The Most Unlikely NBA Champions Ever?

BY Chris Sheridan

Aside from the 1968 New York Jets winning the Super Bowl, what is the greatest championship achievement in U.S. sports history?

Rick Barry thinks he has the answer, in large part because he lived it (and will be reliving it again at the 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend).

It is the 1974-75 Golden State Warriors, who defeated the Washington Bullets 4-0 in the NBA Finals when Steph Curry’s dad, Dell Curry, was only an 11-year-old.

“It is the most overlooked championship in the history of U.S. sports. It is just like [Joe] Namath, except we didn’t predict it,” Barry told Legends Magazine earlier this winter on a seven-way call with his teammates. “There is nothing remotely close. To be expected to do nothing and then to sweep a team that was supposed to sweep us, it has never happened before or since.”

The championship Barry referenced is part of NBA lore for a generation that is aging into its 60s, 70s, and 80s. The Warriors won Game 1 in Landover, Maryland, 101-95. They took Game 2 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, 92-91. Golden State won Game 3 in the old San Francisco rodeo facility, 109-101. Then, they finished the sweep on the road with a 96-95 victory in which head coach Al Attles was ejected by referee Richie Powers in the first quarter for joining the fray after the Bullets’ Mike Riordan grabbed Barry around the neck in an effort to get the Warriors’ best player ejected.

“It was obvious what Riordan was trying to do, and Al just shot off that bench and got involved,” Barry said. “At dinner the previous night, I got word through some mutual friends that they were going to do that. And Richie Powers, in his infinite wisdom, throws out the coach.”

Powers was the best-known referee in the NBA at that time, a designation that was later handed to the likes of Dick Bavetta, Ronnie Nunn, Joey Crawford and may now be owned by Bill Kennedy. As much as the league has evolved, the best-known referee thing has endured.

Now, 50 years removed from that title, these former Dubs are excited to be heading back to the Bay Area for the league’s showcase event to remind anyone who will listen that they were the quintessential Warriors success story long before Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson earned four rings, reached the NBA Finals in five straight years, and won an NBA-record 73 games in the 2015-16 season.

“I just read that the current Golden State Warriors have 211 employees,” said former Warriors reserve guard Jeff Mullins. “We had 11, and that included the owner.”

“The similarities to the recent Golden State championship teams is incredible,” Barry said. “We were deep, we had shooters like Steph and Klay in me and Jamaal (Wilkes), we had shot blockers. It is incredibly interesting how similar we were.”

“That team had an IQ that was off the charts,” recalled former Warriors center Clifford Ray. “Jamaal was young, but he still knew how to play.”

Former Warriors reserve guard Charles Dudley is trying to find a broadcast outlet deal for a completed documentary about the championship that anyone 60 or older remembers vividly. It happened one year before the NBA-ABA merger, it was televised by CBS Sports, and the lead broadcaster was Brent Musburger.

“Prior to the first game, I am shooting around, and Brent came over and said, ‘This is my big chance. Try to go at least six games,’” Mullins recalled. “At 3-0, Brent was still saying the same thing, saying he needed the air time.”

The seven players who participated on the call remember all sorts of unusual details from the championship run, including how the Warriors’ home games had to be played at the Cow Palace in Daly City because the Oakland Coliseum had been booked that May for the Ice Capades.

But because it was 1975, Game 1 was in the East, Games 2 and 3 in the West, and Game 4 in the East.

“I saw them outside the arena, I saw that they were smoking cigarettes, even Elvin Hayes, and I knew the Cow Palace was dusty, so I thought we would beat them,” Dudley said.

“In The Cow Palace, you could run up and down,” Mullins said. “It was an elongated building where they did motocross, rodeos and where Evel Knievel did jumps. The visual perception was that it was a long court.”

To a man, among the seven players interviewed by Legends Magazine – Dudley, Wilkes, Mullins, Barry, Ray, Butch Beard, and George Johnson – there was unanimity that the championship had sort of been won in the Western Conference Finals when the Warriors defeated the Chicago Bulls. Golden State came back from a big deficit on the road to win Game 6 at Chicago Stadium, then pulled off a similar comeback in Game 7 at home in Oakland. The Warriors ended up winning their final six games. And Ray did it against the team that had traded him for Nate Thurmond.

“Nate Thurmond had been an idol for me, and I thought the Bulls did me a favor when they traded me,” Ray said. “In Game 7, we got down and dirty. We always challenged ourselves defensively and could win on both ends. That’s what makes any team special.

“I had given away a game earlier in the series because I saw Al shouting and thought it was because of the shot clock, which I could not find because they were not atop the backboard in those days. So, I took a baseline shot and missed, (Tom) Boerwinkle rebounded, and they won by 1 point,” Barry added. “I also remember Game 7 was a horror show for me.”

Barry shot 8-for-23 in that Game 7, but Wilkes had 24 points in the 83-79 win. The Warriors had a 23-6 edge in bench scoring and got five of their 11 blocks from Johnson, who came off the bench. The Warriors held the Bulls to 14 fourth-quarter points after being down 11 at halftime.

“In the second half and the fourth quarter, great defense was the catalyst, and in that series, I knew the key would be the guards,” said Butch Beard.  “We had to at least equal what their guards (Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier) would do.”

Several of the players recalled the turning point of the season was after a team dinner in Milwaukee at the Pfister Hotel, where owner Franklin Mueli purchased much wine. Following a lopsided loss, Coach Attles threatened to send the entire team to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City to learn alcohol abstinence.

“You never wanted to let Al down,” said Ray of the former coach, who passed away on August 20 of last year.

What made the nation regard the Warriors’ sweep as an upset was the fact that Golden State had gone 1-3 against the Bullets during the regular season, and Washington was coming off a six-game victory over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics and Bullets had won an NBA-best 60 games that season, while the Warriors went 48-34 for the best record in the West.

“We had gotten better over the course of the season,” Johnson said. “We had grown together and were confident at that point. I was nervous, but then we won Games 1 and 2, and it was all downhill.”

“I was more fearful of the Bulls,” Beard said. “Because all the regular season games against the Bullets had been close.”

“The Bullets may have been overconfident,” Wilkes says, “and we just went out and played better.”

The championship was the crowning achievement of Dudley’s career, and the documentary is a project that he spent countless hours putting together. His next step is getting it into the hands of a company that will get it widely distributed so that everyone from Baby Boomers to Gen X and Gen Z can have a full visual recollection of what happened in Bay Area basketball circles half of a century ago.

Given the closeness of this team that has remained constant for five decades, somebody will make the proper connection and help Dudley complete his final step.

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