Remember when former Warriors used to go berserk on the Dubs as members of another franchise?<\/p>\n
Like a young Chris Webber dropping a 40-point triple-double in Oracle Arena and making Warriors fans pull their hair out in horror. That was the old Warriors DNA: develop someone brilliant, panic, ship them out, then watch them flourish elsewhere while we sorted through the wreckage.<\/p>\n
The Steve Kerr era was supposed to end that cycle. We became the destination, the franchise that got player development right. Thursday night in Milwaukee, former Dubs\u2019 proect Ryan Rollins scored 32 points on 13-of-21 shooting with eight assists in the Bucks\u2019 120-110 upset over a Warriors team expecting an easy win against a Giannis-less opponent. Suddenly we\u2019re back in that uncomfortable space, watching discarded potential make us pay. When Kevin Durant dropped 32 points as a Phoenix Sun against us, it stung differently. KD left as an established superstar after three Finals runs and two championships. That wasn\u2019t organizational failure. That was basketball\u2019s natural evolution.<\/p>\n
Jordan Poole\u2019s 38-point performance in Washington? That hurt more. But at least the Dubs invested years of development, got a championship contribution, and maximized what he could be in Coach Steve Kerr\u2019s system before the relationship fractured. Ryan Rollins got 12 games. Twelve total appearances before the front office decided they\u2019d seen enough. Then they packaged him as trade filler to acquire Chris Paul, treating the 44th overall pick like contractual ballast.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee saw something different. They extended him this summer on a three-year deal, betting on his offensive creation. Thursday validated that investment in ways that should bring the Rollins\u2019 truthers out in full force in Dub Nation. The game flow tells you everything. Golden State clawed back from eight down, cutting Milwaukee\u2019s lead to 104-106 on a Steph Curry three with 4:03 remaining. Then Rollins answered ten seconds later with his own triple, igniting an 11-2 run that sealed Golden State\u2019s fate. He punctuated the performance with one final three in the closing seconds, just to drive the point home.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not luck. That\u2019s understanding leverage and having the confidence to attack crucial moments. Those instincts don\u2019t develop overnight. Watching Rollins carve up Golden State\u2019s defense with efficient scoring as Giannis supported from the bench? Bittersweet. Happy to see him perform well, just sucks that it had to be against the Dubs.<\/p>\n
Chris Webber\u2019s revenge games represented everything wrong with the old Warriors: rushed decisions, evaluation failures, organizational panic. This revenge game feels like how in the heck did we give away two guys in the same trade who would come back and bust the Warriors up for over 30 points!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember when former Warriors used to go berserk on the Dubs as members of another franchise? Like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,6,255,1079],"class_list":{"0":"post-379393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-goldenstate","12":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-warriors","15":"tag-warriors-analysis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115468421177800985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}