This is how good and deep the Warriors are. Too bad their current fans don’t deserve them. Over the course of the playoffs, as seat prices have begun to track those of San Francisco one-bedrooms, the crowd has changed from the Oakland faithful to the inevitable assortment of tech industry sociopaths. In the late-2000s, when the team consisted of Monta Ellis and young Curry (who then bore a strong resemblance to Natalie Portman), noodling and bricking shots, Oracle Arena was the best place to watch basketball: well-attended, agreeably loud, and above all, cheap. A quick search on SeatGeek for Game 5—which probably won’t even take place—divulges tickets in the nosebleeds for about $1,147. Not surprisingly the first game of this year’s finals took place in near-silence; the team’s slogan this year, “strength in numbers,” carries the unmistakable resonance of data mining.
