“Couldn’t have asked for a better start,” Thompson said.

Here is the unfortunate reality for the rest of the league: If the Warriors were slightly miserable last season, they still went on to a win a second straight championship, and their third in four years. So what can we expect from them now that they are actually enjoying themselves?

“We’re just trying to give our fans a show, man,” Thompson said.

The Warriors have shown flashes of unprecedented brilliance already this season, running their record to 8-1 with a 131-121 win against the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night. Entering Thursday, the Warriors led the league in scoring, assists, field-goal percentage, 3-point shooting, high-fives and highlights. They could be better than ever, as preposterous as that sounds.

The players, for their part, seemed aware of the possibilities even before the start of training camp. Andre Iguodala, in an interview over the summer, made a bold prediction.

“This year is going to be better than last year,” he said. “Last year was rough.”

These are first-world problems, but rough for the Warriors meant dealing with the constant and often self-imposed pressure of repeating as champions. Rough meant a long trip to China for preseason games, which wore them out. (“I know a couple guys told us Game 1 felt like Game 41,” Kerr said.) Rough meant coping with injuries to stars like Curry and Durant, and seldom feeling quite complete. Rough meant closing the regular season with a thud, losing 10 of their final 17 games.

“We went into the season with the wrong mind-set,” Draymond Green said, adding: “Every team is going through an 82-game grind. But as opposed to embracing it, we were kind of like: ‘Oh, here we are. Let’s get through it and get to the playoffs.’ And it felt that way.”