(MENAFN- Gulf Times) They had spent 40 years bumping around in the darkness of perennial cellar-dwellers, so when the Golden State Warriors finally emerged into the sunlight Friday - under confetti cannons and a clear blue sky - to celebrate their NBA championship with a victory lap through downtown, players and fans alike kept rubbing their eyes.
It may have been just the brightness of the day, but many still appeared to be in
disbelief.
"We've got to celebrate this trophy like there's no tomorrow," Stephen Curry, the Warriors' MVP guard, roared with Most Valuable Toddler, Riley Curry, in his arms.
A crowd of several hundred thousand people - some estimates went as high as a million - gathered along the parade route, then packed between Lake Merritt and the Henry J Kaiser Convention Center for the rally that followed.
This was the fourth championship parade for the Bay Area in five years, but the first in Oakland since the Raiders won the Super Bowl in 1981.
Thousands of fans rose early to snag a good spot for the parade, but it's unlikely many came from farther away than Shelly Canales, who travelled across a desert to reach the oasis at Lake Merritt. Canales followed the team for years, then moved to Arizona because of her husband's new job just as the Warriors were getting good. So when they beat the Cavs, she was determined to come back and celebrate. She and her son Ryan, 11, used chalk to write "Go, Warriors!" all over the family's Ford Flex. "We got lots of honks," Canales said.
"That could have been my driving, though." She set their Friday wake-up call for 1:45am and secured a prime spot along the railing of the parade route by 4:30am Ryan didn't mind the early alarm. He was a Warriors fan at age 4, back when he misunderstood the name and thought his parents were rooting for the "Lawyers."
"We let that slide for a few seasons," Canales, 31, said. "Then it got weird."
The 2-mile parade route was the final step in a journey that began the season after the Warriors finished their sweep of the Washington Bullets to win the title in 1975. There was no parade in those days, just a rally at the Coliseum Arena, for which 16,000 free tickets were handed out and 8,000 supporters showed up. At that event, Warriors forward Derrek Dickey expressed the prevailing sense of optimism about the franchise's future, saying, "Remember one thing, we've only just begun."
Which turned out to be true, just not in the way Dickey intended it. Long before they were the Dubs, they were the Duds, the NBA's fountainhead of futility.
Gilbert Jones Jr, of San Leandro, who was watching the parade with his wife Dorothy, has been rooting for the Warriors for more than 40 years. He vividly recalled the team's last championship and the nightmare years that followed.
"They used to make me so mad," he said, "the fourth quarter and they'd start losing." But he refused to give up. "I knew they were going to do it," he said. "I stuck right with them, win or lose."
Benjamin Franklin, 36, and girlfriend Kimberley Remillard, 34, got up at 4am and drove from Hayward to claim a spot. "This is good for our city to be in the spotlight," he said. "It's usually for something negative."
It was true that just as the Warriors were finally emerging from their years in the basketball wilderness, the parade also marked the end of a rough patch for the city of Oakland. The same streets that were filled Friday with double-decker buses and fire-breathing Snail Cars from Burning Man had recently been brought to a standstill by protesters angry about police shootings in other cities.
During this parade, the only protests came from fans unhappy about the owners' plan to move the team to San Francisco in a couple of years. As San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's car cruised down Harrison Street, fans yelled, "Don't steal our team!"
Oakland's unique flavor was on full display throughout the day. One fan
strolled around holding a boa constrictor around her neck, while another
brought a Shetland Pony to the party. Juan V., 23, dressed like a chicken in Warriors gear to the delight of fans at the rally site. "I still can't believe that they won," he clucked. "It's surreal." It was.
Children's Fairyland, a popular destination for Bay Area families, was for one day renamed "Rileyland," in honour of the 2-year-old supernova daughter of the Warriors All-star. After becoming famous for her adorable antics during daddy's playoff press conferences, Riley was hoisted up in front of a hot mic at the rally and given a chance to speak her mind.
"She wants to say something," Steph said. At which point Riley trilled something unintelligible at the crowd, then clammed up. "Stage fright," demurred dad.
The lake provided a perfect backdrop for the end of the team's drought, and fittingly, both Splash Brothers - Curry and Klay Thompson - recalled living in apartments on Lake Merritt after being drafted. Curry mentioned going unrecognized when he walked along the lake in those days. Now his toddler is even more famous than he was when the team was struggling.
"The cool thing about it is, we're going to suit up in three more months and try to do it again," Curry told the crowd.
By then, his wife Ayesha should have given birth to their second child, and Curry will report to training camp as the distracted daddy of a newborn - just another example of the little things that make it difficult to repeat as champions.
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