On Sunday for the 332nd straight game, a stream of fans will form a sellout crowd at the NBA’s oldest arena, wedged between the 880 Freeway and a BART station and flanked by an industrial park where delivery trucks rumble in and out and belch smoke. When poet Gertrude Stein years ago uttered her famous line about her hometown “there’s no there there perhaps she had this gray patch of pavement specifically in mind.
Oh, and yet, once inside Oracle Arena, there is life and soul. There is strong and loyal support, once again, for Oakland’s basketball team, winners of three of the last four championships. There’s a there here, although not for long. The next time the Warriors play a regular season home game, it will be at their splashy new palace in San Francisco this fall and filled with fans of a different cloth; meanwhile on that same night, Oracle will be filled with crickets and Oakland’s heart with ache.
The Golden State Warriors have existed in sharp contradiction as they’ve built their recent hoops dynasty. While brash owner Joe Lacob has spoken about dominating the NBA for decades and Stephen Curry has mastered the audaciously deep three pointer, the franchise has worked and played in perhaps the league’s most modest surroundings.
Oakland’s Oracle Arena, renowned for its passionate crowds, is the league’s oldest building and sits off Interstate inside a barren sea of concrete parking lots. The Warriors’ practice facility, smartly decorated with title banners and historic murals, is located on the top floor of a downtown convention center. While rivals have trotted out glittering stand-alone practice facilities and state of the art arenas, the back to back champions have raced ahead of the competition on the court and made do
But the Chase Center’s most memorable features are aimed at one-percenters. Premium courtside suites, built under the lower-bowl seats so they aren’t visible from the court, are equipped with a butler, a well-appointed dining room area for social events and a private wine cellar. Thirty of the 32 luxury suites have been snapped up, mostly by corporate clients, at a cost of between $1 million and $2.5 million for a year’s worth of basketball and non-basketball events. “The things that Oracle doesn’t have were the things we had to have to be able to compete for a championship for the next 30 to 40 years,” Moving one of the league’s most popular and profitable teams was inevitably going to leave some feeling left behind. The Warriors have played in Oakland since 1971, cultivating a die-hard local fan base through lean years that produced just four playoff series victories from 1978 to 2012. To critics, the move across the bay stands as a symbol of gentrification and urban abandonment, and Warriors Coach Steve Kerr has admitted that leaving Oakland for San Francisco is “bittersweet.
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