Front Runner, C'est Moi

I thought I was a sports fan, but it's become clear that I'm a front runner, aka bandwagon-jumper (on when my teams are winning, off when they're losing).

I followed the 49ers and Raiders through the 1980's and mid-90's, after which both became perennial losers (the Raiders somehow made it to the 2002 Super Bowl but were blown out 49-21 by the Buccaneers). I didn't regularly watch football again until Jim Harbaugh coached the Niners to three straight Conference championships and one Super Bowl in 2010-2014.

Klay Thompson and fan in 2014

I first went to see the Giants in the Oughts to see Barry Bonds hit home runs in the new AT&T Park. I continued to attend games during the championship runs in 2010, 2012, and 2014 but gave up on the Giants after 2016.

As the football and baseball teams faded, the Golden State Warriors picked up the slack by winning an NBA title in 2015. After losing in the 2016 finals, the Warriors astounded the basketball world by signing Kevin Durant, one of the top-three players in the NBA.

The Warriors were champions in 2017 and 2018 but this year seem to have found another gear. Their two superstars and shoo-in Hall-of-Famers, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, have regained their MVP-level form.

Tonight the team's third- or fourth-best player, Klay Thompson, set the record for three-point shots by making 14 in a game against the Chicago Bulls. Sports Illustrated: Klay Thompson Scores 52, and Now the Warriors’ Death Star is Fully Operational

Thompson’s 52 shows what the Warriors can do when they are singularly focused on maximizing their talent on a night-to-night basis, and not taking a long-term view about saving it for the postseason. We aren’t even two full weeks into the NBA season, and we’ve already seen top-level performances from Curry, Durant and Thompson.

The Warriors appear to be fully living up to the hype placed on them in 2016, and at a more sustained level than we’ve seen in the past, at least during the regular season, and certainly never this early. We don’t even need to discuss what that means for the rest of the league. It’s the same as what they feared the moment this team was put together.

Experience has shown that I can't be a fan the entire year; work and family (sigh) have their own demands. Thank you, Warriors,--and 49ers, Raiders, and Giants, too-- for allowing this front-runner to strike the right balance.