Thoughts From a (former) Warriors Season Ticket Holder

Most of my posts will be Warriors related, but i'll try to expand out to the rest of the NBA as best as I can.

It all started from the WE BELIEVE era of the Warriors after 13 years of not making the playoffs and so many bad decisions throughout the whole franchise, Don Nelson with the cast of Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, Monte Ellis, Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, Mickael Pietrus, Al Harrington and Andris Biedrins going on an incredible hot streak and sneak into the 8th spot of the playoffs. Around the All-Star Break, the Warriors were not supposed to make the playoffs, which would be what all Warriors fans would accept, but the Indiana Pacers gave us some hope when they traded Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington (plus Sarunas Jasikevicius) for Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy (plus Ike Diogu). Then the biggest upset in NBA Playoffs history happened and the Warriors beat the #1 seed Dallas Mavericks.

Then building upon the sucess of the previous season and the emergence of Monta Ellis, the Warriors traded beloved Jason Richardson to Charlotte to draft Brandon Wright. The Warriors had a good season winning 48 games, but wasn't able to make it to the playoffs because the Western Conference was too good. I went to a game with a friend and checked out a table with sales reps from the Warriors offering the Playoff Push Plan where we would get playoff tickets for making a downpayment on season tickets next year. We thought the Warriors would make the playoffs for sure and then play the Lakers in the fist round which we honestly could have made a thousand dollars in selling our playoff tickets, but they CHOCKED and it went all downhill from here.

Once free agency period hit, Baron Davis opted out of the last year of his contract and signed with the Clippers. The Warriors panicked to find a replacement for him and signed Corey Maggette to a big contract after Elton Brand and Gilbert Arenas refused to sign with the Warriors. The Warriors resigned Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins as their core players for the futures. Then Monta Ellis celebrates his new contract by buying a moped and tears his ankle and misses the first half of the season.

We decided to get a pair of lower level seats behind the backboard which was the cheapest of the lower level with a season ticket holder price of $50 each and a face value of $80 thinking we could be able to sell games at face value and make $60 in profit for each game. This would have been the case if the Warriors were good and playing against a decent team. The Lakers are always schedule to come in to town and we could really make some money from selling those games. I was able to sell my pair for $250 and my friend sold his game for $300. But on the schedule comes midweek games against teams like the Kings, Thunder, Bucks, and Grizzlies where I could not find any buyers at all so I went to those games if I was able to go. The positive thing was that I was able to bring friends to their first Warriors game, but I could have bought similiar tickets from other season ticket holders or ticket brokers on craigslist for $20 instead of my cost of $50 or bought upper level tickets for $8. One of the perks that we got was to sit coutside at a pre-game shootaround as they Toronto players warmed up. That was an awesome experience as I got a "whats-up" from Jamario Moon, a thumbs up from Jose Calderon and a hand slap with Nathan Jawai. I yelled at Chris Bosh, but he didn't turn his head to look over at us. I went to a total of 10 games this past year and most of those games were losses.

In the end, I lost money by going to the games and eating most the costs for the people I took to the game so I will not renew my season ticket for next year even though they lowered the costs of our seat to $38 a game instead of $50 since the Warriors aren't going to get better anytime soon, even if they make the trade for Amare.