The Warriors: A Decent Time Out
For the past few seasons, the Warriors primary marketing slogan has been, A Great Time Out". Brimming with hope after Tuesday's trade, SFist decided to catch a game at the O-rena to find out for ourselves. This team now has new hope, and SFist was eager to see if there was a new buzz to go with it.
Since the Merc's Tim Kawakami couldn't make it, we figured we'd step in for Saturday's game against the Cavaliers.
Our audit considered 11 different categories: parking, Oraclelization, concessions, personnel, entertainment, the crowd, new players, visuals/lighting, the seats, music/sound, and the game itself. Each category was ranked from 1 to 10, with 10 being Pac Bell/SBC/ATT park and 1 being, well, Candlestick.
Parking -- We know that BART is great for the O-rena, so we decided to emulate the experience of schlumps driving in from places like Mill Valley and Half Moon Bay. Like an elbow to the mouthpiece, parking is $15. Once inside, we discovered that the lot is actually compartmentalized into many smaller lots, intertwined by a rigging of cable and cement barriers. Very confusing, especially at night. If you like to tailgate, wait for football season, because the parking lot was a library. Also, while there are two exits for the O-rena off the 880, they are off the 880, easily one of the most consistently strictured freeways in the Bay Area. Allow plenty of time for stop-and-go on your way to the game. After the game, we were on the freeway within five minutes of getting in the car. Overall rating: 8
Oraclelization -- Given Larry's much bally-hooed ego and questions surrounding the motives for Oracle's arena sponsorship deal, for the most part, the Oracle stuff wasn't too oppressive. Outside, there are two Oracle signs at each entrance to the arena; with its prominent iPod silhouette banners, Apple has a more visible brand presence outside the O-rena than Oracle does. Inside was similarly restrained, with one massive exception. Just before tip off, every video screen and flashing light in the building started burning our irises with Oracle red as part of a three-minute marketing piece. It was absolutely egregious. The flashing Oracle logos and bright red screenshots were jarring and visually painful. Somebody is going to have a seizure one these days from that action. Overall rating: 6
The Warriors are a hot ticket in town. SFist decided to check it out. Image from SFist Chris.
Concessions -- Prohibitively expensive. We know that the food and beverages for all sports and entertainment events are ridiculously overpriced, but that doesn't make it right. You better come with a wad of cash to pay for the $8.50 beers and $9 sandwiches. Over in the Club section, they have attempted to disguise the fact that you're paying way too much for preheated bulk fare by offering "Pacific Rim Grub" and rotisserie meat sandwiches. Dropping $70 bucks for four beers and four sandwiches definitely detracted from the evening's pleasure. That rotisserie tri-tip sandwich was delicious though. Overall rating: 5
Personnel -- Very strong. Every Warriors or O-rena employee we encountered was pleasant and efficient. Hats off to the working folk. Overall rating: 9
Entertainment -- A mixed bag. To the Warriors credit, they have their mascot Thunder, the Warrior Girls, an emcee, two additional dance teams, and a house band, in addition to guest performers and the PA announcer. Oh yeah, and the fellas in the short pants and the high shoes. More on them later. Thunder is an annoying bastard, and we spent much of the slower parts of the game watching his childish antics and wishing somebody would go Charles Barkley on his ass. Didn't happen. The Warrior Girls are hot, but we were disappointed to see that only a few of the ladies have lower back tattoos. They were also a bit reticent. They made some good fourth quarter appearances but were a nonfactor earlier in the game. At the end of the first quarter, a seven-dude dance team came out and laid down some awesome old-school breakdancing. There were several prize giveaways and a couple of contests, but the emcee and PA announcer sounded so garbled, it was hard to understand what they were saying or what was going on. We weren't the only ones mumbling "what did he say" most of the night. Overall rating: 8
