Are The Warriors A Cautionary Tale For The Astros?
With Klay Thompson headed to the Dallas Mavericks, it looks like the end of the Golden State Warriors dynasty. Should this be a cautionary tale for the Astros?
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00:00pain in Pendergast. Clay Thompson will be a Dallas Maverick next year. And to me, I
00:08look, I, I don't, the Warriors, I don't think Seth, we're going to be a title threat again
00:12anytime soon. They did win it two years ago. Um, kind of unexpectedly. So one last salvo
00:18for the dynasty that was the golden state Warriors. She was a great dynasty. One, four
00:23titles, I believe if I'm not mistaken. Um, and it was a great dynasty. The, uh, the talking
00:29about it, talking about it, like it's a, like a, a, a ship or a, a queen or something.
00:36Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yep. Um, so, um, so yeah, she was a great dynasty. Uh,
00:43the titles were spread out over a nice swath of calendar years. You know, the first one
00:50was in 2015. The last one was in 2022. The 2022 team did not look a lot like the 20 or
00:58a lot like the 15 team other than Draymond Steph and Clay Thompson. Yes. And it's like,
01:05uh, much like the Royal dynasty in England. Doesn't look like it used to a little bit,
01:09you know, just, uh, basically a glorified Kardashian show at this point, but still a
01:14little bit. Uh, yeah, it's a, it's kind of sputtering. It's on its last dying gasp apparently.
01:19So I would imagine, I would imagine the Bay area today that this is probably like the
01:24feeling like, okay, like it's over. Like this is the, you know, it's been dead for
01:29a little bit here in terms of winning championships. But as far as like the faces of it leaving,
01:33like this is probably a day where it feels like it's over. Like we still have Steph and
01:38Draymond still bugging people, but this, this is, it's probably over now. Right? Right.
01:42Yeah. I think so. Yeah. You're in rebuild mode for a, for a franchise that did things
01:47really well for a long time. Yup. Their core of players. Cause like, let's remember like
01:50one of the most impressive thing about the warriors was that they were largely a homegrown
01:55team. You know, they get Draymond and clay Thompson and Steph Curry. You didn't have
02:00to, you didn't have to pick them number one overall or anything like they had, they had
02:04a core that was homegrown. They brought in Durant, but still nonetheless, you, you can't
02:10recreate that lightning in a bottle in one, uh, in one fell swoop. No, no. I don't want
02:15to just want to drive by the Durant thing though. Cause that like rehashing this part
02:19of it makes the Durant thing super frustrating to me. Like they didn't need to do that. It
02:23was bad for the NBA. Yeah. It's Chris Paul's totally Chris Paul's fault. Yeah. He was,
02:27Chris Paul didn't want to tear. They didn't, he just said, Nope, we want all that. We want
02:31all that luxury tax room right now. And it allowed the warriors who are already stacked
02:36to add a superstar player. Yeah. He was Paul, the, uh, the, the players association president
02:42basically facilitated that. Yeah. The cap went from 70 to 94 million in one year. So
02:47it was basically room for every team to go get a superstar if they wanted to ruined a
02:51lot of other teams. Cause they went and signed clowns that had no business making as much
02:55money as they did. I've got the list here. We can go through it in a second, but the,
02:59just to localize the clay Thompson thing. Cause I think to me, like the, the Astros
03:04are in a unique spot. There haven't been many dynasties across all three of the sports we
03:08follow most closely here. Uh, over the last couple of decades, it's been the Patriots
03:13in the NFL. It's been the warriors in the NBA. You know, you can say what you want about
03:18the spurs, I guess, sort of dynasty, you know, they, they, they spread theirs out over a
03:22wide, you know, spurs are in there. Um, and then in baseball, it's the Astros and that's
03:27it for the two thousands. Did, have we had this similar feeling to what warriors fans
03:33are feeling with clay today probably, or is the fact that the Astros have still remained
03:38a championship contender and, and likely we'll be back in the mix here probably at some point
03:44this year. Does that cushion the blow from some of the guys we left? Or if we felt similar
03:48to how they're probably feeling about clay, like when Springer and Correa and guys like
03:51that, um, well, I mean, it's, you know, hindsight, it's easier to say no, because like, obviously
03:59they've, we've lost those players and then they went on to win a world series, went on
04:04to go to another cause several ACE ALCS is depending on how did we feel? Yeah. Like how
04:09do you, I never felt, no, I think cause they were so stacked that it never felt, it didn't
04:16feel like it when Springer left and you could see that one coming, you know, 18 miles away
04:21cause Springer Springer about as politely as anybody has ever been able to do it. Uh,
