Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors franchise is one of the most storied and consequential in professional basketball history — a program whose 75-year arc stretches from the hardwood of post-war Philadelphia to the gleaming Chase Center on San Francisco Bay, encompassing seven NBA championships, two distinct dynasties, and a modern revolution that reshaped how the sport is played worldwide.

The franchise was founded in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors, one of the original members of the Basketball Association of America that would merge with the National Basketball League in 1949 to form the NBA. Philadelphia won the BAA's inaugural championship in 1947, defeating the Chicago Stags, and added a second title in 1956 against the Fort Wayne Pistons. The 1956 championship team featured Paul Arizin — a twelve-time All-Star and Hall of Famer — as the cornerstone of a dynasty built on fundamental basketball excellence.

The arrival of Wilt Chamberlain in 1959 transformed the franchise and the sport simultaneously. Chamberlain, a territorial draft pick who had played high school ball in Philadelphia, averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds in his rookie season — numbers that remain among the most astonishing in basketball history. His 1961-62 season averaged 50.4 points per game and included the single greatest individual game in NBA history: 100 points against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Chamberlain was traded to Philadelphia in 1965, beginning the franchise's transition westward.

The Warriors relocated to San Francisco in 1962, playing at the Cow Palace before moving to the Oakland Coliseum Arena — a relocation that brought NBA basketball to the Bay Area for the first time. The franchise became the Golden State Warriors in 1971, a name designed to represent the entire state of California.

The 1975 championship under head coach Al Attles represented the franchise's first title on the West Coast. Led by Finals MVP Rick Barry, who averaged 29.5 points per game in a stunning four-game sweep of the heavily favored Washington Bullets, the Warriors proved that a team built on unselfishness and defensive intensity could topple a 60-win powerhouse. The sweep remains one of the greatest upsets in Finals history.

The subsequent decades brought inconsistency — flashes of brilliance in the Run TMC era featuring Chris Mullin, Mitch Richmond, and Tim Hardaway in the late 1980s and early 1990s, followed by years of rebuilding and the occasional playoff appearance. The franchise's return to sustained relevance began with the 2009 hiring of Bob Myers as general manager and the 2011 NBA Draft selection of Klay Thompson, joining a young point guard from Davidson College named Stephen Curry who had been selected two years earlier.

What followed was unprecedented. Under head coach Steve Kerr, who arrived in 2014, the Warriors won five NBA Finals berths and four championships in an eight-year span (2015-2022) — a dynasty that will be studied by basketball historians for generations. Stephen Curry's three-point revolution redefined the geometry of the sport, pushing the viable shooting range further from the basket than any system had previously attempted. The Splash Brothers partnership between Curry and Thompson set single-season and single-game three-point records that still stand. And the arrival of Kevin Durant in 2016 produced back-to-back championships in 2017 and 2018 — the greatest offensive team in the modern game's history.

Today, the Golden State Warriors play at Chase Center — a privately funded, state-of-the-art arena on San Francisco's Mission Bay waterfront that opened in 2019. The facility represents the franchise's commitment to remaining one of the premier sports and entertainment destinations in the world. With Stephen Curry as the championship cornerstone, Draymond Green as the defensive orchestrator, and a new generation of players developing around them, the Warriors enter each season with the championship expectations that their history demands.