In a Championship Season, Our Rookie Emerges

This week, as we near the end of 2022, the writers and editors of KQED Arts & Culture are reflecting on One Beautiful Thing from the year. Here, still awash in excitement over the Warriors’ victory, writer Alan Chazaro has an important next-season draft pick to share.

Out of this year’s worth of events, Thursday, June 16, might seem like an arbitrary date to remember. But it’s a day that still lingers in my body — and one that will define the dimensions of joy and hope in my life moving forward.

It began like any great day for a true Baydestrian: with the Steph Curry-led Warriors taking on the Boston Celtics in Game Six of the 2022 NBA Finals. To understand the weight of this, you must first understand my life as a loyal, non-bandwagon member of Dub Nation, through decades of ridicule and shame when the team would regularly finish as the cellar dwellers of the league. Back when they played at Oracle Arena. Back when the Bay Area felt like a different home, and my teenage self had yet to discover what home really meant to me.

But this particular Thursday in June was different. The Warriors were gearing up to claim their fourth Larry O’Brien trophy amid a dynastic run of championship grandeur. It was jolting. It was surreal. And despite the doubting, shit-talking and excuse-making from sports media and internet trolls who had dismissed the Warriors all season (or perhaps, because of it), this day felt particularly glorious for OG fans like myself.

And still, the game wasn’t even my primary focus. For months, my wife and I had been planning our own little dynasty. After nearly 15 years together — having met in a Chicano Studies class at UC Berkeley as undergrads — we had decided to add a new team member to our squad, and were in the process of trying for our first child.

I couldn’t have asked for a better scenario on that Thursday morning. Briana called me into the room to share the news: a positive pregnancy test laid on top of a Warriors onesie. Our child had decided to announce himself that day, as the Warriors were on the verge of hoops history. I cried. Because this wasn’t just a happy ending for the Warriors, a basketball entity that had been a part of my life since grade school. This was the beginning of a beautiful future: Maceo Agosto Chazaro.

The Dubs ended up winning it all. My wife and I took BART to San Francisco to be at Chase Center with the fans, just a few hours after we’d learned our baby was growing inside her belly. Though the actual game was happening in Boston, we gathered in front of the Warriors’ arena as the last shot splashed and the celebratory drinks poured (my wife, of course, abstaining). That day felt bigger than a championship. It still does.

Looking back on it, I recall what it is that’s always drawn me to the sport — especially as a Mexican American who grew up in an all-male home with my father and older brother. Basketball taught me about myself and what it takes to overcome, even when the odds seem insurmountable. It was never just about scoring on a fast-break dunk or making flashy dribbles. It was about chemistry; about communication; about the synergy of watching humans working in synchronized perfection to reach a collective apex; about rebuilding and trying again. At its best, a sports team can represent an entire region’s pride and identity, like a family’s last name.

When I think of baby Chazaro entering the world, I wonder how he’ll fit into the rhythm and structure of our unit. How we’ll have to adapt, and apply everything we know in order to coach him up. How our fun-sized rookie will develop his own skills and talents as we provide a healthy environment for him to thrive into his full potential.

There will be turnovers. There will be miscommunications. There will be losses. Hella losses — particularly a loss of sleep, as I’ve been told by other parents. But I doubt that will really matter when those moments of joy, growth and achievement are finally reached.

I won’t ever know exactly what those players felt in that locker room on the night they banded together to win it all. But I’ll always remember the feeling of euphoria and limitless possibility that coursed through me on that June day, when Briana and I realized we’d taken the biggest shot of our lives. As a team.