Golden State Warriors fans are using the word dynasty to describe this year's championship team.
Tens of thousands of fans roused in the wee hours of Thursday and made the trek to downtown Oakland where a sea of blue and gold heralded the 2017 championship parade. Roughly 1.5 million people are believed to have attended the day's festivities.
Basketball enthusiasts began taking their places behind barriers set up along the route between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. One pregnant fan even painted the Warriors' logo on her stomach.[[428760153, C]]
The parade, which kicked off around 10 a.m. with Klay Thompson and Matt Barnes atop a double decker bus, followed the same route as the one held in honor of the Warriors' 2015 NBA title.
Warriors Parade: Dub Nation Celebrates Another Championship
The team is called the Golden State Warriors, but they don't belong to all of California. Not if you ask Oakland.
The down-on-its-luck city that always seems to take a back seat to San Francisco on Thursday got to celebrate its beloved hometown team and its second NBA title in three years.
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The Warriors made one of the great playoff runs of all time, ending with a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.
Residents of Oakland, which lost one of its other beloved teams, the Raiders, to Las Vegas, are still reeling from a police scandal and mourning a fatal warehouse fire.
But on Thursday the city made headlines for good news.
Dub Nation Gears Up for Warriors Championship Parade
The excitement prevented Robert Lee of Livermore from sleeping. So he and a friend headed to Oakland and snagged a prime spot by 3 a.m. Others had the same idea and came prepared with mats, umbrellas, tents and blankets.
Parents drove their children to the parade as early as 2:30 a.m., while adults and pint-sized fans donned matching Warriors regalia. Dub Nation hooted and cheered for its favorite basketball players, toting signs like "We are the champions," "Gold blooded," "Splash bros are my heroes," "Draymond's got his game on" and "All hail JaVale." They also chanted, "Let's go, Warriors!" standing on a blanket of blue and gold confetti.
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry hoisted the Larry O'Brien trophy as his family, including wife Ayesha and daughters Riley and Ryann, celebrated the NBA championship.
Curry hopped and shouted as he gave high-fives to the crowd after getting off a double-decker bus during the Thursday parade.
Finals MVP Kevin Durant was on a different bus with his mom. Meanwhile, Klay Thompson threw T-shirts to fans and waved from the top of an open, double-decker bus.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee also rode on floats in the parade, which was marked with a heavy police presence.
All Gold Everything: Dub Nation Represents in 2017 NBA Finals
Fans who gathered in Oakland for Thursday's parade said they expected more championships from the team in the years to come.
The Warriors won in 2015, but then blew a 3-1 lead in the finals last year and lost the title to the Cavaliers after posting the best regular-season record in NBA history.
The Warriors went 15-1 in this year's postseason, with sweeps in the first three rounds before beating LeBron James and the Cavaliers in five games in the finals.
BART officials at 6:30 a.m. reported that 35,724 people had climbed aboard trians and 17,710 had disembarked — a 7 percent jump from the same time in 2015. The Dublin/Pleasanton, Pittsburg/Bay Point and El Cerrito del Norte stations were the busiest, they said.
BART trains carried 548,076 riders during the 2015 victory parade, second only to the 586,061 who rode BART during the San Francisco Giants' 2012 World Series parade.
