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After adding Kevin Durant to a core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala, the Warriors boast the most talented team on paper.
Even after notching the best regular-season record in NBA history in 2015-16 by going 73-9, some feel they could be even better.
According to Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins, an NBA front office ran a regular-season simulation of other teams, and well, the Warriors broke it. Via Jenkins:
"One NBA front office ran simulations, based on player values, for the upcoming season. Cleveland came out with 64 wins, second best in the league. Golden State came out with 83, better than undefeated. They broke the system."
The NBA regular season is 82 games, meaning, according to this team's simulation, the Warriors will go undefeated!
It's unclear how, exactly, this simulation worked, but going undefeated won't happen, of course. The Warriors struggled to get to 73 wins last season, fighting fatigue down the stretch of the regular season. While the addition of Durant makes them better, it's highly unlikely that he makes them impossible-to-beat better. After struggling with injuries in the playoffs and coming up short of a second straight championship, it seems even more unlikely that the Warriors would again pursue the best record in NBA history.
Whether the Warriors win 83 games or 73 or 65, it says something that, on paper, the talent they've collected broke another team's simulation.