Stephen Curry, Warriors Named 2018 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year

The Golden State Warriors have been named the 2018 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year.

The site's editors wrote:

"For all the individual brilliance of Steph Curry—a selection whom few would have protested—the Warriors have always been most delightfully viewed through a collective prism. There have been superteams that have forced us to reimagine how the game is played, but none perhaps in a generation, maybe two, are so beautifully choreographed as the Warriors."

As Sports Illustrated noted, a major factor when considering the entire team as the Sportsperson of the Year was how the Warriors have not only changed basketball but also intersected with culture and even politics:

"The rise of the Warriors has coincided with the restoration of the NBA as a leading edge of culture that recalls the league's prolonged boom, which began with the Magic-Larry years in the 1980s and continued through the Jordan-dominated '90s. The current boom, too, has coincided with the increasing intersection of sports and the hard questions of politics, race and identity, among others, that have so divided the country. The Warriors—forcefully but civilly—embraced the unique platform afforded them."

There's little question that the Warriors have changed the NBA.

Their focus on stretching the floor and prioritizing the three-point shot has changed the philosophy of offensive basketball. The days of plodding big men banging down on the post or isolation wings heaving up midrange jumpers as their primary source of offense (see: Anthony, Carmelo) are slowly becoming obsolete, replaced by motion offenses and a greater emphasis on higher efficiency shots at the rim or behind the three-point line.

But when Kevin Durant signed with the Warriors ahead of the 2016-17 season—and promptly won the next two NBA Finals MVP awards amid Warriors titles—it also removed any doubt that the superteam was the ultimate end goal of team building. If the Miami Heat and the trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh ushered in the superteam era, Curry, Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green became the gold standard. 

In the process, the Warriors have also represented the league's greater awareness and advocacy against social injustices and intolerance.

Head coach Steve Kerr, Curry and Durant in particular have been outspoken against President Donald Trump, with the Warriors abstaining from attending the White House after their championships due to the President's divisive political rhetoric and his campaign of smearing NFL players who knelt or demonstrated in some manner during the playing of the national anthem in an effort to protest racial inequality and police brutality.

Different generations of NBA athletes have handled social issues in different ways. While a superstar like Michael Jordan generally chose to stay out of those conversations, at least publicly, modern players like LeBron James or the Warriors haven't shied away from public discussions of race, inequality and even mental health.