A look back at the long, tortured past of the Golden State Warriors, Silicon Valley's new favorite team

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It's a good time to be a Golden State Warriors fan.

After winning the championship last season, the Warriors broke the NBA's regular-season wins record this year, winning 73 games and losing only nine. The previous record holder was the 1995-1996 Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. Golden State is the favorite to win it all again this season.

The Warriors' dominant run over the past two years has been a source of great pride for its famously loyal and raucous fans.

But it's also created a lot of new fans among the Silicon Valley techie crowd. 

What many of the bandwagon fans might not know is that the Warriors used to be the league's laughingstock for years and years.

Here's a look back at the Warriors' tortured past:

The Warriors have been on a good run over the past two seasons. They won the championship last season and set the league's best record this year. Their best player, Steph Curry, will likely win his second straight MVP award.

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That's turned a lot of people into Warriors fans. It's not hard to spot someone wearing a Warriors jersey in downtown San Francisco these days. But it was a rare sight just a couple of years ago.

GettyImages/Jed Jacobsohn

The Warriors' home arena has seen a flood of celebrities and tech bigwigs show up on courtside too. Here's Oracle CEO Larry Ellison — the fifth-richest man in the world — in a suit.

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