On the other hand, by the same logic, and with fewer ifs:
1. Kyrie and Love are healthy in 2015, Dubs have to play a non-skeleton team
2. OKC doesn't pull a historic choke job in 2016
= Steph and co. have zero rings
Lol, solid troll job, but that’s not even a little bit the same logic. Sorry for the digression, but if you’ll indulge...
1. The Warriors were the much better team than the Cavs in 2014-15 (+10.4 to +5.4 SRS). The Cavs eked out two close wins early in that series by turning the games into defensive slogs, with both both Steph and Klay still possibly suffering from concussions at the hands of Ariza in the WCF. After Game 3, with the small lineup tweak of Iguodala in the starting 5, the Warriors blew the Cavs off the floor in three straight.
I know how much we all cherish the winning ways of Mr. Chemistry, and how much we all want to add the lockdown defense of Kevin Love to our respective teams, but the most charitable assessment of that series for CLE is that we have no idea how it would have played out if Love and Kyrie (two offensive phenoms who were also their two worst defenders) had been healthy. Occam’s razor is that the team that put up nearly double the net rating in the tougher conference was the significantly better team. Asserting the Cavs win that series with Kyrie and Love as if its comparable to “Spurs win in 2013 if not for Ray’s shot” is pretty unsporting, imo.
2. If we’re going to play “butterfly flaps its wings” with 2016, we can pretty much make any point. Here, I’ll take away all the Pats’ Super Bowls in even fewer steps: (1) someone takes Brady off the board before #199 in 2000. Or in a more related vein: how many rings do Jordan and Bird win if their front offices are not able to swing draft day trades for Pippen and McHale/Parish?
As noted in the other thread, the Warriors had arguably the best five-year run in NBA history from 2014-19, so it’s a little unsporting to deprive them all their ‘chips in that span. They went 322-88 in that run (.785), 77-28 in the playoffs (.743), 14-2 in playoff series, 16-1 in the 2017 playoffs. Interestingly, none of LeBron’s team were that close to them any of those years, statistically anyway. The toughest team in that span was probably the 2015-16 Thunder (so says Iguodala, anyway); and the closest teams to them statistically were the 2015-16 Spurs, 2017-18 Rockets, and 2018-19 Bucks. But I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say the Warriors were the best team in each of those five seasons.
The interesting “other way” hypothetical you applied to the Bulls can actually be applied pretty easily Kerr Warriors: if they hadn’t succumbed to a similar spiritual fatigue to that which befell the Bulls (plus a couple gross injuries) how many titles do they rack up? I don’t think six or seven in a best case is out of the question. Steph, KD, Klay and Draymond are all roughly the ages of the Bulls’ core at the start of their second run of three titles.
TLDR: there may be an alt universe where Steve Kerr has 12 or 13 rings — with 3 or 4 more on their way — instead of a measly eight.