You might think this new Warriors season is about whether the team will win its third straight championship, becoming the first team to achieve such dominance since the 1999-2002 Los Angeles Lakers.

You’d be wrong.

You might think it’s about finding new motivation for a potentially complacent team. About integrating Boogie Cousins or developing the young players. About convincing Kevin Durant to opt in again next season or about beating LeBron down in L.A. About cementing their status as a true dynasty or about trying to keep this window of opportunity open.

You’d be wrong on all counts.

This season is all about Oakland. Or as the team somewhat patronizingly has marketed it in recent years, about its “Town.”

The Chronicle published a special, 96-page magazine Sunday, titled “Warriors: The Oakland Years,” on the last season in the East Bay. This will be the story of the season.

“It is bittersweet,” head coach Steve Kerr said recently. “The new arena is going to be amazing and we’re all excited about that — but we’re all bummed to be moving on from Oracle.

“We would love to finish it the right way.”

A smoky nostalgia will penetrate everything about this coming season. (And, yes, those of you who spent many years inside the arena know exactly what I mean by smoky.) It will start with the regular-season game countdown from 41 on Tuesday night against Oklahoma City to the final home game April 7 against the Clippers.

And, as Kerr suggested, it would be very cool to finish out the old building by winning another championship.

This will be a season awash in past images: Of Rick Barry shooting free throws underhanded, Al Attles on the sideline, the first title in 1975, a young Robert Parish, sadly replaced by a younger Joe Barry Carroll, Bernard King, World B. Free, Purvis Short, Chris Mullin and Run TMC, Sleepy Floyd dropping 51 points on the Lakers, Mitch Richmond traded for Billy Owens, Manute Bol dropping back for a three, Don Nelson and Chris Webber imploding the franchise, Latrell Sprewell’s choke job, Chris Cohan being booed at the All-Star Game, “We Believe” chants, the vanquishing of the top-seeded Mavericks, Baron Davis posterizing Andrei Kirilenko, baby-faced Stephen Curry arriving in the building, the torrential booing of Joe Lacob on the night Mullin’s jersey was retired.

And then all of that followed by … relentless, championship-filled bliss.

Through it all, the horrible losing, the dysfunction, the memorable players, the fun moments — up to and through the current dynastic run — one thing stayed steady about the Warriors:

The people in the arena.

Through it all, there has been a lively, knowledgeable crowd packing a building that pulsated with energy.

“I always loved coming here because it stood out for how loud the fans were and the team wasn’t even that good,” Kerr said. “They sucked, in fact.

“When I played, there were certain arenas where you knew there was this organic energy coming from the fans and their love for the game. Oakland was one. Seattle was another. Toronto was another. It’s like a playoff atmosphere every game.

“That’s the way I felt about Oakland even through those lean years. Such great fans. People who love basketball. One of the reasons I was so excited to coach here was that I knew we were going to have that support and also have a really good team, too. So you put those together …”

Put those together and you move across the bay. Where it’s going to be gorgeous. State of the art. And very, very different.

“It’s hard to replicate an atmosphere like ours,” Kerr said. “I think back to Boston Garden, the old Chicago Stadium where I played. It’s hard to create that same sort of intimacy when you’re building a new arena with suites and concourses and everything else.”

Despite all the nostalgia and unhappiness over the move, this is vastly different than a team abandoning the area completely (the Raiders) or moving 48 miles away to a far less interesting place (the 49ers).

The Warriors were the San Francisco Warriors when they moved from Philadelphia to California. And they have not been the Oakland Warriors, holding the city for decades at arm’s length with the nonsense moniker Golden State.

As soon as this ownership group bought the team, it made its intentions clear, by actions if not words. Its introductory event was held in San Francisco, at a restaurant directly under the Bay Bridge. Every news conference was held in the city. They haven’t pretended otherwise.

Now it’s going to happen.

“We know the new arena is going to be great for this organization and is going to provide an incredible viewing experience for people coming,” Kerr said, “but that doesn’t make it any easier to leave Oracle.”

So enjoy the nostalgia trip. Every last moment.