Here’s the latest widely reported context on the 2015–16 Golden State Warriors season.
Core facts
- The 2015–16 Warriors set an NBA record with a 73–9 regular-season mark, surpassing the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls’ 72–10, and earned a franchise-best 73 wins. This remains the best regular-season record in NBA history, though they did not win the championship that year.[1][5]
- They started the season 24–0, then 28–0, and were the first defending champions to open with at least a 24–0 run since the 1957–58 Celtics, highlighting one of the most dominant regular seasons ever.[5]
- Stephen Curry won the NBA MVP for the 2014–15 season and entered 2015–16 as the reigning MVP, delivering an historic regular season with multiple triple- and double-digit scoring games. He helped fuel the team’s prolific offense, including an unprecedented pace of three-pointers.[5]
Playoff run and outcome
- Golden State reached the Western Conference finals in 2016 after sweeping through much of the early rounds, propelled by a record-breaking regular season and a high-powered offense led by Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.[1]
- In the 2016 Western Conference Finals, the Warriors led 3–1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder but eventually lost the series after the Thunder won Games 6 and 7, ending the team’s bid for back-to-back titles that year.[1]
- In the NBA Finals, the Warriors faced the Cleveland Cavaliers. The series went to a decisive Game 7, where Golden State fell to Cleveland, narrowly missing a title defense despite their historic regular-season performance.[1]
Notable records and milestones
- The team set a franchise record for wins combined across regular season and playoffs with 83 wins in the prior year; in 2015–16 they surpassed that pace, culminating in 88 wins across the season and playoffs before the Finals loss (the exact count varies by whether you include playoff wins). They also broke franchise records for total three-pointers in a playoff game and other high-scoring benchmarks during the postseason.[5][1]
- Three Warriors (Curry, Green, Thompson) earned All-NBA honors in 2015–16, marking the first time since the 1955–56 season that three players from the same team earned All-NBA recognition in the same season.[1]
Key personnel
- Head coach Steve Kerr guided the squad through the extraordinary regular season; the core rotation included Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala, with important contributions from Harrison Barnes and (later) auxillary pieces like Andrew Bogut and others depending on lineup changes that season.[5]
Context and aftermath
- The season is widely discussed as a paradox: a historic regular season that culminated in a championship defeat in June 2016, prompting analysis about playoff adjustments, injuries (notably Curry in the Finals and during the playoffs in other years), and strategic considerations for the following season.[1]
If you’d like, I can pull a concise, citable timeline highlighting dates and game-by-game milestones from a primary source, or summarize the 2015–16 season in a short table comparing regular-season and playoff results. Would you prefer a quick timeline or a side-by-side table?
Citations
- For the 73-win regular season and related milestones:.[5]
- For playoff run, including the 3–1 lead and eventual Finals outcome:.[1]
- For All-NBA honors and other season context:[1]