Everything hasn’t gone exactly according to plan for Joe Lacob’s Warriors this offseason, but it’s been close enough to keep him in a good mood this summer and cheerily plotting out more things to come.
A few months ago, Lacob assumed that Klay Thompson would still be part of this whole endeavor, but Klay bolted for the Dallas Mavericks in early July. The Warriors first tried to land Paul George in a mega-trade (unsuccessfully) and currently are, we can safely assume, still quite interested in talking to the Utah Jazz about Lauri Markkanen.
The Warriors have adjusted. They’ve worked around the edges. They’ve dropped their payroll significantly by losing Klay and Chris Paul and they’ve added three solid veterans to their guard/wing rotation. They’re waiting to see about Markkanen and also contemplating how much more they want to add into any trade offer for the 27-year-old 3-point shooter and scorer. And they’re also watching Stephen Curry, at 36, look quite energized as one of the leaders of Team USA in the Paris Olympics.
So while it hasn’t been ideal for the Warriors this offseason or, really, since their roaring run to the 2022 championship, it isn’t crazy for Lacob to feel that his franchise’s long championship-winning window might still be cracked open. Pending other moves that might open it wider. And the Warriors are always looking ahead to other moves.
“I do view that our window is a little longer than people think,” Lacob told me on my podcast earlier this week. “If there’s such a thing as a window. But with respect to Steph, let’s just say … I think the window’s probably longer than people give it credit for. He’s in remarkable shape. I do not see some big slowdown from Steph here. In fact, I would argue he’s one of the best players on the Olympic team.
“I don’t see it closing anytime that soon. We all have to understand that Father Time is undefeated and eventually that will be the case. But we don’t look at it, honestly, like it’s a window this year, it has to be this year, what can we do, all in. We’re always trying to make our team as absolutely good as it can be, because we’re trying to win championships.
“We won in ’22 and they said we couldn’t. I think we can win this next year. I think it’s possible.”
It’s different now, of course. Losing Klay might not be devastating statistically, but it was an emotional gut shot for the locker room, the organization and the fan base. And it was a glaring reminder that the Curry-Klay-Draymond Green triumvirate was the most historic group of players that this team will ever have. There’s no replacing Klay.
But De’Anthony Melton, Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield might be able to more than replace Klay’s recent production and also add in areas the Warriors were sorely lacking. The Warriors missed the playoffs last season when they were blown out by Sacramento in the 9-10 Play-In Game, but they still won 46 games while enduring two separate Draymond suspensions. They can be better this season. Good enough to win the fifth title of this era? Very unlikely. But if they can make one more move … maybe? And if it took losing Klay to increase some of those odds, well, that’s the way it had happen.
“It (isn’t) just this one moment in time that is always going to be that way,” Lacob said. “It’s gonna change. And so we’re always trying to make it better. We’re always trying to work around the edges, or, if we have to, work in the middle, if it ever gets to that point.
“But I don’t think we’re at that point. We’re not a bad team. No one’s going to sit here and tell me we’re some bad team. … We won 46 last year. We should have been 50 if it wasn’t for something hopefully that never happens again. And I think we just added to the team, made it better and in fact it’s a little younger. So the version with Klay is not there today. It’s a slightly different version. And that’s always going to be the case because nothing ever stays exactly the same.”
There is one looming existential question and potential threat to the broadest Warriors calculations, of course: How long would Curry be happy here if the team isn’t contending for titles? Curry caused a bit of a stir in NBA and Warriors circles in a recent interview with Andscape’s Marc Spears when he said he expected to be a Warrior for life but also that he likely wouldn’t want to be part of any “a bottom-feeder” in the league.
Not a surprising answer, but it was certainly hard to miss the theme: Curry wants to win and wants to be a Warrior for as long as he believes they have a chance to win.
“From what I’ve heard, all he said was what you’d expect, I’d think, which is, ‘I want to win,’” Lacob said. “And if we were a really bad team, I guess he would rethink, you know, whether he really wanted to finish his career here. But he didn’t expect — that’s not the case and he didn’t expect that to be the case. And certainly from any conversations I’ve had with Steph, and I’m pretty close to Steph, we talk a lot. I think we have a great relationship. I think he’s very comfortable with the path of the franchise and how hard we do try to put a great, as good a product on the court as we can.”
Warriors owner Joe Lacob says he believes Steph Curry is “very comfortable” with the path the team is on. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Does Lacob feel pressure or responsibility to make sure that Steph is comfortable with what’s going on?
“Look, I understand you’re referring to the narrative of ‘don’t waste Steph’s last few years’ or something like that,” Lacob said. “But I gotta be honest. I don’t really think that way. It matters to me every bit as much as it matters to our fans or for Steph.
“I don’t ever want to be not trying or (be) bad or be laissez-faire about trying to win. I think people I hope understand from the time we as a group bought this team, 14 years going on 15 now — it’s hard to believe — we’ve tried to be competitive as much as we can. … It’s really hard these days. It’s gotten harder, I think we’d all agree. More competitive, the NBA’s probably trending more like the NFL in terms of the new labor agreement, in terms of the impact and the parity. So it’s harder. But I’m pretty proud of the fact that we’ve been competitive most of the time. Our first few years, of course, it took a while to build it up. And then we had a great run. …
“I think the last two years we were competitive, you know, in the playoffs (in 2022-23), and really even better the next year (in win total) … just it was a really incredible year where the West was so good. We thought we’d win 50 games or so … I think if Draymond hadn’t gotten suspended, an unfortunate event, we certainly projected to do that. So I think we’re trying to be as good as we can. And same thing with this summer … we’ve made great improvements to the team and we’re gonna continue to do that at all times.”
