The current Warriors team has been nearly unstoppable this season. It is 52-5 and Stephen Curry is so good that video game makers have no idea what to do with him. Despite this, former Warriors forward Stephen Jackson believes an earlier version of the franchise is better.
“My Warriors team would beat today’s Warriors team," he said Thursday on ESPN's "The Jump." "I guarantee that. I guarantee that.”
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NBA analyst Zach Lowe was also on the show and couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Jackson: “They’re great, don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking that from them …”
Lowe: “Yes you are.”
Jackson: “… but we would’ve beat ’em. We had more heart.”
On Friday, the show re-addressed the issue and Jackson didn't back down from his claims.
"We were a confident team and we did beat a 67-win (Mavericks team)," he said. "And we beat them all four times in the regular season. The team we had, regardless of who we played, we felt confident. We were a smaller team, we just had heart. We played small and we beat a lot of teams that we (weren't) supposed to beat. I would never sit here and say anyone would beat us."
Well, word got around to the current Warriors and they spent Friday evening mocking Jackson with subtweets.
My under 14 team in Melbourne Australia would have beat these @warriors 109-99. Fat Jimmy would have locked down @StephenCurry30 !!!!
— Andrew Bogut (@andrewbogut) February 26, 2016
Cmon man! Call fat jimmy up & tell him im looking for him https://t.co/tKKkjP16J2
— Stephen Curry (@StephenCurry30) February 26, 2016
Tell Big Jimmy you and I have illegal screens for days to allow Steph to get his shot off! https://t.co/Q9lc0IMk3a
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) February 26, 2016
The 2006-07 Warriors, as an eight-seed, did upset the top-seeded Mavericks, who were having a great season. But they lost in the next round to the Jazz. This current Warriors team is fresh off a championship and looks even better than last year's group, which didn't seem possible.
When a hypothetical starting lineup was set, Jackson did have one change to make. He felt like Al Harrington would be a "big problem" for big man Andrew Bogut. It's possible, but would the 2007 Warriors have an answer for the Splash Brothers? It's easy for Jackson to sit there and say his team would win, but there's literally no way of knowing.
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We ran the simulation through WhatIfSports, a website which simulates these hypothetical situations between old teams and new teams. To be fair, the simulation only lets us use last year's Warriors squad, but the starting lineup remains the same so we felt comfortable moving forward with our scientific data. We ran it 10 times, and each time the current Warriors roster won, often in blowout fashion.
Jackson's confidence is something to be admired, but we find it really hard to believe his team was better than this current Warriors squad.