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The Golden State Warriors have reached a fifth straight NBA Finals, despite a slew of injuries taking place through every series of this playoff run. Warriors TV analyst Jim Barnett thinks the feat is more impressive than what the Bill Russell-led Celtics accomplished back in the 1950s-60s, when they reached 10 straight:
“It’s probably more astonishing than what Boston did because the Celtics were loaded with talent, and they played the same guys every year,” said Barnett, who spent the past 34 seasons as a TV analyst for the Warriors, according to Connor Letourneau of the San Francisco Chronicle. “Once they started the domination, it was easier for them to repeat and repeat and repeat.”
While Barnett's opinion is well-respected, there's the argument that the Celtics reached the NBA Finals twice as many times as the Warriors have at this point, which made them a surefire dynasty.
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But another thing to keep in mind is that there were only eight teams in the league when the Celtics first started their run, eventually expanding into nine in the later years, with the streak culminating in 1967.
The talent disparity was also inevitable at that point, as teams could re-sign players until they chose to trade them, making it far easier to retain the best talent and acquire young pieces once others came close to falling off their peak.
The Warriors have reached five NBA Finals in an era in which the Western Conference has constantly reloaded in efforts to beat them, including having teams like the Houston Rockets constructing their roster solely with the means to dethrone them, to no avail.
It can be argued that it is more challenging for a team to reach five straight Finals appearances than it was for the Red Auerbach/Bill Russell-led Celtics to do so for an entire decade, considering the level of competition and the several changes made in the NBA to make it a more closely contested accolade.
