Oracle Arena

Oracle Arena (originally Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, formerly The Arena in Oakland and Oakland Arena and commonly Oakland Coliseum Arena) is an indoor arena located in Oakland, California. It is the home of the Golden State Warriors.

It has a capacity of 19,596, making it the largest of the three NBA arenas in California by capacity, with the Staples Center in Los Angeles (the current home of both the Lakers and Clippers) second, and the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento third. It is the oldest arena in the NBA.

History

Home franchises

The arena has been the home to the Golden State Warriors since 1971, except the one-year hiatus while the arena was undergoing renovations. It had been used by the Warriors intermittently as early as 1966. The California Golden Bears of the Pac-10 played the entire 1997–98 and 1998–99 seasons at the arena while their primary home, Harmon Gym, was being renovated into Haas Pavilion. For some years before then, the Bears played occasional games against popular non-conference opponents at the arena.

Arena

An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. The word derives from Latin harena, a particularly fine/smooth sand used to absorb blood in ancient arenas such as the Colosseum in Rome. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the lowest point, allowing for maximum visibility. Arenas are usually designed to accommodate a large number of spectators.

The term arena is sometimes used as a synonym for a very large venue such as Pasadena's Rose Bowl, but such a facility is typically called a stadium, especially if it does not have a roof. The use of one term over the other has mostly to do with the type of event. Football (be it association, rugby, or gridiron) is typically played in a stadium while basketball and ice hockey are typically played in an arena, although many of the larger arenas hold more spectators than do the stadiums of smaller colleges or high schools. There are exceptions. The home of the Duke University basketball team would qualify as an arena, but the facility is called Cameron Indoor Stadium. Domed stadiums, which, like arenas, are enclosed but have the larger playing surfaces and seating capacities found in stadiums, are generally not referred to as arenas in North America. There is also the sport of indoor American football (one variant of which is explicitly known as arena football), a variant of the gridiron-based game that is designed for the usual smaller playing surface of most arenas; variants of other traditionally outdoor sports, including box lacrosse and futsal/indoor soccer, also exist.

Oracle

In classical antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to provide wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.

Description

The word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre "to speak" and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. Interestingly the word Oraculum can be considered as two Arabic words joined and spoken as one: ( أورى ) Ori and ( كلم) culum. It refers to: speaking words in an unclear codified way. Similarity occurs between that meaning and the mysterious speaking style of those known as Oracles, whether in literature, movies, or else where. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, and to the oracular utterances themselves, called khrēsmoi (χρησμοί) in Greek.

Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense they were different from seers (manteis, μάντεις) who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, and other various methods.

Golden State

Golden State may refer to:

Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The team was established in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a founding member of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), and it won the inaugural 1947 BAA Finals that is now considered the first NBA Championship.

In 1962, the franchise relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and was renamed as the San Francisco Warriors until 1971, when it changed its geographic moniker to Golden State, California's state nickname. Since 1972, the team's home court has been Oracle Arena in Oakland.

The Warriors have won four NBA championships. They most recently won the NBA championship by defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2015 Finals.

Franchise history

Team creation

The Warriors were founded in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors, a charter member of the Basketball Association of America. They were owned by Peter A. Tyrrell, who also owned the Philadelphia Rockets of the American Hockey League. Tyrrell hired Eddie Gottlieb, a longtime basketball promoter in the Philadelphia area, as coach and general manager. He named the team after an early professional team in the city.