How good are the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors?
Best regular-season team in NBA history good.
Two wins away from their second straight NBA title good.
Better than the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers good…according to Klay Thompson:
Klay Thompson: "We are better than the "Showtime" Lakers." He was smiling, knowing his father played for them back in the day.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) June 6, 2016
This is quite clearly Klay throwing sarcastic shade at his father, Mychal Thompson, who played for the Lakers during that brilliant era. But, while joking, Klay is also right.
Once the Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they will beat the Cavaliers, they will have put the finishing on the best season in NBA history, bar none.
Some of the stats, specifically adjusted team ratings, won’t paint the Warriors as the best team ever, but that’s exactly what they are. They didn’t need to go full bore through the entirety of their 2015-16 campaign. They were head and shoulders above the field, even when it didn’t seem like it—even when the San Antonio Spurs flirted with 70 wins, and even when the Oklahoma City Thunder grabbed a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals.
So yes, these Warriors are better than the Showtime Lakers, sans the sample size.
They’re better than everyone else, ever.
