In a parking lot of thousands of sports fans, Robert Fry is the man to see. He has a dog named after Chris Mullin, season tickets in Section 123 at Oracle Arena and memories of 7-foot-7 Manute Bol hoisting three-pointers once upon a time.

Just imagine living through 12 seasons without seeing your team in the playoffs. That's what Fry and the rest of the Golden State Warriors' long-suffering fans endured. That's why these playoffs might be as much about their rewarded faith as they are about anything else.

Long before the Warriors captivated the basketball world, long before they took down the 67-win Dallas Mavericks in the first round, the Warriors connected with a group of fans who would see them through seasons barren enough to make the San Francisco Bay run dry.

There are living, breathing, ticket-buying people in that sea of yellow "We Believe" shirts you see on television. The Warriors are 4-0 at home so far in the playoffs, in an arena loud enough to peel paint. It's hard, in a sense, for the fan at home to appreciate.

Fry knows because he returned from the Warriors' Game 3 victory over the Jazz on Friday and watched the midnight replay of the game. His conclusion, as he tailgated for the A's game Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum? "TV doesn't do justice to the atmosphere."

"I call it a zoo,'' Fry said. "It's a zoo in there, especially compared to two years ago when we got 10,000 people that could barely cheer. It's hard to explain. It's probably the most intense sporting event atmosphere I've ever experienced, and I've been to everything."

Robert Rowell, the Warriors' president, knows when the madness started. The team welcomed back Baron Davis and Jason Richardson from injuries in March but could barely see the playoffs with a record so far below .500.

"We knew we basically had to run the table at home, and our fans knew it, too,'' Rowell said.

What followed has been a "snowball of energy,'' as Rowell put it, and the franchise's rebirth. The Warriors went 16-5 to claim the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff berth. Some 5,000 fans gathered at Oracle Arena to watch the clinching game on television.

"They've just got the magic this year,'' said Randy Estrada, a pastor and Warriors fan from Livermore, Calif. "They're doing everything that everybody's saying is impossible. I think that's why they're stealing the show on ESPN."

To appreciate how far the Warriors have come, you have to go back to their last playoff appearance in 1994. From the Run T-M-C heyday with Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Mullin, the Warriors endured a dozen - yes, 12 - straight losing seasons.

They watched Chris Webber leave after a falling out with coach Don Nelson. They drafted Todd Fuller ahead of that Kobe Bryant kid in 1996. There was the ugly 1997 incident in which Latrell Sprewell choked then-coach P.J. Carlesimo and was suspended for a year.

They used 23 different players (Bill Curley? Sam Mack? Vonteego Cummings? Mark Davis?) in finishing 19-63 in the 1999-2000 season. They hired Dave Cowens and Mike Montgomery as coach and failed to keep Larry Hughes and Gilbert Arenas as players.

About the only thing the Warriors succeeded at was handing out one bad contract after another. They signed Richardson, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Derek Fisher and Adonal Foyle to some $250 million in contracts in recent years.

After the Warriors finished 34-48 (again) last season, Fry considered becoming a part-time fan. No more trying to make 41 home games a year. He still was going to buy season tickets but would split up the package. Then came Nelson's return as coach in late August.

"That was a little shot in the arm,'' said Fry, who works as a horticulturist at a local golf course and lives in Richmond, Calif.

Nelson brought his patented brand of small ball back to Oakland, with an emphasis on three-point shooting, athleticism and excitement. The Warriors overhauled their roster with an eight-player trade in January, acquiring Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington from Indiana and shipping out Murphy and Dunleavy.

Nelson said he knew the fans would return, but not with this kind of frenzy. Rowell described the feeling as 13 seasons of frustration being released. But Richardson might have summed it up best: "It feels good to finally go out and hold your head high."

The Warriors, who won the 1975 NBA championship behind the likes of Rick Barry and Jamaal Wilkes, are now identified by the "We Believe" shirts worn by fans. The slogan is credited to Paul Wong, a fan who started handing out homemade signs at games back in March.

By the time the team qualified for the playoffs, Wong had spent some $5,000 on making the signs. The Warriors approached him and printed 20,000 shirts with the words for Game 1 of the Dallas series. They have done the same at every home game since.

"It's crazy because I've heard they're selling for as much as $400 on eBay,'' Rowell said. The Warriors are not selling the shirts - the only way to get one is in person at a game - and have created a fashion statement for their most loyal fans.

Fry, meanwhile, is still wearing the same orange Warriors shirt he has for three seasons. He figures he believed long before it became cool for so many bandwagon fans to do so. He sees the pieces in place for future playoff runs. He's certainly due for more than just this one.

"Game 4 of the Dallas series, I sat there and I'm like, 'It's worth it,''' Fry said. "That's why I watched [Friday's game] at midnight. I'm trying to soak it up and enjoy it, because it is rewarding."

rsiler@sltrib.com