Before Stephen Curry claimed his first MVP trophy, before he placed that first bedazzled ring around his finger, Warriors ownership had already begun plotting its new palace of a stadium. Across the water from the Warriors’ old Oakland home, it purchased the 11 acres that became the Chase Center — at 3rd and 16th Streets in Mission Bay 메이저사이트 all the way back in 2014.
Golden State now eyes another future. After four championships in eight seasons, the Warriors still see riches on the other side of a different river, yet no clear bridge to that vision. They see more championships beyond this miraculous era, all while Curry is still shimmying and Klay Thompson is still splashing from distance, even as they approach their 35th and 33rd birthdays, respectively.
Right there lies the inherent challenge of threading this needle between present and planned. There is no panicked hurry, because this current window is not closing. Yet the Warriors are .500, and none of Golden State’s string of recent lottery picks has emerged strong enough to keep that window confidently ajar. A young Kawhi Leonard once clawed the keys to San Antonio right from Tim Duncan’s clutches, but the Spurs’ own prolonged title hopes still didn’t live to tell the tale. It has thus far been proven impossible to reign over the NBA for two full decades and beyond.
But what if? These Warriors have always dared to dream bigger than any before. And what if the Warriors’ own understudy in their backcourt, the 28th pick in the 2019 NBA draft, could one day become the franchise’s very solution? Last season’s third-leading Warriors scorer, who averaged 25.4 points — shooting 44.4% from deep — with 3.9 rebounds and 4.9 assists in March, all while Curry and Thompson both missed time due to injury. Who cosplayed as an All-Star when playoff seeding depended on it.
See, Jordan Poole has always, not believed, but understood the depths of his powers with that orange ball. An athlete who harbors a conviction as vicious as his actual crossover. That’s why the Warriors made sure to extend his contract this summer — four more years, over $123 million — part in fear of some rival hurling a maximum deal at Poole, drawn by his magnetic pull, and handing him the wheel before Curry relinquishes his grasp of Golden State. But few players are wired to be the man and actually deliver. That is part of why Poole slipped down draft boards to begin with, part of why he has been assigned to wait in the Warriors’ wings. Behind these walking legends, he’s had to tiptoe a tightrope between confidence and conceit. His development has been as much of mindset as dexterity.