When you look at the landscape of any professional sports league like the NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB; you will see teams make swings in such short time spans that are unthinkable. In baseball, the Cubs went from losing 100 plus games in a season to winning the World Series in a few seasons. Well, the Golden State Warriors have accomplished something that was not thought of a few years ago.
Every year, Forbes Magazine publishes a list of how much each sports teams is worth. They end up doing one for every league. The reason why the NBA list is interesting is that the Warriors had such an upswing over the last five years. Back in 2012, they were below average as far as value. Then in a short five years, they are now the third most valuable NBA team as they jumped to $2.6 Billion. Only Knicks and Lakers are more valuable than the Warriors.
Business Insider talked about how this jump in value that the Warriors have done has been unheard of. They talk about how when an NBA team makes the turnaround, the average is around $1.3 billion in growth. The Warriors have jumped to almost double that amount in such a short amount of time. A lot of the reason for why the Warriors have made such a huge jump is that they pretty much built through the draft by taking guys like Curry, Thompson, and Green over the years.
Essentially by building through the draft, they were able to get guys who ended up being beneficial for the Warriors. It also helps that they brought in Kevin Durant last offseason. As a fan of sports, I have seen when a front office takes the time to build a team, instead of buying a team, you gain a lot more interest. Also, the Warriors are starting the works on a new arena that is set to be open in 2019 and is being funded by them.
If you were wondering what the list looks like, here are the top five most valuable NBA teams according to Forbes magazine:
1- New York Knicks – $3.3 Billion
2- Los Angeles Lakers- $3 Billion
3- Golden State Warriors- $2.6 Billion
4- Chicago Bulls- $2.5 Billion
5- Boston Celtics- $2.2 Billion