Seven Seconds or Less 2.0? The Warriors Are Much More

By Espo

Every September Apple rolls out a new version of the phone that changed everything. Each year a new iteration of the iPhone is unveiled with great pomp and circumstance and, inevitably, it looks very much like the last one with minor changes. Some changes are cosmetic and some are functional.

It’s usually fairly underwhelming. Just a new number with or without a “S”. The thing is though, if you go back and look at the original iPhone compared to the latest, it’s light years from where it began. Sure, they look somewhat similar but almost everything else has changed.

I used to think the Golden State Warriors were just the “S” version to the Suns Seven Seconds or Less. A form that looked the same just a slight upgrade that added a tweaked operating system and a slightly better camera. Nothing earth shattering or that we hadn’t really seen before.

Yeah, I was wrong. The Warriors are something more evolved . Sure, they look similar to those Suns teams from the aughts, if you squint your eyes and ignore some aspects of logic. They even have actual pieces from their Phoenix ancestry. Rick Welts, Steve Kerr, Leandro Barbosa, uptempo style of play and heck even Steve Nash just to name a few. They’re like the home button, metallic apple logo, general shape and name of the iPhone, they’re constants.

But then there’s something more. Steph Curry has Nash’s court vision but with an operating system that overrides his conscious and lets him light up opponents every night in a way Steve seemed too unselfish or timid to do.  Draymond Green is everything Amare Stoudemire promised to be at the beginning of every training camp, a triple threat that rebounds, defends and scores when necessary. Klay Thompson is, well Klay Thompson is something those Suns never had at shooting guard because their version was in Atlanta due to a few million dollars.

Oh, and remember that thing called a bench that Mike D’Antoni treated like it was the china cabinet everyone’s grandma has that stores things that have collected a decade’s worth of dust from not moving? Much like human beings devolved an opposable thumb through evolution, the Warriors developed a deep one that they use on a regular basis. The kind that makes it possible for them to overcome a major injury — or say a suspension if two players left the bench during an altercation — to a key piece of their puzzle.

No matter how many iteration of the iPhone come out we’ll always have a soft spot in our heart for the original. The one that change everything and made it possible for all other smart phones to come after it. But we’ll always what the newer, flashier and more functional version. It’s just vastly superior and continues to get better with each passing year. Just like we’ll always love the Seven Second or Less Suns and hold them in the highest regard. The way fans of their predecessors, the Showtime Lakers, do. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy and acknowledge the newer, shinier and greatly evolved version that is the Golden State Warriors.