The Golden State Warriors clinched their third straight trip to the NBA Finals on Monday night. The Warriors advanced in dominating fashion with a sweep of the San Antonio Spurs.
During the team’s celebration after the deciding game, Warriors owner Joe Lacob made some potentially controversial comments about the rematch with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
According to the Mercury News’ Marcus Thompson, Lacob had this to say when asked if he had a preferred Finals opponent.
Joe Lacob said he wants Cleveland: "We were the better team but they did win. We need a chance to go in there and prove that."
— Marcus Thompson II (@ThompsonScribe) May 23, 2017
The Cavaliers have yet to officially punch their ticket to the Finals. However, they are the favorite in their series against the Boston Celtics. The Cavs hold a 2-1 lead in that series and could clinch the conference as soon as Thursday night. That would set up a third straight Finals meeting with the Golden State Warriors.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Lacob apparently believes that the Warriors were better than the Cavaliers. It was Cleveland, however, who found themselves atop the NBA mountain at the end of the Finals.
The Cavs notoriously defeated the Warriors in a 7 game series last year. They also came back from a 3-1 deficit in order to do it.
The Warriors also dramatically improved their team by signing former NBA MVP Kevin Durant in the offseason. Durant added his abilities to a team that had won 73 games in the regular season just one year prior.
This isn’t the first time that Lacob has expressed such confidence to the media. Last April in a New York Times interview, Lacob had this to say about his team and it’s place in the NBA hierarchy.
Per the New York Times’ Bruce Schoenfeld:
"He boasted that the Warriors are playing in a far more sophisticated fashion than the rest of the league. “We’ve crushed them on the basketball court, and we’re going to for years because of the way we’ve built this team,” he said. But what really set the franchise apart, he said, was the way it operated as a business. “We’re light-years ahead of probably every other team in structure, in planning, in how we’re going to go about things,” he said. “We’re going to be a handful for the rest of the N.B.A. to deal with for a long time.”"
Despite the Warriors’ apparently being “light-years ahead” of the rest of the league, the team has won one lone championship since Lacob took over as owner in 2010.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have also won one championship in that span.
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If the Cavs can make it back to the Finals, and beat the Warriors for a second straight time, maybe they’ll be “light-years ahead” of Golden State.