Before there were the 73-9 Golden State Warriors of 2015-16, the 1995-96 smashed the NBA's single-season wins record with a 73-10 finish that stood as the league's all-time best for 20 years. However, many believed that as great as the Warriors record was that year, it wouldn't cement Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and the clan as the greatest team ever if they couldn't cap their campaign with an NBA Finals championship. Ultimately, they'd go on to lose to the Cavs a year ago, leaving most historians to refrain from handing the reigns over from Jordan's Bulls.
A new report from out of Las Vegas, however, reveals that oddsmakers are not as on the fence about the 2016-17 Warriors' prolificness. Despite their having lost six more regular season games than they did a year ago, a good many would take this Kevin Durant insured team over the legendary Chicago Bulls of two decades ago in a theoretical Finals clash. One of the Vegas bookmakers interviewed by ESPN's Ben Fawkes factors in several attributes that would naturally favor today's Warriors against yesterday's Bulls. "It's a different era now, and today's game is played at a pace unlike in the 1990s. Players are bigger, faster and stronger than back then," says Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook manager Jeff Sherman.
Another oddsmaker, FiveThirtyEight's Neil Paine had set his one main condition that the Warriors would have had to meet, were he to take them over a '95-'96 Bulls, prior to the 2017 Finals. He said he was waiting to see how they'd fair against the Cavs in Game 1, and was committed to putting his money on these Warriors if only they could defeat Cleveland by eight points or better. Golden State would go on to far exceed his margin, beating the Cavs by a 22-point margin with a 113-91 victory.
Fawkes and Pain were two of six Vegas heavyweights invited to chime in on who they thought the superior team would be. Of the six, a total of four said they'd go with Durant, Curry, and the Golden State Warriors.
Source: bleacherreport.com
