Back on Dec. 27, the NBA's Golden State Warriors stood on shaky ground. Their record was 17-13 and they'd just recently begun crawling out of a mini-slump that already had some fans pining for trades and the firing of coach Mark Jackson.
Then All-Star forward David Lee took a local blogger to task, a meme was born and — as if propelled by some potent Internet mysticism — the Warriors haven't lost since. Today they're the NBA's hottest team.
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The Warriors had been beset by injuries throughout the early part of this season, disappointing fans who entered the season anticipating high-scoring fireworks displays from the team's talented full roster. So, after the Warriors beat the Phoenix Suns on the night of Dec. 27 with their entire core available, Lee took the opportunity to point out to blogger Jordan Ramirez of the WarriorsWorld fan site that Golden State's season had actually gone quite well when playing with their full squad:

Within the evening, a meme was born among Golden State fans and WarriorsWorld readers:
@warriorsworld @JRAM_91 meme world works quick pic.twitter.com/vVQrtrhEqY
— daniel (@BNCOWMAN) December 28, 2013
Comedy! RT @ODxFlash: @warriorsworld #fullsquad pic.twitter.com/sFH7UOSYkD
— warriorsworld (@warriorsworld) December 28, 2013
.@Dlee042 asked me the question and I just stood there like pic.twitter.com/KElrkccSrE
— Jordan Ramirez (@JRAM_91) December 28, 2013
Lee even apologized to Ramirez:
@JRAM_91 my bad bro, didn't mean to put you on the spot!!!!
— David Lee (@Dlee042) December 28, 2013
All in good fun, and the whole thing seemed like nothing but a small comedic blip soon to be forgotten by the Internet's flood of content and army of microscopic attention spans.
But then a funny thing happened after that victory over Phoenix: The Warriors won again. Then again. And again.
They're currently on a 10-game winning streak, one shy of the franchise record. On Wednesday night in Brooklyn they have a chance to become the first team in NBA history to go undefeated on a seven-game road trip.
As the torrid stretch has continued, the "full squad" movement has grown to full-on hashtag status (that's #FullSquad, if you're scoring at home) and become a tongue-in-cheek rallying cry for the team and its fans. It's since been mentioned by mainstream local and national media alike.
Fans have posted the #FullSquad hashtag to Twitter more than 13,000 times over the past week, according to Topsy—and it's only picked up momentum of late, with 2,600 of those mentions coming in the past day. The hashtag has also become a trending topic in the Bay Area during Warriors games.
About a week after #FullSquad was born, Lee interrupted star Stephen Curry during a post-game interview to give an impromptu shout-out:

The hashtag has made its way into Lee's Instagram bio, too, but he's far from the only one spreading the #FullSquad love. Teammates have, too, for example:
#FullSquad Let's keep this thing rolling! #9Straight
— Kent Bazemore (@KentBazemore20) January 6, 2014
So have dads:
My pops dropping #fullsquad on every text he's been sending me for the past two weeks
— Caden in the Bay (@ShutUpThePunx) January 8, 2014
And one fan brought the hashtag IRL to the Warriors' most recent road game in Milwaukee:
#FullSquad made it to see my team in freezing cold @Dlee042 @warriorsworld @StephenCurry30 @Mospeights16 pic.twitter.com/dKx4gQEIE3
— Nick Salazar (@DUBSBEAST) January 8, 2014
So with the Warriors' winning streak at 10 games and counting, does the team owe its recent success to #FullSquad's dark pixelated magic or to the simple logic of a team utilizing a complete arsenal of weapons? Romanticism points to the former, pragmatism indicates the latter — but we'll never really know for sure.
One thing is certain, however: With a win on Wednesday night, the Warriors' full squad — er, #FullSquad — can make NBA history.
(For more #FullSquad action, check out this Storify by Julie Phayer from the Warriors' digital marketing team.)
Image: nikk_la, Flickr