The crowd -- Frankly, disappointing. Maybe it's a defense mechanism or other adaptive response borne of more than a decade straight of losing records, but the crowd seemed, superficial. Yes, they roared when prompted to by the scoreboards and PA announcer, and cheered or booed for big plays and calls and in the game's closing minutes, but we did not feel that this crowd was emotionally invested in their team. Sure, there were the diehards and some season ticket holders, but overall, the crowd seemed to be playing the role of mindless consumer in the reality show called NBA basketball. The pregame buzz was lackluster, despite the trade, and the reaction to Stephen Jackson's pregame speech was embarrassingly flaccid. The crowd did heartily cheer his first made field goal though. Unless the PA system was instructing them to "Make some noise" the crowd was relatively passive -- they made more noise for a pizza giveaway skit than they did for Sarunas Jasikevicius's three-pointer near the end of OT that made it just a two-point game. Of course, many people didn't see that shot because droves of them had started leaving the game with 45 seconds left to play and the Dubs down by just five. What is this, a Dodger game? Overall rating: 4
New players -- Awesome. After the opening introductions, new Warrior Stephen Jackson took the microphone and personally thanked the team and the crowd for giving the four new members of the team an opportunity in Oakland. It was genuine and heartfelt. Even cynics like us were impressed with Jackson's humility and his attitude. And his play. He may have missed a shot to win it at the buzzer in OT, but otherwise Jackson was electric all night. He scored a season high 29 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, and seemed to be in the thick of the action at all tines. Al Harrington was pressing all night, trying to do way too much in his first game. He had a lousy shooting night (4-21) but showed quickness and ball-handling skills that will fit nicely into coach Don Nelson's system. We did notice that Harrington was still wearing his yellow Pacers shoes while Jackson and Jasikevicius had their new Warriors kicks. Jasikevicius was solid, but it's hard to see how he's going to get any time at the point sitting behind Baron Davis and Monta Ellis on the depth chart. Overall rating: 9
Visuals/lighting -- The O-rena has good sight lines and plenty of video screens located strategically throughout the arena. Some of the upper deck video screens appeared grainy and pixilated, but you could see 'em. One thought we had is that NBA pregame introductions haven't really progressed all that much in the last couple of decades. We've become jaded to the whole Spinal Tap approach of really, really loud noise, strobing lights, and a sense of the apocalypse. It's time for a new paradigm. Overall rating: 9
Seats -- Excellent. Deep and wide enough to settle into, with ample legroom. Over in the Club section, the seats are cushioned like those at the movies. We were extremely comfortable. All seats feature one of the greatest inventions in the history of stadium seating: the built-in cupholder. What did we ever do before we had a secure place to set our open-topped beverage? Overall rating: 9
Music/sound -- The right idea but . . . As we mentioned in Entertainment, it was very difficult to understand what either the PA announcer or the emcee were saying, especially when music was playing in the background. The music was great. Nice beats, good sound. But the spoken word was borderline unintelligible. One thing we liked is that the PA didn't constantly pump really, really loud music and noise during live action. There was some of that, but not to the point of distraction. Our apologies, but we kind of prefer to hear the sound of sneakers squeaking and guys calling picks instead of a percussion version of "We Will Rock You" cranked to 11. Overall rating: 6
The game -- Typical NBA fare. Typical Warriors result -- Cavaliers 106, Warriors 104. The first quarter was slow and plodding, the Warriors jacked out to a big lead in the second quarter, the Cavs chipped away at it, and by the last four minutes of the fourth quarter it was a tightly contested game. LeBron James had a great box score but he didn't seem that impressive (maybe the ankle), including missing two free throws that would have iced the game in regulation. Michael Jordan wouldn't have missed those throws. The game was exciting at the end and did go to overtime -- if only Jackson's shot had gone down, if only . . . Overall rating: 8
According to our officially branded SFist calculator, our overall rating of the Warriors game experience is 7.36 out of 10. It's a decent time out, especially if you've got the cash. Including a ticket for the cheapest seat in the house, parking or BART, one food item, and one beverage, you're going to need a hundie to get through the night. And that's not even counting money for drowning your sorrows after the game.