From being the worst team in the NBA to the title: the way back for the Warriors

• Chronicle The Warriors recover the ring of NBA champions

The chronicle of the 2019 Finals could well be the obituary of the Golden State Warriors.

ruptured his Achilles tendon in Game 5, which would be his last with the franchise.

In the sixth, which would seal the loss to Toronto,

suffered a torn ACL.

And when he was speeding up his recovery, a year and a half later, he also broke his Achilles.

So different endings were imagined, not another ring.

The fourth in eight seasons.

It is the triumph of an anomaly, of a long-term project in the most volatile time of the NBA.

, Thompson and

have been together for a decade and

he came to the bench in 2014. They form the hard core of the Golden State Warriors, a group that has marked the evolution of the modern NBA in the two baskets (the field increasingly open on offense, the defense increasingly versatile).

And around them they have raised a new life every time the previous one had been exhausted.

But of those four rings, as Kerr said, the most unlikely was this one.

Because after losing the 2019 Finals, also losing Curry to a broken hand, the Warriors were the worst team in the NBA.

Because last season they stayed out of the playoffs on a mediocre course.

Because Thompson didn't come back until five months ago, after 941 days off.

Because in the entire regular phase, the three pillars only coincided in three games, 11 minutes in total.

Because 2019, after all, seemed like the end.

Andrew Wiggins, The X Factor

This new life began to take shape just a few days after losing those Finals.

When Kevin Durant confirmed that he would go to the Brooklyn Nets, the Warriors convinced him to do so by trade and not as a free agent.

This way, they could receive something of value in return to start rebuilding the team.

To square it with the salary regulation, they had to give up a valuable veteran like

(he returned last summer, two years later), but it was a declaration of intent: they would keep the core, even if it meant paying an exorbitant bill for a team without aspirations.

What started out as

, a point guard with a radically different style from the team, became

and

.

The first, number one in the 2014 draft, was buried in doubt but has been the second most decisive player on the team in these playoffs, only behind Curry;

the second, only 19 years old, opens the door of the relay.

Supported by a lavish pavilion that doubles as a ticket printing machine, the Warriors have kept that commitment to spare no expense.

Between salaries and the luxury tax, this season they have spent almost 350 million dollars.

Oxygen for veterans

These two years of forced fallow, away from the spotlight without Klay Thompson, have served to oxygenate a nucleus that was going to the limit: between 2014 and 2019, the Warriors played more than 500 games in five seasons.

The challenge of staying as long as a contender for the title is not only staying hungry, but staying healthy.

And for 2019, Golden State was in the reserve.

The physical problems have remained this year.

The day that Klay Thompson reappeared after more than two and a half years injured, Draymond Green only played seven symbolic seconds.

He made the initial jump only to meet his teammate again, but it was immediately necessary to go to the bench and continue treating a muscle injury.

Problems that, together with age (Curry 34, Thompson and Green 32) led many to question the Warriors' candidacy.

"It's been a long way back here," said the center after conquering this fourth ring.

"We've had a lot of naysayers and people doubting us."

And with the latter, he pressed a key that touched the Warriors very deeply: the external feeling that their titles had an asterisk.

In 2015, injuries to

and

on the Cavaliers;

in 2017 and 2018, the presence of Durant.

That's why while bathing in champagne, the dressing room chanted "And what are they going to say now?".

Future and relay

The Warriors also took advantage of these years of hiatus to prepare the replacement of a wardrobe that had lost its luster.

The lack of a clear horizon allowed more patience and minutes for

, who this season has emerged as an unexpected cousin of the 'Splash Brothers', and

, decisive in the Finals with his intensity;

to adapt Wiggins to a role very different from the one he had played his entire career;

and to finally settle

.

Also, poor results translated into top draft picks like Jonathan Kuminga and

, two 20-year-old forwards who have shown good manners when they have had the opportunity.

Pieces that add to the bottom of the bench and that allow to extend the validity of a core that is already NBA history.

With four years (and six Finals) in eight years, the Golden State Warriors are confirmed as the modern dynasty, the team that has dominated the last decade while changing basketball.

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