Stephen Curry of the back-to-back defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors admitted that staying on top of the mountain is a challenge that he and his teammates face year after year.
“Human nature is tough to fight sometimes,’ he says in an interview with Charlie Skillen of the Daily Mail Online.
“You show up in October coming off of a championship and all you can think about is “how can we get back to June and another finals as soon as possible?”
“But there’s a process to it – 82 games is a long season with a lot of ups and downs so that’s the hardest part.”
The Warriors are once again entering the season as the favorites to lift the Larry O'Brien trophy in June, which would be their third in a row, and their fourth in five years.
The two-time MVP, who was in London for the final leg of his Under Armour tour, acknowledged the difficulty of staying the course throughout the 82-game grind of the regular season. When you have a team with that much talent across the board, it can get tempting to be lackadaisical at times during the season, and just wait until the real games – the playoffs – start rolling.
This is the same thing that the Warriors went through last season when they just strolled through the regular season, conceding homecourt advantage to the top-seeded Houston Rockets. This almost back-fired for the Dubs as they faced elimination twice in the Western Conference Finals against the Rockets. Moreover, it can be argued that the Warriors would not be standing here as the defending champions had Chris Paul suited up for Games 6 and 7 of the series.
The Western Conference is tougher than ever, especially with the Los Angeles Lakers adding LeBron James to their roster. Teams like the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, and Oklahoma City Thunder have incorporated new pieces into their teams with the goal of knocking off the Warriors.
The Boston Celtics are favorites to come out of the East with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward coming back to the team. Moreover, the Toronto Raptors added the services of two-way superstar Kawhi Leonard, which certainly puts them in the mix.
All of these teams have retooled and reloaded their ammo this past off-season – all with the goal of slaying the mighty Warriors. Winning in the NBA is more difficult than ever, and Curry looks to be well aware of the need to stay focused, motivated, and hungry throughout the entire year.
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