For us Bay Area natives, seeing NBA All-Star Weekend bridge the Bay feels like basketball poetry in motion. While Chase Center hosted Sunday night’s marquee events, it’s the NBA’s decision to resurrect Oracle Arena for All-Star Friday and Saturday that hit different. That’s where I spent countless nights watching the Warriors when they were NBA punchlines, when Warriors tickets were literally being passed out in the streets just to get folks to come. That’s when being a Dubs fan meant explaining to people that yes, we actually had an NBA team in Oakland.
The symmetry is almost too perfect: The NBA’s elite gathered in San Francisco to celebrate how the Warriors changed basketball forever, but they also payed homage to the building where that revolution was born.