History of the San Francisco Warriors

The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The team was established in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a founding member of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), and it won the inaugural 1947 BAA Finals that is now considered the first NBA Championship.

In 1962, the franchise relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and was renamed as the San Francisco Warriors until 1971, when it changed its geographic moniker to Golden State, California's state nickname. Since 1972, the team's home court has been Oracle Arena in Oakland.

The Warriors hold the record for most wins by one team in a regular season with 73. They broke a 20-year-old NBA record (previously held by the Chicago Bulls) by finishing the 2015–16 regular season with a W-L record of 73–9.

The Warriors have won four NBA championships. They most recently won the NBA championship by defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2015 Finals.

1962–1971: San Francisco Warriors

In 1962, Franklin Mieuli purchased the majority shares of the team and relocated the franchise to the San Francisco Bay Area, renaming them the San Francisco Warriors. The Warriors played most of their home games at the Cow Palace in Daly City (the facility lies just south of the San Francisco city limits) from 1962–64 and the San Francisco Civic Auditorium from 1964–66, though occasionally playing home games in nearby cities such as Oakland and San Jose.

Prior to the 1963–64 NBA season, the Warriors drafted big man Nate Thurmond to go along with Chamberlain. The Warriors won the Western Division crown that season, but lost the 1964 NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics, four games to one. In the 1964–65 season, the Warriors traded Chamberlain to the Philadelphia 76ers for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, Paul Neumann and $150,000 and won only 17 games. In 1965, they drafted Rick Barry in the first round who went on to become NBA Rookie of the Year that season and then led the Warriors to the NBA finals in the 1966–67 season, losing (four games to two) to Chamberlain's new team that had replaced the Warriors in Philadelphia, the 76ers.

Angered by management's failure to pay him certain incentive bonuses he felt were due him, Barry sat out the 1967–68 season and signed with the Oakland Oaks of the rival American Basketball Association for the following year, but after four seasons in the ABA rejoined the Warriors in 1972. During Barry's absence, the Warriors were no longer title contenders, and the mantle of leadership fell to Thurmond, Jeff Mullins and Rudy LaRusso. They began scheduling more home games in Oakland with the opening of the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1966 and the 1970–71 season would be the team's last as the San Francisco Warriors.