It’s the obvious answer to the question nobody wants to ask, because as is true in all sports debates, once the answer is provided, the debate dies.
Put simply, the Warriors have downgraded themselves to a good but flawed team, the current equal to seemingly lesser lights like Denver and Oklahoma City and Toronto and Milwaukee, all because the thing that made them extraordinary was their devotion to and capability for defense.
But not just defense, where their obvious slippage has been seen both visually and metrically, but defense as a psychological weapon.
They used to be the team that owned scoreboards in the most compelling way – point differential.