OAKLAND – We will never know what might have happened if Kevin Durant stayed put last summer.
Would the Golden State Warriors team that won 73 games without him last season come back better than ever, perhaps avenging their Finals loss to the rival Cleveland Cavaliers? Would the Oklahoma City Thunder have supplanted them as the Western Conference kings, a scenario that looked so possible when they took the Warriors to seven games in the conference finals a year ago?
When the Warriors won their second championship in three years on Monday night at Oracle Arena, downing the Cavs 129-120 in Game 5 and thus avoiding all the rising pressure that would have come with another loss, this NBA truth was cemented in a way that isn’t changing anytime soon: Golden State isn’t going away.