Golden State Warriors

Philadelphia, Oakland, Mission Bay

The club that now plays in San Francisco began in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors, a charter member of the Basketball Association of America, and won that league's first championship in 1947. A second title followed in 1956. The franchise moved to the Bay Area in 1962 and took years to find a settled home, using the Cow Palace from 1962 to 1964 and the San Francisco Civic Auditorium from 1964 to 1966.

The Golden State name was adopted in 1971 — a claim on the whole state rather than a single city — and the team took up residence at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in the same year. A third championship came in 1975, and then four decades passed without another. Oakland is where the crowd got its reputation and its nickname, Roaracle, and the club stayed there until the summer of 2019.

Chase Center opened on 6 September 2019 in Mission Bay, with Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony playing the first night. It cost about 1.4 billion dollars and was built without public construction money, which makes it unusual among American arenas of its size. Joe Lacob remains majority owner, with Peter Guber as co-owner and Mike Dunleavy Jr as general manager.

The run that changed the maths

The work that defines this franchise is compressed into eight seasons. Titles came in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022, and in 2015-16 the team won 73 regular-season games and lost nine, more wins than any side in league history, before losing the Finals to Cleveland. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson pulled the three-point line to the centre of how the sport is played, and Curry holds the all-time record for three-pointers made.

Steve Kerr has been the head coach through all of it. He is 604-353 in the regular season and 104-48 in the playoffs, has reached six Finals, won four of them, and took Coach of the Year in 2015-16. Curry's shooting has not tailed off in any obvious way: in 2025-26 he led the league in three-pointers per game at 4.4, the sixth consecutive year he has done so.

Thirty-seven and forty-five

The 2025-26 season was the first losing one since 2020. Golden State finished 37-45, fourth in the Pacific Division and tenth in the Western Conference. Al Horford and De'Anthony Melton had signed as free agents on 1 October 2025. Curry scored 49 against San Antonio on 14 November and averaged 26.6 points, but played only 43 games and sat out a stretch of 27.

The season turned on 19 January, when Jimmy Butler III went down against Miami with a knee injury that finished his year. Curry and Butler missed 83 games between them. On 5 February the front office restructured the roster around the damage, sending Buddy Hield and Jonathan Kuminga to Atlanta for Kristaps Porzingis and moving Trayce Jackson-Davis to Toronto.

A play-in place was clinched on 29 March, the third year running. Golden State beat the LA Clippers 126-121 on 15 April, then lost 111-96 in Phoenix on 17 April. They were 18 points down inside the first quarter, cut it to five by half-time and were beaten in the second half. Curry took 16 shots and made four, finishing with 17 points; Brandin Podziemski led the team with 23, Melton had 16, Porzingis 11, and Draymond Green was ejected in the closing seconds.

A summer spent keeping people

The first question was whether Kerr would stay. On 12 May the club announced a two-year contract. "I'm grateful for the opportunity to continue coaching this team," he said. "This organization has meant so much to me for the last 12 years — from ownership to our players, our staff and our fans." Dunleavy framed the decision as being about more than the trophies: "His impact on our franchise has been enormous, well beyond the championships and incredible on-court success." Frank Vogel joined the staff as associate head coach.

At the draft on 24 June, Golden State took Yaxel Lendeborg out of Michigan at number 11 and Lajae Jones of Florida State at 54; Jones went unsigned and joined Pallacanestro Trieste on 21 September. Lendeborg was named Summer League MVP and has not been shy about what he intends to bring: "I'm gonna be the most energetic-playing guy on the floor every night."

Then came the retentions, one after another: Porzingis on 30 June, Horford on 6 July, Charles Bassey on 9 July, Green on 30 July on a one-year deal covering 2026-27, and Melton and Gary Payton II on 1 August. Depth was added late in the summer — Georges Niang from Atlanta on 25 August, Brandon Williams from Dallas on 26 August, Dalen Terry from Philadelphia on 27 August. Pat Spencer left for Phoenix on 3 July and Quinten Post for Memphis on 8 July. Almost nothing about the core changed.

Where it stands in late September

The schedule was published on 13 August. Pre-season opens on 4 October, the regular season starts on 21 October away at the Lakers, and the home opener is on Friday 23 October against a Memphis side rebuilt around young players including the 2026 draft pick Cam Boozer. Golden State beat Memphis three times last season, once after trailing by 17. The home opener begins a back-to-back, with a trip to Phoenix the following night, and only two of October's games are at Chase Center; the long stretch at home comes in November.

Butler's return is the central unknown. He is expected back mid-season, plausibly January or February, which means the first third of the year is a holding pattern. League projections have the team improving by roughly six wins and reaching the play-in for a fourth consecutive season — better than last year, some way short of the contenders in the West. The plan, as far as one is stated, is health rather than reinvention.

There is also the matter of Chase Center's own record. The Warriors were 2-5 in home openers across their first seven seasons in the building, a run they broke last year when Curry scored 42 in an overtime win over Denver.

The building and the noise

Chase Center holds 18,064 for basketball and up to 19,500 for concerts, and sits on an 11-acre site with plazas, cafés and a five-and-a-half-acre waterfront park attached. It is served directly by the UCSF/Chase Center stop on the T Third light rail line and by ferries from Larkspur, Alameda, Oakland and South San Francisco; there are only around 950 parking spaces on site, which is why the club pushes public transit hard. Outside basketball it takes concerts, wrestling, boxing, college tournaments, esports and tennis, so a Warriors night is one of a great many things the room does.

The argument that has followed the team since the move is about volume. Speaking in February 2022, season-ticket holder Lisa Lopez put it plainly: "I feel that Oracle was more family oriented... Loud, always loud. You know, togetherness. Here at Chase, it's more spread out." Another long-time holder, Brad Smith, called it "a souped-up version of what was in Oakland, and it's not as good. The energy is not the same." Kerr has defended the room on different grounds: "It's much more intimate than a lot of the new arenas around the NBA. It feels great." A courtside security guard of 28 years, Curtis Jones, offered the simplest explanation for when the place gets loud — it tracks the winning.