2022: Golden State Warriors
The 2022 Golden State Warriors were a different type of example than the previous two champions, but the message is the same. Have patience and trust in your star players to climb to the mountaintop of the NBA. The Warriors were a more unique situation - Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green had already won an NBA championship together in 2015. Then, they won two more in 2017 and 2018 with the help of future Hall-of-Famer, Kevin Durant.
In the summer of 2019, Kevin Durant would leave the Warriors for the Brooklyn Nets leaving the rest of the league to wonder if the Warriors old core could still win without him? After a couple of injury riddled seasons, the Warriors would fail to reach the playoffs in both the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Most of the league assumed that Curry, Thompson, and Green were no longer able to win at the highest level together. While Curry was still in his prime, the sentiment was that Klay and Draymond needed to be replaced with better and younger stars to compete.
However, the Warriors front office had faith that their championship core still had it if they were able to have a healthy season together. Their faith was paid off in the 2022 playoffs when the Warriors went all the way and won the NBA Championship in a six-game series against the much younger Boston Celtics squad.
There were stretches in the season where the Cavs offense looked lost, making change look necessary. Still, they struggled with health all season. The Warriors and Nuggets both showed what a difference health makes in your postseason success. The Nuggets were bounced in the first round of the 2022 playoffs before coming back to win it all the following season. The Warriors missed the playoffs in 2021 and then won the title in 2022. The Cavs may have been eliminated in the second round this postseason, but that was with Mitchell and Allen missing the final few games. It would be short-sighted to think this group could not go farther than that with better injury luck.