Every professional athlete and every professional sports team wants to be a champion. The Golden State Warriors are the envy of the NBA for what they have established. Moreover, their ability to win Game 6 against the Houston Rockets without Kevin Durant underlined the reality that they will still be the title favorites in 2020, even though they might be more vulnerable than in the past.

Being the king is what everyone aspires to. No one disputes this. Yet, being great on a large scale does exact a price. Attrition, physical punishment, and playing 100 games in a season all flow together. The Warriors can appreciate this basic truth more than ever before.

In the series against Houston, the Warriors crossed two thresholds in this “marathon man” aspect of NBA basketball: They became the second team this decade to play a combined total of at least 500 regular-season and playoff games in a five-season stretch, joining Dwyane Wade's Miami Heat. Following from that first basic milestone, the Warriors also passed the Heat in the specific number of games played in a five-season stretch.

If you go through the numbers at Basketball Reference — starting in 2010 for the D-Wade Heat, and continuing through 2019 for the Warriors — you can do the math and realize that with 82 games in each regular season, a five-season stretch involves 410 regular-season games. Therefore, a team needs to play at least 90 playoff games in five seasons to hit the 500 mark.

The Heat played 92 playoff games in their five season run from 2010-2014, going 60-32. Entering the just-concluded Houston series, the Dubs had played 89 playoff games from 2015-2019. They were 67-22. They are now 71-24 after their 4-2 series win. They played game No. 500 in Game 1. In Game 4 against Houston, the Warriors passed the Heat, 503 games to 502, in a five-season block.

These facts underscore the point that Golden State has played a truckload of basketball. Teams simply can't push themselves through regular seasons when they log this many miles. The Michael Jordan Bulls — in the third years of their two 1990s three-peats — cruised through the regular season and saved their energy for the playoffs. They had to.

The Dubs, like the Wade-era Heat, are forced to do the same thing. This reality will guide what the franchise tries to do in free agency and the draft.