San Francisco Warriors Add Golden State To Name

On July 16, 1971 the National Basketball Association San Francisco Warriors, add Golden State, and take away San Francisco from their name.

The San Diego Evening Tribune reports that the San Francisco Warriors will play half of their home games on the 1972 schedule in Oakland, with the other half to be played in San Diego. With the team moving out of San Francisco, it was also reported that the team would be changing its name to the "Golden State Warriors," so as to identify with both the cities of Oakland and San Diego.

As it turned out, the Warriors only played six games in San Diego that year, and then switched to playing in Oakland full-time. But they kept the "Golden State" name anyway, making them the only team in the NBA to not include their city or state in their name (although California's state motto was "the Golden State.")

The team would also change their logo, which was supposed to compensate for the confusion some fans had when they asked, "Where do the Golden State Warriors play?" The Warriors' new logo featured the outline of California, and had a blue star positioned on the edge of the state where the Bay Area was located.

As unique as it was, the Warriors weren't the only Oakland sports team to go this route.
One year earlier, the Oakland Seals of the NHL changed their name to the "California Golden Seals." Besides dropping the "Oakland" from their title, the Seals had also moved out of San Francisco.

In 1976, the Seals moved east and became the Cleveland Barons, where they lasted for two seasons before folding.

However, the Golden State might drop from the teams name as the team has proposed to build a 17,000-to-19,000-seat waterfront arena on Piers 30 and 32 in San Francisco on a 13-acre site near the Bay Bridge they hope to finish in time for the 2017-18 NBA season, when the team's lease at the Oracle Arena in Oakland expires

Since being named the Golden State Warriors, the Bay Area’s sole basketball franchise has won one NBA Championship coming in the 1974-1975 season, where the team beat the Washington Bullets in a four-game sweep, with home games being played in Oakland and San Francisco.

Since that 1974-1975 season the Warriors have struggled to get back to the NBA Finals obtaining only one Division Title coming in 1976.

Last years playoff appearance for the Warriors was only their second in the last 19 years, and were able to reach the second round again beating the higher seeded Denver Nuggets four games to two, before being eliminated by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semi Finals four games to one.

This off-season the Golden State Warriors made several moves to bolster their lineup for the upcoming season including signing marquee free agent Andre Iguodala who the Warriors General Manager Bob Myers is the right piece to put the Warriors over the hump and playing for the Western Conference Championship.