Draymond Green says this Golden State Warriors team isn’t ‘We Believe 2.0.’ I disagree.

A few weeks ago I was at a (vaccinated) beach gathering in Santa Monica, where I came to realize that almost everyone was from San Francisco. A woman in a large hat unintentionally informed me as to why. 

“Everyone is leaving San Francisco,” she said without remorse. “Seriously, everyone.”

“Really?” I asked. “And why is that?”

“Well,” she replied, “The bay is dead.”

It’s a conversation I’ve found myself having more and more lately. The exodus from the Bay Area into LA, Austin and Miami is well underway. Another person I spoke to, who I immediately disliked, recently left San Francisco after six years. He lamented to me that it was now dirty, dangerous and had no culture. 

“If it has no culture, it’s because you killed it,” I said under my breath. 

He didn’t really hear me. But he did make a point to say he couldn’t wait to go to some Lakers games. He was wearing a Warriors hat. “Warriors are done,” he said plainly. 

Blasphemy … or is it? If you ask my boy Josiah Johnson, the “king” of NBA Twitter, he would have you believe that Steph Curry is thinking the exact same thing — that the Warriors and the bay had their time in the sun, but the fog is a little heavier over the Chase Center, and it’s not going anywhere. Josiah’s half-joking, half-serious conjecturing is that Steph is destined to move to Brentwood or Beverly Hills after he becomes a free agent in 2022. He can gather at the beach, talk about work and lament a region still rich in history but low on the people who helped build it out.

If you’re like me, you remember the days when a Warriors ticket was maybe the easiest ticket to obtain in the entire NBA. I was broke when I played at Cal, so I couldn’t go to games all the time, but when I did, it never mattered whether the Warriors won or lost. It was probably the only arena that I’ve ever been to or played in where the fans were solely there to support their team and get rowdy, and most attendees were not particularly wealthy or stuffy. 

And in those days, you were likely to see members of the Dubs about town like they were part of the community. I saw Monta Ellis at frat parties at Cal all the time (he had an all-too-close relationship with my friend’s girlfriend) and nobody thought it was weird because Ellis and the Warriors were just as accessible as any person in the Bay Area.

I’m from San Diego originally, but I quickly learned that being from the bay, especially the East Bay, meant that you did things differently than the rest of the country. It was a culture shock for me to get invited to a sideshow and hear music I once thought was dumb. It was wild to go to Halloween at the Castro and spend the whole night freezing because I figured San Francisco and Berkeley were the same temperature. I eventually got a jacket, learned Mac Dre’s entire catalogue and embraced the Warriors as my second team. The Dubs reflected the attitude of the area simply by persevering. 

So in 2007, when the No. 8 Warriors beat the top-seeded Mavericks, they naturally became legends. The “We Believe” Warriors weren’t called “We Believe” strictly because people thought the Warriors could win that series. I always felt like it was a moniker that was equally reflective of the area — about a community’s collective belief in themselves, which they wanted to showcase nationally. 

We all know what changed around then: the transplants moved in and rent skyrocketed. The people attending Warriors games changed, too. And in perfect concert came Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and a host of other talented players. The wins followed. These new Bay Area residents enjoyed a sports dynasty on top of everything else they achieved in short order — sort of like a personal victory lap. The two always felt linked. 

But now we find ourselves in a situation where the people who came and enjoyed those fruits have begun to leave. They’ve decided the city no longer serves them. And the Warriors, scratching and fighting for the No. 8 seed, aren’t the same dynastic cherry on top anymore. What remains are the Warriors fans born and raised in the Bay Area who never wavered. The same fans who’ve had to move out to Modesto, or Dublin, but would relish the idea of being able to attend a decently priced game again. 

Green was recently asked if he thought this team was “We Believe 2.0” and he shot that down real quick. The 2021 Warriors have an MVP-caliber player and there is no doubt that he alone is a difference-maker. But let’s not get it twisted. This really is We Believe 2.0. 

Not because of the personnel, but because the city and the town need to believe in the city and the town again — and the Warriors can be a catalyst. I’m not saying that they’re definitely going to beat the Jazz as the No. 8 seed (they still have to beat the Grizzlies too); I am asking: what if they did? It might be wishful thinking, but wishful thinking is all that true Warriors fans have ever needed. 

In the scenario of a major upset, I’m sure the fair weather transplants who have moved on with their lives would pretend to cheer from their new condos in Santa Monica. But imagine what a Warriors upset win would mean to the displaced folks who’ve been taking advantage of relatively cheaper rent of late and slowly coming back to the bay. They are the fans who never stopped believing in a franchise that’s tried to abandon them, and are proud to be from Vallejo and Walnut Creek and Newark. And who knows, if those wild Curry-to-LA rumors actually have any validity to them, maybe it’d help if Curry was reminded of the unconditional love the bay used to show before the dynasty kicked off and the transplants arrived.

Mostly, I just think it’s cool the Warriors are underdogs again. They should embrace the We Believe nickname and play for their true fans, just like they did nearly 15 years ago.