East Bay Fans Feel “Jilted” By Warriors

They stood by you through the lean years, through the leaner years, and now this.

Golden State Warriors, your East Bay fans have a question: "How could you?"

The basketball team's East Bay-based fans feel "jilted" by the team's recently-announced plans to move to San Francisco, according to the Bay Area News Group's Marcus Thompson II.

"The Warriors displayed Mitt Romney-esque sensitivity as they choreographed their departure," wrote Thompson, "and it began the day [Warriors owners Joe] Lacob and [Peter] Guber bought the franchise."

Yes, the pair earned the right to do what they want with the team for which they paid $450 million, and they're also free to spend $500 million on their privately-financed arena, Thompson wrote. The problem is the fans are "patronized" by the owners' lack of "meekness," he wrote.

The move may have always been inevitable, but the owners should have said from the get-go that their intention was to move to San Francisco, he wrote, rather than spout a line about "considering all options."

"The Warriors could've been straight up from the beginning and likely would've gotten a collective dap from the city," he wrote. Instead, the East Bay fans feel shafted when the new Warriors say the new arena is only a short BART ride away, that 50 percent of season ticket holders live in San Francisco, or that the team was San Francisco's to begin with, or that the Bay Area can feel united Bay love.

He's not feeling it. And neither are the fans who paid money to make Oracle Arena a packed house, even when the team's roster was full of empties.