04:27basically made a few statements about how it's a business and everything, but nobody
04:31ever, he never did it in a jerkish way. Um, but I don't think it felt that way when Springer
04:36left, it felt like a certain era was leaving with Springer walking out the door cause Springer's
04:41energy and enthusiasm and everything else was so integral to bringing the Astros to,
04:48to prominence and domination. But I didn't feel that way when Springer left, I didn't
04:53feel that way when Cole left, uh, not even close when Cole, right. Yeah. I mean, Cole,
04:57I was still like, Oh, because I think, I think we did, even though we got spoiled by it,
05:02we did still appreciate that having pitching that is that dominant across the board. I
05:10mean, the pitching that year was just so incredibly good with two Cy Young candidates on the squad,
05:15just dealing and, and with Garrett Cole, remember he didn't really pick it up until the second
05:19half of the season. Um, but yeah, I don't, I didn't feel that way with, with, uh, with
05:25Cole leaving with Correa leaving and with the uncertainty about what Jeremy Pena might
05:30be or what his replacement would be like in having already lost other guys. That's where
05:35it started to feel. That was my first moment where I was kind of like, all right, well
05:39I get it and I understand, but man, this, it does feel different. It felt like a much
05:44different team. Yeah. This is where it's, you know, um, this is if the Astros don't
05:51get back in the hunt this year, you know, let's say that this has just been a sugar
05:54high that they've been on and that eventually the pitching injuries catch up to them and
06:00they, you know, they just, they finish, they, you know, they finish, you know, 82 and 80
06:04or something like that. I will tell you right now, Bregman leaving after this year is going
06:08to feel a lot like probably how Clay Thompson leaving the Warriors feels to war to warrior
06:14fans today, because that's, there's, there's probably if they're 82, they're 500 baseball
06:19team and they don't make the playoffs.
06:21There's probably something bigger going on with the Astros that needs to be addressed
06:24than just Alex Bregman, similar to the Warriors, similar to the Warriors, the true face of
06:29that era of great basketball, Steph Curry, Jose Altuve, still with the Astros here. Hell
06:36I'll even to the pair. I wasn't even trying to like, I was this, I wasn't even leaning
06:40into this on the rundown. They both won their last championships in 2022. You know what
06:45I mean? Like, like they both, and it was after, and they both won their first ones, you know,
06:49five, six, seven years before that there was a, you know, some kind of a gap in between
06:53some championships there. There's a lot of similarities. When I watched Clay leaving
06:57the Warriors where I'm like, man, we're, we're about, we, if the Astros don't pull
07:01out of this thing here and make themselves relevant and make another run here, and they
07:05just become a run of the mill team, like the Warriors did a 10 seed that got knocked out
07:09in the play in, then there's going to be a lot of Bregman leaving.
07:12That's going to feel very Clay Thompson ish here. I think, you know, I mean, it's, I mean,
07:16it's different because it's a different sport. Yeah. I mean, because of the numbers involved,
07:20I'm not saying it's exactly the same. No, no, no. I know. I know. I'm just saying that's
07:23like the big difference is that it's hard to just take one guy and say, Oh yeah, that's
07:29the moment I went broke. Like what's the, it's one thing. If you lose everything in
07:33the stock market crash or something, then, okay. It's easy to point out when you went
07:37broke.
07:38But yeah, there's the old saying, like people go broke, people go broke very slowly. And
07:44then all at once, would this be the all at once moment where if, if Bregman leaves the,
07:51this would remain from 2017, it would be L2 of a Verlander and McCullers. Yeah. And,
07:56and I'm glad you brought up 2017 because to me, this is just how I feel, right? There's
08:00an emotional topic. This is how I feel emotionally. There are the four faces of the Astros, not
08:07just window of dominance, but the surge into it because the surge into it includes being
08:11there when the bad times were existing to me.
08:14And to me, how I feel it's Altuve, it's Bregman, it's Correa, it's Springer. Those are like
08:19the four horsemen of the apocalypse of this Astros run. I know Verlander has been great.
08:23I know there's even a lot of great guys, Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez. Those four guys were
08:27there in 2017 from the get go like Verlander, they acquired in that seat. They were there.
08:32They came up through the minor league system of the Astros, all four of them. They, to
08:36me are similar to Draymond clay Steph. I'll even throw KD in there as a face of the championships,
08:44but really those three homegrown, like you just said, homegrown drafted by the organization.
