Appreciate the Warriors

For whatever the reason, this decade has been all about snark and cute pessimism. Everybody loves to be a critic, especially when it comes to sports and social media. It seems like something cool if only that if it can be taken down and taken apart by people such as Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith on First Take.

One day, people will look back and realize all of this was a gigantic waste of time, and that we would have been better off simply enjoying the current moment. Hopefully, everybody wakes up and understands this before the 2016 NBA playoffs, because the Golden State Warriors are authoring one of the most incredible season in professional sports history.

Golden State is a staggering 53-5 on the year and is 24-0 at home. Doing the math, this tells us that Golden State has already played 34 of its 41 regular-season road games. Considering nobody has beaten the Warriors at ORACLE Arena all season, it is a pretty safe bet that they don’t lose more than once, maybe twice, on the familiar hardwood.

As most already know, the all-time NBA single-season record is held by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who went 72-10 before rolling to their fourth championship in franchise history. Should the Warriors simply be able to go 20-4 the rest of the way, they will set a new standard that perhaps will only last a year, until Golden State lands Kevin Durant this summer and goes 82-0.

Looking at the remaining schedule, the only games that look like potential losses are home to the Oklahoma City Thunder (March 3), at the San Antonio Spurs (March 19; Spurs are 28-0 at home), then home to San Antonio (April 7) and at the Spurs once more (April 10). Of course, it is wise to remember that the five losses by Golden State came to vastly inferior teams, including the Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Pistons, Portland Trail Blazers, Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets, so anything is possible.

This is a team that could possibly go through the entire playoffs without losing a game. The Philadelphia 76ers of 1983 and the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers were the closest to ever pull off the feat, going through the postseason with one loss apiece. Golden State could match or exceed that feat, considering the trio of Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry.

Curry is the best player in the sport, averaging 30.7 points with 6.6 assists and 5.3 rebounds per game. Thompson, the other Splash Bro, puts down 21.8 points per night while Green is the glue of the group, scoring 13.8 points with a team-high 9.7 rebounds per game. Add in Andre Iguodala, Andrew Bogut and Harrison Barnes, and the Warriors are the closest thing to a machine the NBA has seen since the Michael Jordan era.

Enjoy and relish this time with the Warriors. They are truly special.