A decade later: How David Lee’s historic All Star selection ushered in the Warriors dynasty

David Lee had to laugh. Has it already been that long?

It’s been 10 years since Lee was named an All-Star as a Golden State Warrior.

“God, that’s crazy,” Lee said in a phone conversation on Saturday afternoon.

And it’s an anniversary worth celebrating around Golden State. Not only because Lee became the organization’s first All-Star since Latrell Sprewell in 1997, but his selection unknowingly then marked the start of an NBA dynasty.

“I remember our fan base being very, very proud,” Lee said.

Now it’s news if the Warriors are underrepresented at All-Star weekend. They’ve had 22 All-Star selections since 2013 and at least two representatives in each of their last four championship years.

Steph Curry, their lone All-Star voted in this year, will miss out on his ninth appearance with a leg sprain. Draymond Green has been selected four times and Klay Thompson five times since winning the title in 2015; both missed the cut this year as the defending champions struggle to stay above .500.

A mediocre season and a Warrior-less All-Star weekend is perfect prey for pundits anxious to declare the dynasty dead. For Lee, the Warriors’ battle-tested reign on top is a reminder of what he sacrificed since his 2013 All-Star berth to turn the team from laughing stock to toast of the NBA.

“The year that I made the All-Star game 2013,” Lee said, “we finally started to gain some traction. We went from being a team that everybody was beating up on to earning respect.”

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The Knicks signed-and-traded Lee to Golden State in 2010 for the presumptuous purpose of clearing cap space for free agent LeBron James. Lee was in strange territory. None of his friends knew where the Warriors played — “I know it’s in California…right?” they’d ask.

Lee arrived an All-Star already in New York, a 27-year-old entering his prime. Signed to a six-year, $79.5 million deal, Lee was a walking double-double with enviable ability to finish at the rim. An asset for any contending team, he was too good for this rudderless organization.

Then Joe Lacob and Peter Guber bought the team, hired Mark Jackson as head coach and the culture shifted.

He still heard the laughs. Like when a Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach giggled at them during pre-game warm-ups at Oracle Arena. The Lakers had Kobe Bryant surrounded by a huge front of Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom, no match for Warriors’ bigs Lee and Andrew Bogut.

“He looked at Andrew Bogut and I, laughed and said, ‘We’re gonna have fun tonight with this team,” Lee said.

They’d soon show the world they weren’t the same old joke. The Warriors started the 2012 season at 22-10 by the new year behind Lee’s consistency. He was averaging 19.5 points and 10.9 rebounds before the All Star break, the face of a burgeoning team and the veteran for a young group of players preparing for their first taste of the postseason.

But the Curry phenomenon was coming. Even if he was snubbed for the All Star game alongside Lee, his 3-point spectacular turned into the Splash Brothers special with Thompson.

“I remember giving the interview when I made All-Star and saying, ‘I really feel bad for my teammate Steph because I feel like we both should have made it. I really hope he gets this opportunity because he’s had all these ankle injuries,'” Lee said.

“You look at it now and you think, ‘David, you should be worried about yourself trying to make another one.'”

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Draymond Green sprinted toward Lee with a huge grin on his face. It was just minutes before the Warriors tipped off against the New Orleans Pelicans for their first round playoff opener in 2015, and Green caught a glimpse of himself featured on the Jumbotron playoff poster next to Curry and Thompson.

“Big bro. Guess what? They put me up with Steph and Klay on the pregame poster,” Green said. “How cool is that?”

Lee laughed.

“Draymond, they took me off the poster and put you on,” he said. Green’s smile dropped and he apologized until Lee assured him it was OK.

“We were crying on the court we laughed so hard,” Lee said. But you could understand if Lee took offense.

Lee had been sidelined with a hamstring injury early that season, making way for Green to start. Lee watched from the sideline as his team turned downright dominant with Green on the court, their offense and defense skyrocketed to top tier efficiency.

So even when Lee was cleared to play, there wasn’t a role for him anymore. Head coach Steve Kerr pulled him aside.

“I know you’re really eager to get back in there and this starting lineup. But what do you think about what we’re doing now?'” Kerr said then.

“Coach, I’ve had a chance to do everything individually that I’m probably capable of doing in the game of basketball. I’ve been an All Star twice,” Lee said back. “If we have a chance to win a championship, you play me how you think we can best win.”

Green started those playoff games, and the ‘death lineup’ with him, Andre Iguodala, Curry, Thompson and Harrison Barnes not only helped secure the Warriors’ first NBA title since 1975, but ushered in a small-ball phenomenon.

“If I would put my foot down and said, ‘Hey, I’m the highest paid guy on the team, I deserve to play, and who is this Draymond?’ and gotten my way, maybe things would have gone differently,” Lee said. “I would not have been capable of doing that early in my career. Putting my ego in my back pocket and saying let’s do this for the team.”

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Lee didn’t watch last year’s NBA Finals. Not because of any lingering bitterness or lost interest.

It was just inconvenient.

Games air at 3 a.m. in Monaco, where he spends his summers with his wife, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, and their two young children since he retired from the NBA in 2017. He learned that the Warriors had won another title via ESPN alert the next morning.

He was rooting for Jayson Tatum to score high – he and Lee both went to Chaminade College Preparatory School in St. Louis. But for the Warriors to win.

After all he’d been through with them, he had a feeling they would.

It’s why he can look at the Warriors’ .500 record now, without a healthy All-Star, and feel confident. In a copy-cat league, he still sees the trailblazing core that his sacrifice helped build as the ones to beat.

“I wouldn’t want to be the team facing them in the playoffs when you have Steph, Klay, Draymond and the winning mentality,” Lee said. “I wouldn’t want to be the team to face them.”