Andre Iguodala has been through it all.
He spent the first eight years of his career with the Philadelphia 76ers, never winning more than 43 games in a season.
Since joining the Warriors prior to the 2013-14 season, Iguodala has experienced the other side of NBA life, winning three NBA titles and an NBA Finals MVP award while appearing in five straight Finals.
As the Warriors continue to win and win, it's gotten harder for Iguodala to enjoy the ride due to the immense expectations of the fans, media and owner Joe Lacob.
"He's part of the perfect storm," Iguodala told Bleacher Report's Ric Bucher of Lacob "New ownership [comes in with the attitude], 'I want to win.' Tastes success very early, so he's all in. That's the gift because he will go to whatever lengths to keep this thing going. But he hasn't experienced the real NBA yet. I'll leave it at that."
Warriors fans appreciated the first Finals runs, but now they expect greatness. To Iguodala, playing for the Warriors is very similar to playing for Team USA.
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"We make the Finals four years ago," Iguodala tells Bucher, "and it was, 'Man, I just love y'all so much for what you've done and how y'all play. Win or lose, love y'all.' Now? Guy pulls up next to me and says, 'Hey, I need another one! I need y'all to get another one!' My bad. Three ain't enough. I'll get you another one.
"Playing for the Warriors is just like playing for Team USA. When you play in the Olympics, you don't even enjoy it. There's the anxiety of 'We have to win. We can't lose, or we can't go back home.' We talk about it on the Olympic team: 'We can't go back home without the gold medal, fellas. Got to lock in. Let's lock in.' Then once you win, it's like, 'Yeah, we got it, we can go back home. Yay, we won, but we were supposed to.'"
This season has been especially hard on the Warriors. From the incident between Kevin Durant and Draymond Green to integrating DeMarcus Cousins and dealing with the constant media scrutiny, Iguodala and the Warriors have had to use a lot of energy to keep things positive.
"There have been a lot of things this year," Iguodala said. "The Draymond-KD thing everybody made a big deal out of, it didn't really bother us. It didn't do anything to us. We had to put a lot of energy into DeMarcus, and not in a bad way. Sometimes you bring in a new guy, and they're reluctant and afraid to mess it up, and then they're not being themselves and limiting themselves from being who they are, and we had to be like, 'No, no, do you. We'll work around you. But in this area, we need you to pull back a little bit and do this.' That was a lot of energy. It was positive energy, but it's still energy spent. It's something different every year. We've just done a good job of weathering the storm."
On Thursday, the Warriors will open the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors, looking to complete their quest to three-peat.
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What the Warriors look like next year is unknown, but Iguodala knows that no run lasts forever.
Enjoy the ride.
