They say that the postseason is a completely different world than the regular season and no team learned that lesson more than the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors.
A team that went an incredible, record-breaking 73-9 in the 2015-16 regular season finished 15-9 in the 2016 NBA Playoffs and were one minute away from a history altering NBA championship.
The Warriors had been riding on cloud nine for the past year and half and were showered with praise from the basketball world and their contemporaries. They were the beneficiaries of injury issues throughout the 2015 NBA Playoffs en route to an NBA title, but experienced the other end of the spectrum in the 2016 NBA Playoffs, playing without some of their most valuable players throughout the postseason. A team that was ascending to the cosmos of NBA lore came plummeting down to earth in the most heart-wrenching manner possible, becoming the first team to ever let a 3-1 lead slip away in the NBA Finals and losing Game 7 in the final minute on their home court.
In the process they struggled through a postseason full of health issues and adversity losing the league MVP for a week and a half, their starting center the final two games of the NBA Finals, and their team MVP when they had all of the momentum and a chance to clinch their second consecutive title.
For all of their talent, depth, camaraderie and accomplishment, the number one lesson the Warriors will learn from the 2016 NBA Playoffs is the right and wrong way to respond to adversity.
For a team with a championship pedigree, they lost their way in the final three games of the 2016 NBA Finals and let their lack of focus and ability to handle adversity squander away their opportunity to make history.
Something that will stick with this team for some time.
Much like LeBron James did after struggling through the 2011 NBA Finals, Steph Curry will have to take a long, hard look in the mirror at himself this off season. He will have to use his struggles in the NBA Finals as an opportunity to grow and become a better, a more mentally strong player as LeBron had to do over the course of his 13-year NBA career.
A great man once said you learn more from failure than from success, and that is a maxim Curry will have to take to heart as he moves past the 2015-16 season.
The only real parallel in sports to the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors is the 2007 New England Patriots who completed the NFL’s first ever (and only) undefeated season, only to lose their way in Super Bowl 42 and let their chance at immortality slip away in the finals moments, losing 17-14 to the New York Giants.
It would take Tom Brady and his Patriots eight years to win another Super Bowl, but Brady was able to learn from that experience and become a better and more mentally strong quarterback because of it.
Every great superstar has had a moment in their career where they were bested by another elite contemporary and pushed to their limits and this appears to be Steph Curry’s moment.
Much like Brady and his Patriots though, you can expect Curry and the Golden State Warriors to be back on this stage with a chance to return to the place they have been for the past year until Sunday night, but they will have to draw upon the lessons they’ve learned in the 2016 NBA Playoffs in order to get there.
