There’s no two ways about it; the Golden State Warriors are the odds-on basketball betting favorites to win the 2016-17 NBA championship. This has some people going a little something like this: “I’m so scared. Ooh, the Warriors! The Warriors are coming after me. They’re so big. Protect me from the Warriors!” This begs two questions; one, weren’t the Warriors the odds-on favorites to win the NBA title last season? And two, did they win the NBA title last season? People who enjoy betting on basketball, lower your arms; those were rhetorical questions.
Nevertheless, we have people such as FoxSport’s Andrew Lynch, who is a firm believer that the Warriors will ruin next NBA season. The point could be made that basketball – and sports in general – were ruined when Michael Jordan retired for the third time, but for the sake of argument, let’s review Mr. Lynch’s points.
1. The Warriors are going to be everywhere. Television, radio, podcasts. Hey, you left out basketball betting websites. No one’s pointing a gun at you to follow the Warriors, dude. So be like me and use your mind. Paint a painting, sing a song, and dance a dance.
2. The Warriors cheat. “NBA stars have become way too good at pushing the envelope with the league’s rather loose traveling rules, and no one is better at it than Curry, Durant, and Klay Thompson.” Newsflash, most athletes cheat to some degree. Tom Brady, Brock Lesnar, Lance Armstrong, and so on and so forth. The good ones are the ones who don’t get caught. So, Curry and Thompson shuffle “their feet to gain an extra bit of advantage.” So what? Is it time to call the wahmbulance, or has that particular bit of slang already become outdated?
3. They will take awful shots. According to this one, when the Warriors start winning games by large margins, they will just say “screw it” and organize their own Three-Point Contest in the midst of regular season games, “because “3 is greater than 2!”” Well, duh; three is in fact greater than two.
4. Drama and in-fighting. Sure, it’s hard to accommodate too many egos in a single roster, but will there really be a lot drama amongst the Warriors? Stephen Curry may be 28 years old but he seems more like a mild-mannered old man, especially with those shoes. The only true wild card is Draymond Green, whose role could indeed decrease, but that’s his karma for kicking people in the nads.
5. They are going to win it all. Writes Mr. Lynch, “the Warriors are practically a lock to win the whole thing.” Like they won it last season when they beat the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second straight time in the NBA finals, right?
All things considered, being the basketball betting favorite does not make you a lock, otherwise they would award the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy in September. Yes, the Warriors are a Super Team, but not everything with the word Super in it is a surefire success – to wit, each sequel, remake, and reboot of Superman since the original (and the ending of that one didn’t make any sense either).
