Lessons Learned From the 06-07 Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks

The eighth-seeded Golden State Warriors snuck into the playoffs on the last day of the season, finishing with a 42-40 record. Their first round playoff opponent was the Dallas Mavericks, the NBA’s top team with a 67-15 regular season record. The Warriors stunned the Mavs in six games, a resounding and shocking series victory some called the greatest upset in NBA history. The Warriors actually made it look pretty easy, defeating the Mavs by 12, 18, 4, and 25 points in their four victories and losing one game they were in position to win. Watching the games, they did not seem like upsets; the Warriors appeared to be the more confident, accomplished squad, the team expecting to win. The Mavericks looked like the lower-seeded team.

How were the Warriors able to pull this off?

First off, it should be recognized that these Warriors were no ordinary 42-40 team. At one point this season, they stood 26-35. They finished the season 16-5, including 9-1 during the last ten games of the season. A January 17 trade with the Indiana Pacers brought Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington to the Warriors and dramatically changed the complexion of the team, though it took a couple months for the team to gel.

The key is, when they finally did gel, the Warriors almost magically morphed into the rare “positive sum” team better than the sum of their players. The closest thing the Warriors have to a superstar is oft-injured and physically unimposing point guard Baron Davis. A career 41% shooter (32% on 3s), Davis had not garnered a reputation as a player who improves the play of teammates (a la Steve Nash). Other star players, such as Jackson and Jason Richardson, have never been known as great team players either. Yet somehow this motley crew of castoffs, unwanted young players, and mediocre talents surged together into a tough and exciting band of ballers unintimidated by anyone and capable of embarrassing the finest teams in the world.

One of my favorite concepts is synergy, defined by American Heritage as “the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.” Basketball is the most synergistic of the major sports, and the Warriors have more of it than any team I can remember watching, with the possible exception of the modern Phoenix Suns, another pedal-to-the-medal horde of gunners and dream Western Conference Finals Warriors opponent. Whether this synergy came from the work of GM Chris Mullin, coach Don Nelson, improved leadership from Davis, or dumb luck is hard to say. Whether by design or chance, the Warriors maximize their talent incredibly efficiently.

The Warriors also matched up extremely well against the Mavericks. Many likened them to kryptonite to the Mavs’ Superman. The Warriors went 6-1 against the Mavs during the regular season the last two years, and have now won 10 of their last 13 games against them. Thoroughly analyzing the specific player characteristics that give the Warriors a head-to-head edge over the Mavs would be too dense and scientific for all but the most hardcore basketball pundits, but the numbers make it clear that something about Golden State just gives Dallas difficulty.

Coach Don Nelson, who captained the Mavs into a powerful franchise before being put out to pasture by owner Mark Cuban after too many early playoff exits, was hired right before the season. Mullin and Nelson decided to roll the dice and turn the Warriors into a wild, balls-to-the-wall regiment in the mold of the present Suns and Nelson’s early-decade Mavs barnburners. As former coach and architect of the Mavericks, Nelson knows their weaknesses better than anyone – and how to exploit them. Nelson has never led a team to the NBA Finals, but he may have been the best coaching choice on earth if the goal was to beat the Dallas Mavericks.

The Warriors were backed by a passionate, old-school corps of fans whose noise level mimics the heightening of a shark’s senses as blood becomes evident in the water. The fans were already delirious to have the Warriors back in the playoffs after a 13-year absence; when their boys returned from Dallas with a game under their belts, the fans could smell fear in the Mavs and willed the home team to three victories. There is no atmosphere like Oracle Arena in professional basketball, and this became more and more apparent with every Warriors basket. The Warriors are a “hustle” sort of team – the league’s smallest – whose success depends on beating opponents to loose balls and forcing turnovers on defense. At the Oracle, the Warriors were able to feed off the crowd’s emotion and manifest it into energy for their team.

It’s important to try to learn lessons from the losers as well as the winners. The Mavericks were loaded with talent, with at least two playmakers at every position and likely MVP Dirk Nowitzki leading the charge. They didn’t seem like a team that would go down quietly – they had experience and depth, and were well-rounded with no obvious weaknesses. The most apparent of these weaknesses were psychological rather than physical. Their alleged leader, Nowitzki, faces questions about his ability to come through in the clutch and has been accused of apathetic play in trying situations. The Mavs’ coach, Avery Johnson, was a likable, hard-nosed, inspirational champion as a player; as a coach, he is still young and doesn’t yet provide “the rock” a basketball team needs in stormy waters.

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Business lessons from the series:

1. SYNERGY! This is what teamwork is all about. Chemistry is a difficult, “lightning in a bottle” sort of thing to master. Finding a positive sum equation for your team provides an innumerable advantage.
2. Passion MATTERS (see Randy Moss) and is infectious. Others (the crowd) will appreciate your passion if they can see it in your product.
3. Matchups can be exploited: in the business world, this means creating a product that fits into the existing markets you want to sell to.
4. A strong, veteran, reassuring leader helps to mold and sharpen raw talent and exudes stability and confidence during difficult times.