It was the unexpected gift that helped set the stage for one of the greatest runs in N.B.A. history.

On Oct. 20, 2006, the Golden State Warriors announced that Oracle, a Bay Area software behemoth, had purchased the naming rights to the team’s arena. It was the type of deal that is routinely mocked — let us never forget Houston’s Enron Field. But this one was different.

Saddled for 30 years with the moniker Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, the concrete-and-glass temple chugged along with a reputation for boisterous fans and a name so cumbersome that no one quite knew what to call it. An attempt to rebrand it as simply The Arena after an interior overhaul in 1997 took the venue’s name from overly specific to woefully generic, and a two-year period in which it was called the Oakland Arena was at best a mild improvement.

Enter Larry Ellison’s company, which gave the Warriors a modest 10-year deal to call the place the Oracle. It was a corporate name, not unlike the former Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego or Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena or the N.B.A.’s two — (2) — arenas named for American Airlines. But this one, somehow, was cool.