Ever since the Golden State Warriors dynasty started to take off, the fans of the franchise have seen some pretty amazing rosters compete to win the NBA Championship.
There was the 73-9 Warriors in 2016, who has the best statistical record in NBA history. But that team lost in the NBA Finals at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Obviously, there’s the time when Kevin Durant was part of the Dubs and helped the team win two back-to-back rings in 2017 and 2018. But even these teams couldn’t achieve a feat that the 2022 Golden State Warriors.
The 2022 Warriors were a special team as the Dubs made a comeback after missing the playoffs for two consecutive NBA seasons. Due to that, not many believed that the Warriors were a huge threat to any of the championship contenders in the Western Conference.
Fast forward to now, they were wrong by a huge margin as the ’22 Dubs proved that experience matters a lot when it comes to winning it all.
Anyway, coming back to the primary topic of this article, the 2022 Warriors became only the second team in NBA history to defeat teams that featured the Most Valuable Player, the Most Improved Player, and the Defensive Player of the Year, in a single playoff run.
The Warriors are now the second team in NBA history to defeat the MVP, MIP and DPOY in a single playoff run.
The other team? MJ’s ‘97 Bulls. 👀
(via @Sportradar) pic.twitter.com/OnlT4bOW7U
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) August 26, 2022
As mentioned in the above-attached tweet, the only team that achieved this feat apart from the 2022 Warriors were the 1997 Chicago Bulls.
The ’22 Warriors defeated Nikola Jokic (MVP), Ja Morant (MIP), and Marcus Smart (DPOY). As for the Bulls, they got past Karl Malone (MVP), Isaac Austin (MIP), and Dikembe Mutombo (DPOY). Considering this is such a rare achievement, it makes the Dubs’ 2022 NBA Championship even more valuable.
