitarian offense. Curry became one of the greatest players of all time; Green, one of the best defenders; Thompson, one of the best shooters. They reached the final six times and won four.
How I came to care about all this is a bit of a mystery. But one of the charms of sports is that they are devoid of inherent meaning: a ball passing through a hoop has no practical importance or broader meaning. But that emptiness makes them a perfect vessel for the full range of human emotions, and their bite is no less sharp in what’s at stake. For me, the emotional tides of life as a Warriors fan have moved in strange relationship to the ebbs and flows of the rest of my life.
The professional life of an NBA player is short. Players join at least 19 years old, and by the time they are in their early 30s, if they have managed to stay that long, they are often considering retirement. Supporting basketball players means constantly being aware that they are aging. And now that the older players are my age, it means being constantly aware that I’m getting older too.
Stephen Curry was born in the NBA in 2009, at 21 years old. Six years later he was the league’s most valuable player. Nine years after that, in 2024, it’s clear the end is near, both for Curry and for this team. Parts of his game that I fell in love with have faded; Looking at it, I can almost feel my own bones grinding against each other. The quick-twitch burst that allowed him to dodge defenders or explode from a crouched position as a dribbler to a shooting position as a shooter is nearly exhausted. It operates on tighter margins, tighter windows. Flashes of ancient sorcery still shine, but today he is more of a craftsman than a magician.
If there’s one moment Klay Thompson will be remembered for, it’s Game 6 of the 2016 conference finals. On the brink of playoff elimination, Thompson saved the season with a supernatural series of three-point shots – from angles obliques, with legs bent in the air, or on forests of defending arms. It was everything I loved about basketball compressed into one game.
The Warriors won that game and the next, sending them to the finals in a rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The morning of the third game, I went with my pregnant wife to her first ultrasound appointment, filled with anticipation. What I remember most is the billowing silence as the nurse technician searched fruitlessly for signs of a viable fetus and the way my wife’s palms felt so soft against mine. I didn’t cry until we reached the safety of our home.
Later, without much deliberation, we decided to go ahead with our plans to watch the game. It was a crushing defeat. I can’t remember half of this day without the other: the real tragedy linked to the ersatz. Surprisingly, each made the other hurt less, like dull echoes canceling each other out.
Limited by injuries and the weight of expectations, the Warriors would lose the series and their historic success in the regular season would turn into ignominy in the playoffs. A few days later, my wife suddenly and mysteriously became ill and she could not stand without fainting. I carried her down the stairs of our apartment building; In the sunlight, I noticed how pale she was and I began to be very afraid. What she had been diagnosed with as a miscarriage turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy. My wife’s fallopian tube had ruptured. Emergency surgery saved his life. She was still in her recovery bed when we found out Kevin Durant was joining the Warriors.
The next year, as the team barreled through the season, my wife’s belly swelled with new promise. The Warriors won their second championship of this streak. On the day of her delivery, we braved the crowds to see the Larry O’Brien trophy through the streets of Oakland.
The following year, my son woke up in my arms when the Warriors won their third title. We were at a watch party and the sight of confetti falling around us fascinated him. Four years later, in 2022, I woke him up (and his new little brother, too) to watch the Warriors win their fourth career title, a memory I’m often reminded of.
A few weeks ago, I took my firstborn to a Warriors game: it was the first time I saw them in person and the last significant game of their elegiac regular season. Despite my nudges and suggestions, the Warriors’ younger players showed no interest in him. He only had eyes for his favorite players: Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. We arrived early to watch Curry warm up; He was also accompanied by his firstborn. Riley Curry was 2 years old during his father’s first championship and made a name for himself by stealing the microphone and the show during postgame press conferences. He was now 11 years old and passed the ball to his father to perform some tricks at the end of their training. My son, looking through binoculars, correctly declared Curry “the best.”
The Warriors played from behind for most of the night. Curry evoked some classic late-game heroics, but it wasn’t enough. My son, who had attributed world-changing meaning to every shot, accepted the narrow defeat with surprising equanimity. After all, they had tried their best and came pretty close to winning. I asked him what his favorite part of the game was. “You stand up and applaud,” he said. “I just liked it.” He still doesn’t know why Warriors basketball came to mean anything to me and him. But he felt the currents. That’s how it starts, I thought.
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