08:50And to me like Springer Correa, I'm with you. Like I didn't feel it because they were still
08:55humming and they were still winning championships.
08:59If the, if, if they're just an average baseball team this year and Bregman leaves, and this
09:03is the beginning of a, like a reset, then, then it's, it, it feels similar to the clay
09:08thing for me. I guess the other side of it then too, is like, they still have some very
09:12good young players. They are, you're kind of fast forwarding to like, if it doesn't
09:20work out this year, I guess, but if it does, or if it doesn't work out this year and they
09:24played, but, but they lose Bregman, it's not going to feel like that because like obviously
09:30Bregman and Bregman alone isn't, isn't the reason that they would have played well if
09:34they don't.
09:37I still think if we go to the back of the baseball cards, I still feel like they're
09:43going to, they'd still be a playoff team, a playoff caliber team. You know, like if
09:48they don't, if they don't play well this year for the, if they play 500 baseball for the
09:53rest of the way through there, they're still on paper, a better than average major league
10:00baseball team with some very promising developments in the minor league system. And I guess that's
10:06the difference is if Dana Brown's draft last year was as good as it looks right this moment,
10:12there are, you've got guys that are incredibly precocious in their advancement through the
10:16minor league system right now, that it's not going to feel as much like the door being
10:21shut on the Warriors because it's harder to, you don't have a pipeline in basketball than
10:26you do in baseball. And I think the Astros are, the Astros are better set up right now
10:30than, I mean, we've seen for years and years now that this organization far exceeds whatever
10:36baseball America or any of the other people who rate the pipelines, they've far exceeded
10:42ratings are with their pipeline as these guys continue to come up. And I think that that
10:47infrastructure is still there. Yeah, I hope so. And then it's all on Dana Brown. Like
10:51Dana Brown gets to really like, it's a, it's a matter of how quickly some of these guys
10:55move through the system and how well do you develop the talent on the team that's here
10:59already? Yeah, we'll see. And to be clear, if they go on, they make a run to another
11:02ALCS or another world series and Bregman goes, then it's, we just keep on humming, you know,
11:06that that's the feeling, but if they just level off and it's a mediocre team and Bregman
11:10starts leaving it, it, for me, it'll have some clay feelings to it. Patriots, I guess
11:15the Patriots, I mean for the Patriots, there's a Tom Brady leaving, I guess. Right? Like
11:19the, yeah. What was the player for the Patriots? I don't know. I don't know. I guess that was
11:24maybe Gronk retiring or something like, yeah. Cause, cause they, they started to tell them,
11:28I mean, they, they won the super bowl in 2018, but 2019 was a seriously, I mean, they made
11:33the playoffs in 2019, but they lost to the Titans. That was the year where Brady's yelling
11:37at his receivers to run faster in Houston. You guys need to be faster. You need to go
11:43back in time and have your mom sleep with a different dude. Cause your dad sucks basically
11:48is what he was saying. Yeah. Cause they didn't have guys who were capable of running faster
11:51on that. That was a, they were giving their all Tom. Sorry. Yep. Be more like Randy Moss.
11:59More like Randy Moss. Boy, you mentioned Chris Paul. Maybe we can hit some of these names
12:06in the nine o'clock hour. When Chris Paul ruined the NBA by approving of a huge salary
12:11cap spike instead of smoothing it over time as the NBA players association president,
12:16he needs to be taken to task more for that. I think that was, that was the, that's why
12:20Kevin Durant wound up with the warriors. It's also a Nicholas Batum wound up with $120 million.
12:26And was that when, was that when Memphis paid Charler Chandler Parsons, even though Chandler
12:30Parsons needs it already turned into Trace Lettuce, four years, $94 million. Yeah.
12:36Yeah. How many games did he play for them? I don't know. Not many. I, he, he ended up,
12:40he did not finish that contract with the Memphis Grizzlies. Good for him. Yeah. Remember what a
12:45doughy dopey kid he was coming out of college. He transformed himself into a total Metro sexual
12:51guy. He did total Fort worth Dallas Metro sexual. He was at his best getting paid $900,000 a year
12:59by the Rockets. And he was at his worst getting paid 25 million a year by the Memphis Grizzlies.
13:04It's a, it's a remarkable back of the baseball card. All right. Payne and Pendergast with you
13:09on a, on a Tuesday, let's head into the nine o'clock hour. Seth Payne got the.