The cat is out of the bag at last: Kevin Durant is joining the Golden State Warriors.

Durant is signing with a team coming off the winningest season of all-time. Despite his immense talents and gifts, it still does not make Golden State impossible to beat, nor automatic champions. That line of thought seems to come every time a team gathers a few superstars, but history has proven it is not always a ticket to a title.

One need look no further than a Los Angeles Lakers team that once featured Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the aged ring-chasers Gary Payton and Karl Malone to see that talent is not always what it seems.

The Lakers similarly, later in franchise history, stacked the deck with Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard. Neither of those super teams resulted in a title, despite preseason expectations that the Lakers would run away with it. Both those teams fell woefully short of a title, and it is important to begin to understand why.

The situation in Golden State now has all the makings of an unexpected failure. Why is it so easy to say that? Does not having a two scoring champions on one roster, not to mention the versatile play of Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, make the Warriors an unstoppable force?

Not necessarily.

Why is a stacked team not impossible to defeat?

The thing to remember about the game of basketball is that there is only one ball on the court, and team play is the most important thing, not amassing pure basketball talent. We already have seen Durant struggles to share the ball with Russell Westbrook (though fault more lies on Westbrook, really), and the situation could be much the same in Oakland next season.

Though Durant is a self-sacrificing player, will his talents really be best utilized on a team that already has such firepower?

The unpopular take is that the Warriors will not be better. Despite winning 73 games last season, where can the team go but down? The Warriors had a rare collection of talent and cohesion that made their infectious team play so difficult to beat. The addition of another massive ego who demands high usage may not jive with a team predicated on ball movement and three-point shooting. Durant is a good shooter, but is he better than Thompson and Stephen Curry? No, is the answer to that.

And so, we are looking at an MVP winner and four-time scoring champion (three won by the age of 23) whose talents are about to be minimized. To expect Durant to still average 28 points per game seems naive, never mind putting up over 30 points as he has done twice in his career. 

Durant had a 30.6 percent usage rate last season, and Stephen Curry’s was also 32.6 percent. Both those numbers will dip precipitously as the Warriors now have more options than one ball can satiate. 

Durant could step into a role as a crunch time option and isolation scorer that the Warriors have mostly lacked. Theoretically, that gives the Warriors a much-needed punch. The glaring example of weakness is found in the Warriors six-minute stretch of scoreless ball in Game 7 to see that this team is mortal and beatable.

And the Cleveland Cavaliers did the unexpected in coming back from a 3-1 deficit to steal a title from a hungry Warriors club.

The argument that the Warriors are regular season juggernauts and failures in the postseason lacks traction because this is a team coming off a title in 2015. There are numerous reasons why Cleveland gave the Warriors trouble, but outside of Kyrie Irving and LeBron James, the Warriors had few problems with the rest of the Cavs roster. 

Things may not go swimmingly, even on the NBA's best team. (Photo: Kyle Terada, USA Today Sports)

Does this mean the Warriors are destined to fail?

Is this to say Durant will not win a ring in Golden State? Absolutely not. Not necessarily at all, in fact.

But it is to say that this will not be a cakewalk, not even with four All-Stars and two MVPs on the roster.

Even looking at the Team USA occasional struggles paints the picture of how important team play is. International squads like Argentina, Italy, Brazil, Croatia (etc.) have all given the loaded USA teams trouble at times. The talent disparity is great, but teams can be greater than the sum of their parts if they share the ball.

The Warriors were doing just that. The San Antonio Spurs have built a dynasty under the same rule. Bill Simmons wrote of the “it” factor in his book “The Book of Basketball,” and that “it” factor was the understanding that team play can trump pure talent. Simmons cited the numerous competitors that elevated their teams to heights that pure talent alone cannot do. 

The Detroit “Bad Boy” Pistons were such an example, a team that left its blood and guts on the court and prevailed because it was a tough, hard-working group whose resolve was strong, even in the face of adversities. This is a team that Michael Jordan himself could not overcome, at least not in the two seasons the Pistons won back-to-back titles. Repeating as champion is one of the most difficult things to do in sports, and Detroit did it because they played great team ball. The intimidation factor of a team equally rough as the Pistons also played no small role. 

Does this Warriors team intimidate opponents? 

Oddly enough, the Pistons did the same thing when it loaded the roster with good talents but no superstars in their 2004 championship run. It is not a factor exclusive to the Pistons, but it was an early example (by this writer’s lifetime-viewing) of the value of team play and hard work.

Does this Warriors team have the required intangibles?

Do the Warriors have that “it” factor? We simply do not know yet. Team chemistry is such a precarious balance of blending egos, and it does not always work out. So while the Warriors just upgraded its roster in a major way, it may not in fact enhance the Dubs’ title chances as much as people will expect. It seems unlikely even that the Warriors best this 73 win season, and certainly the fools talking “82-0” are in for a grand surprise. 

The NBA is a tough league: sometimes players play four games in five nights. Losses will happen, and the Warriors suffered its first loss to the lowly Milwaukee Bucks, on the second night of a grueling back-to-back on the road. The ups and downs of a season will affect the Warriors as it does all teams, and collecting more talent can only bail a squad out so much.

Perhaps the best factor of Durant’s addition is now that Golden State could weather an injury to Green, Thompson or Curry, without falling off quite as much.

But this will always be a sport played with one basketball—and given that, it is possible that the Warriors regress even having added the league’s premier scorer. Nothing is given, and those aforementioned Lakers clubs proved that. Expect Durant’s numbers to dip, and expect the Warriors to have to re-discover the balance it has shown over the past few seasons.

If the Dubs cannot blend the collection of talent on their roster, it will lose to less talented teams. It does happen.

Team play—not just raw talent—is the key to winning in the game of basketball.

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Brett Roberts
35 y.o. father, journalist, former NCAA forward, basketball junkie. Follow on Twitter @33Trigger