Baron Davis took the quick hand off from Andris Biedrins, dashed to the rim like a bullet and then preceded to throw down one of the most vicious tomahawk dunks on Andrei Kirilenko anyone has ever seen. The kind of dunk that doesn’t just take away your manhood, AK-47 got his soul taken away.

That was the last moment of greatness before the downfall of the Magic at Oracle began. For years the Golden State Warriors were nothing more than the laughing stock of the NBA. They botched everything from 1st round draft picks, to free agent pick ups, to new coaches.  Fans here in the Bay Area only went to Warriors games to see the visiting team play. On the street you saw no Golden State apparel because they were too embarrassed to say they were fans.  It’s like no basketball team ever existed out here, but yet the arena always stood just yards away from the Oakland Coliseum.  This ghost town like behavior went on for over a decade in the Bay.

Then all of sudden, one year in 2006, the sun rose in the Bay and everything started to change.  Chris Mullin lured Don Nelson out of retirement to coach, Stephan Jackson joined the team, Baron Davis had his resurgence, Monta Ellis started to come into his role, and the Warriors began to win.  It seemed too in ordinary and everyone constantly waited to see how management could possibly screw this one up.  But with the three outlaws, (Diddy, Captain Jax, and Richardson) running the team, the Warriors just kept winning.  They won nine of their last ten games in the season, and sealed the 8th seed in the west; where their epic round with Dallas began.

Golden State steamrolled into Dallas, raining in a barrage of 3’s to shock the Mavs.  The sellout crowd in Oakland filled the seams of the stands with yellow and rocked the arena with 110 decibels of roars.  And after six games, the Warriors fans truly had something they could cheer about, something they could always look back in history to call their own; the first time an 8th seed beat a 1st seed in the modern day playoff format, and they did it on the home court.  The following round against the jazz built with anticipation as the Warriors gave it their all, but in the end, all that was left to remember was an epic dunk.

The next season, after just one year of excitement, fans were left with the memory of what was. With the Warriors and Suns battling it out for the last and final playoff spot, they played one last game at phoenix to determine who goes, and who stays.  Mark the date, Monday April 14th 2008, the Warriors officially recessed into the previous decade when Don Nelson decided to bench Diddy, the best player and leader of the team, in the second half for bad play. This set the tone for the mess to the come.

The team began to crumble as bad transaction after bad transaction was made.  And while many people like to blame GM Mullin for the bad moves, it was hardly his decision. President Robert Rowell was the contributing factor to almost every bad move.  He refused to sign off on Diddy’s contract extension after Mullin negotiated it, he overpaid Corey Maggette to spite Diddy for going to the Clippers, pissed off Monta for mishandling his contract renegotiation and then jerked him around after the moped accident, and then forced Mullin out of his all basketball related operations.

After that, nothing was the same. Don Nelson started giving up before the season started in response to the foreshadowed firing of Mullin and all the lousy off season transactions.  Players had no longer had ambition or a true leader, it was all gone. Al Harrington was driven to the bench and then out of town.  Jamal Crawford was forced onto a team with 10 other guards on it already.  The only thing fans talked about for months was the return of Monta, and when they won 5 of 7 with their hero back in the lineup, the Warriors officially began to tank by putting Monta back on IR. Proceeding to lose the next 6 of 7.

It was officially over.  Nelson started jerking away minutes from Crawford and Jackson to play more of CJ Watson and Rob Kurz. Soon enough, every experienced player was riding the bench come game time. Jackson, Ellis, Crawford, Biedrins, Belinelli, and Wright were all hurt one way or another with often mysterious injuries.  I never seen a team with so many players suffering from a sprained ankle.

And yet, fans sit around, waiting to suffer through the final 5 games of a season we hope to forget.  We dream about the future and pray for Randolph to stop looking like he’s going to cry all the time and develop into a dominant power forward. And for Monta to explode coast to coast for layup where he contorts his body in midair, miraculously making the shot and 1.

Still a lot of work needs to be done this off season, this time the right way. Don Nelson has to go, Rowell needs to stop embarrassing Mullin and respectfully let him walk away. Older players need to be traded away to let our youth develop. Only four players are even worth keeping, Monta, Randolph, Biedrins, and Morrow.

Fans need to be able to stop the bleeding and move on.  The honeymoon from 2006 feels like decades ago.  We continue to chase dreams all in hope to achieve the feeling of awe we felt during that epic dunk, one more time.