by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Anybody that has lived in Northern California for a while understand that for any of our pro-teams here to get the respect they deserve nationwide, even the Golden State Warriors this season, which lose a game every two weeks, it not easy. During baseball season, even with the San Francisco Giants success of winning three World Series the last five years, we are subjected to the regular Yankee vs Red Sox game on television nationwide. A friend of mine that arrived from Latin America told me “are those the only two teams that play?”.

I have lived in the Bay Area since 1969, and this attitude by the media towards our west coast teams have changed little, even though today California is like a country, in 2013 California’s population was over 38 million people. It is the most populous U.S. state, home to one out of eight people who live in the U.S. and it is the third largest state by area.

If California was an independent bilingual country, our economy would surpass those of many countries in the world, including some in western Europe, especially compared today with Greece, Italy and some of those countries going basically bankrupt.

Efrain Osorio was a Cuban-American professor, editor in Havana of the old and very prestigious Christian Monitor Newspaper, who taught me a lot, and he (who lived in New York City) used to tell me “everything starts here, this is the center of the universe, remember we are born three hours earlier than you guys in the west coast, and we also die three hours earlier”, and yes, he was a character, but not far from the truth. I covered the Golden State Warriors last time they won an NBA title,(their only title in their Northern California history 1974-75), that was a very unexpected win, as they swept the Washington Bullets in four games, with the great Rick Barry winning the MVP.

After they won it all, there was a celebration at Union Square in San Francisco(even though the team played in Oakland)and I was there, as owner Franklin Mieuli, coach Al Attles, announcer Bill King(in my opinion the best ever basketball play by play man) I share great memories of Bill while doing the Warriors and the A’S. They all spoke to thousands crowding that famous San Francisco square.

The Warriors last title was 39 years ago, and they should have their best chance this season to win it again. There are really no dominating teams in the NBA anymore, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Celtics they are not what they were not long ago. First game of any professional team in the Bay Area that I ever covered, were the Warriors, when they played at the Cow Palace, in Daly City, as a writer for El Mundo bilingual news of Oakland, Hal Childs was their Public Relations man.

Childs as I remembered in 1971,the last year the San Francisco Warriors would play at that facility. It hosted the San Francisco Warriors of the NBA from 1962 to 1964 and again from 1966 to 1971. The Warriors temporarily returned to the Cow Palace to host the 1975 NBA Finals due to the fact that the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena was booked for an Ice Follies performance. History will repeat itself, and in a few years the team will move back to San Francisco, and they will probably be named again the San Francisco Warriors. The “Golden State” name never stuck with many people, including me, it made it sound like a college team, not a pro-team.

In the 1970’s the NBA’s biggest and most dominating star was Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,(previously known in UCLA as Lew Alcindor) just like in the 80’s Michael Jordan dominated the league, Abdul-Jabbar’s sky hook was unstoppable, if you saw it, and you covered basketball, and are of the age to have been a fan back then, it was a thing of beauty.

Today there are great players in the NBA, but there are definitely no Abdul-Jabbar’s or Michael Jordan’s, these types of players do not grow on trees. The biggest star is LeBron James who leads the league in scoring with and average of 26 points per game, the Clippers Andrew Jordan leads in rebounds with 13 per game, and Warriors Stephen Curry has the fastest hands with 2.1 steals per game leading the pack. The Warriors are a very exciting team, leading their division, second only to Atlanta in total wins, and a team that deserves much more respect than the media across this country is given them. At home, as of today, they are 23-2. No they are not in the Rodney Dangerfield category of “no respect”, but they could get much more…don’t you think so? If the Golden State Warriors go all the way, and there is a parade, someplace in the Bay Area,(Oakland needs a parade much more than San Francisco) will they then get that respect…I am not too sure.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the former Spanish radio voice for Golden State Warriors basketball and does News and Commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com