ON an unseasonably warm San Francisco winter’s day hundreds of the city’s business elite are gathered in the ball room at the Westin St Francis for a lunch being held by the local Chamber of Commerce.

They drink cocktails, dine on steak and salad and feel the Christmas spirit as they enter the room as fake snow sprinkles on their head.

Despite the billion dollar bank balances in the room it’s a 22-year-old who grew up in the far grittier surrounds of St Louis not known for his speaking ability who steals the show.

This is Golden State Warriors territory and despite sharing a stage with global superstars Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, back-up shooting guard Patrick McCaw wants his moment.

As team broadcaster Bob Fitzgerald works his way down a panel of players from the NBA’s hottest team, McCaw is miffed when he’s asked to talk about his relationship with team veteran and mentor Andre Iguodala.

“I don’t know why Andre’s being brought up,” McCaw says. “I thought this was about me.”

The tongue-in-cheek response leaves Durant slapping his knee and continues another five-star performance from a group of players who have made a habit of it over the past few seasons.

Durant earns laughs too as he describes a rare experience in Los Angeles recently, where it was Israeli guard Omri Casspi who drew mobs of fans when the team stayed in a hotel that was hosting a Jewish wedding.

“I’ve been in the league for 11 years and I’ve played pretty well, I would say,” Durant deadpans. “And usually when I get off the bus I feel like that’s my time. I feel like that’s my time to really shine and let people know that I’m around.

“When Omri walked off the bus my ego was hit a little bit. It was about you and I didn’t really like it — but I got to accept it.”

As the guests at the United Airlines-sponsored affair turn their attention to dessert a rapid-fire round of questioning reveals the player’s vote for best dancer on the team (Durant), best dressed (Iguodala), funniest (McCaw causes a second eruption by answering “me”) and the most serious (Draymond Green).

The players are on and off stage within minutes (they’re fulfilling the obligation on their day off) but it’s impossible to exit the room without appreciating how slick a franchise that made just one playoff appearance from 1995 to 2011 has become.

As far as NBA executives go, not many have a better record than Rick Welts. After starting as a ball boy with the Seattle Supersonic, Welts rose to become director of public relations when the team won its only championship in 1979.

From there he went to the league office, where he was credited with the creation of the NBA All-Star Weekend and the marketing campaign behind the 1992 Olympics US men’s Dream Team that made basketball a global sport.

A 10-year run as president of the Phoenix Suns when they were a perennial Western Conference contender has been followed by a golden run since 2011 with the Warriors.

But he’s quick to defer when anyone attempts to attribute the team’s success — which saw it win its second championship in the three seasons in June — to his handiwork.

“When someone talks about buying an NBA team, I always recommend they buy one that already has Steph Curry on the roster. You have a little bit of a headstart in getting to be a really good organisation,” Welts says.

“And I’ve said it 1000 times, the three most important things for sustained success in an NBA franchise are ownership, ownership and ownership.”

Joe Lacob, then a Boston Celtics minority partner, and Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber, bought the team in 2010 for a then-record $450 million.

They’ve made almost every post a winner since then — and are reaping the rewards.

The franchise was valued at $2.6 billion by Forbes this year, behind only the big market New York Knicks ($3.3 billion) and Los Angeles Lakers ($3 billion). The Warriors’ year-to-year growth of 37 per cent towered over any other NBA franchise.

“They want to win, they want to do it the right way and they’re not afraid to take chances,” Welt says.

That includes privately funding a $1.3 billion, 18,000-seat arena on the waterfront in Mission Bay. A team that played in an arena known as the Cow Palace in the 1960s will be housed by a stadium ownership wants to be mentioned in the same breath as New York’s Madison Square Garden and London’s O2 Arena. “That’s a really big chance,” Welts says.

Of course what happens on the court remains the number one focus and general manager Bob Myers has built the best basketball team in the world.

Every decision, from drafting Draymond Green, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, hiring coach Steve Kerr and signing free agent Kevin Durant, has been driven by one quality. Character.

“In any profession character will reveal itself, but especially in ours,” Myers says. “We work in a job where you all get to see when we succeed but you also get to see when we fail. And not only that, our players are asked to describe their failures on a nightly basis when they lose ... You have to value character. It will reveal itself. I promise you it will come out.”

Myers cites his players’ response to losing the 2016 Finals after leading the series 3-1 as the proudest of a career that has already seen him named NBA Executive of the Year twice.

“No one blamed anyone else,” says Welts, of the team’s player exit meetings. “No one said, ‘Well if Draymond would have played or Steph would have shot better’ ... they all looked at me and said, ‘I’m not going to let this happen again ... I have to be better’.”

Dominance at home is leading to an increasing global footprint. One metric on the way they are engaging with fans on social media ranked the Warriors behind only Spanish football giants Real Madrid and Barcelona on the global stage, director of partnership marketing Mike Kitts says.

After discovering more than 40 per cent of the their 11 million-strong Facebook following lived in the Philippines, they inked a deal with the Asian nation’s famous Tanduay Rum.

“The NBA is one of the most marketable leagues in the world right now, with superstar talent that is very recognisable (and) we have four of the best players in the league on our team,” chief marketing officer Chip Bowers says. “Thanks to our star power, everyone is leaning in.”

United is also on board as the team’s official airline and founding partner of the new arena.

“They have a big hub here in San Francisco and they’re one of the biggest international carriers and one that means a lot to the city of San Francisco,” Bowers says. “It’s a really good fit for us.”

“As the official airline of the Golden State Warriors, we’re able to bring fans from around the world together, and show support for the communities where our employees and customers live and work,” United director of sponsorships Rahsaan Johnson added.

“We’ve supported the team during their recent trip to China, and brought the excitement of the playoffs to our flights with on-board customer giveaways. We have a strong relationship with the team that our customers and employees love.”

For this team, the sky’s the limit.

Editor’s note: Jai Bednall was a guest of United Airlines in San Francisco