OAKLAND -- After so many seasons that were irrelevant by March, much less April, it's fitting that consequences be attached Sunday, when the Warriors play the last of 47 regular-season finales at Oracle Arena.
For those fans who kept coming for so many years, usually clinging to the hope that one day their beloved team would be worthy of the playoffs, the only proper sendoff is winning a game that mean something.
It's also appropriate that the Clippers are the visiting team. As the team these Warriors first came to despise, and the squad that ousted them from the 2014 playoffs in the first round in a high-intensity seven-game series, they are the opponent most responsible for lighting the flame that burns beneath the back-to-back champions.
One year after losing to LA, the Warriors, behind new coach Steve Kerr, went an astonishing 39-2 at Oracle in the regular season and reached the NBA Finals for the first time in 40 years.
And when they won it all, rinsing away two generations of fan and franchise futility, the closest thing to a void for the Warriors was that those Clippers -- Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Co. -- were not among the teams crushed along the way.
And now the purpose is simple. If the Warriors vanquish LA, they ensure the best record in the Western Conference, thereby strolling into the postseason knowing that the path to the 2019 NBA Finals comes through Oakland.
As the one Warriors player well acquainted with Life Before Lacob, Stephen Curry has the purest appreciation of how far they have come and how much had transpired over the previous 39 seasons in Oakland.
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"It's a lot, man," he said late Friday night. "I'd like to have a fireside chat at some point and talk about all the good times. ... For me, 10 years here and 47 years as an organization, there are a lot of great things."
Curry's work address has been Oracle Arena through two NBA MVP awards, three NBA championships, four NBA Finals, five All-NBA selections and six All-Star Games. He more than anyone else is responsible for changing the perception of the Warriors from a team routinely dismissed to one that won't be denied.
This will be the seventh consecutive season with the NBA playoffs coming to Oracle -- after completely bypassing the place in 29 of the previous 40 seasons.
There was the 13-year gap (1994-2007) between postseason appearances that tested the fan base. The 2005-06 Warriors finished 14 games below .500 yet Oracle averaged 93.2 percent of its (19,596) capacity.
Two years later, in the wake of the "We Believe" Warriors, Oracle averaged 19,630 per game, fans jamming inside to see a team that missed the playoffs. That testifies to the lasting local impact of a team that was 42-40 before catching lightning in a bottle and giving the fans a winning playoff series for the first time in 16 years.
Which meant so much after such dizzying array of disappointments. The Nelson-Webber fiasco in the early 1990s that broke the most promising Warriors roster to grace Oracle. The Latrell Sprewell assault on P.J. Carlesimo in ‘97. The five 50-loss seasons in the 1980s and the six such seasons between 1995 and 2002. Years of utterly inept ownership and management.
So why keep coming? Some remember the eight consecutive non-losing seasons -- seriously -- after Al Attles was promoted to full-time head coach in 1971. The '75 championship team. The "Sleepy Floyd is Superman" quarter in '87. The Run-TMC seasons, both of which have an exalted place in Warriors lore. And, of course, the underdog '07 squad that spun a web of despair around the No. 1 seed Dallas Mavericks.
The best of those times will be relived Sunday, with Rick Barry -- the leader of the '75 team -- joined by the likes of such popular players as Chris Mullin, Jason Richardson, Marreese Speights and Floyd.
T-shirts depicting the image of Oracle Arena will be given away and surely cherished. There will be a postgame ceremony on the court, with remarks from coach Steve Kerr. A limited number of fans will get the opportunity to take the floor postgame to shoot free throws or take photos with the championship trophy.
"I think we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our fans, and particularly to our fans in Oakland, to give them our best stuff," Kerr said last month.
"For every fan that's comes to watch us play here and had an experience cheering for us, celebrating the highs and lows, there are a lot of great memories," Curry said. "We want to finish on a good note."
The fans ask but one thing on Sunday, and it's the same desire as everyone on the Warriors' payroll. They want victory so they can keep forgetting about the miserable times and smile all the way home.