Here are some other highlights from the conversation …
• Lacob can’t speak about other teams’ players, but there’s zero doubt that the Warriors have talked to the Jazz about Markkanen, who can sign a renegotiated extension with Utah starting Aug. 6, which would allow the Jazz to trade him right at the February trade deadline. If Markkanen signs the deal any time after Aug. 6, he wouldn’t be trade eligible until next offseason. If he doesn’t sign the extension at all, he remains eligible to be traded at any time … then could become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
“Are there trades that are being discussed all the time? Absolutely,” Lacob said. “It’s one of those things where you have to find the right partner at the right time and you have to sort of agree that this is going to work for both parties.
“We’ve been looking at things since the draft and free agency here, various trades. And frankly, that isn’t something that ends tomorrow or anytime in the next few weeks. Something like that for any one player could go on to the trade deadline. … I think there are other names out there that are significant players that, if they want to play for the Warriors and we felt we had the right package … and we can convince the other team, and the player, then they’re conceivable to do. We’re going to keep trying.”
• Lacob detailed some of the timeline in the Klay negotiations/non-negotiations leading up to his departure.
“We made an offer to him, it’s well chronicled, in the fall, substantially higher than what he ultimately did end up signing for. So I thought it was very fair,” Lacob said of the reported two-year, $48 million offer before last season. “Very fair, if not more than fair at the time. We’re trying to anticipate what the market is for him. We’re trying to be really fair to him and recognize him for who he is. And so we did that and that was not acceptable to them. That’s their choice. At that point, you know, we sort of have to go to free agency, we told them. Get closer to that day and see how the team is forming, so how we do this year, and see how the team-forming process was going. And we were doing that.
“But you know, to be frank and honest, Klay made the decision prior to the beginning of free agency and he informed us of it that his intention was to not come back. … He called me and said the same things you heard (at Klay’s Dallas news conference). Klay is an open book. He felt he needed for a variety of reasons to have a fresh start.
“I would love if Klay had been a Warrior for life. And under a fair and equitable basis, we wanted to try to achieve that very badly. We did achieve it with Draymond (last summer), a different situation. Steph’s under the contract. So we felt we on a path to do that. It just didn’t work out. … And we had to move on and accept that.”
• Lacob confirmed that the $48 million offer was pulled off the table once Klay declined it in the fall. There was no offer made after that, with the Warriors planning to get back to Klay after taking care of other business in early July. Most specifically, the Warriors had to decide what they were going to do with Chris Paul’s contract and whether they could acquire George.
“That was an offer (to Klay) in the fall and we were in the process of developing (another) offer,” Lacob said. “But really couldn’t do that — he knew that — without sort of seeing how a lot of different chips, things were happening. We had a lot of things going on, you know, Chris Paul’s contract. We didn’t know what was going to happen with all those things. So I think it’s common sense for anybody to understand that you’re juggling a lot of balls and they all have to make sense.”
• Losing Klay and Paul temporarily dropped the Warriors all the way under the luxury-tax line, which allowed them to use the nontaxpayer midlevel exception on De’Anthony Melton, a candidate to replace Klay in the starting lineup. And then the Warriors were able to turn Klay’s exit into a sign-and-trade deal, which created the room to sign both Anderson and Hield.
“I don’t think we’ve ever, since I’ve been here, added three veterans, substantially positive impact veteran players, to the roster all at once like that,” Lacob said. “Yes, Klay is gone. That’s a negative. Chris also leaving, you know, a negative. But I think when you take everything into account … adding those three guys makes us better. …
“I think if you look at the whole team, you’d have to say, and our models do project us to be better than last year.”
• Back in February, Lacob told me the plan was to get out of the second apron and if possible even all the way out of the tax this offseason. At the time, he expected to do that with Klay on board. Once Klay exited, the Warriors accomplished it fairly easily, then edged back into the tax when they signed Hield.
“It was our goal to get out of the luxury tax if possible because we had been in it for so long, paid almost $700 million in luxury taxes,” Lacob said. “And that’s great if you’re winning, we don’t care. We’ll do whatever we can. But we didn’t make the playoffs last year and so I think we have to take that into account. And the system is certainly a lot more difficult or its impact on you if you are in the tax. … We’d love to get out of the tax for two of the next four years so we aren’t a repeater. It helps us be competitive.
“Having said that, I also said that … if we think we have an opportunity to be that much better and it means going into the tax, then we will. If it’s worth it, if we deem it worth it by our projections. And so this year we’re looking like we’re going to be out of the tax as it was working out. In fact, we were for a short period of time. And then we said, shoot, we have a chance to get Buddy Hield. And we think that can make us significantly better. It doesn’t take us significantly into the luxury tax, but it does (get over the tax line).”
• The offer to the Clippers for George involved at least one of the Warriors’ future first-round picks and probably more than one. Any offer to Utah for Markkanen likely involves multiple first-round picks. Is Lacob comfortable risking so much of the Warriors’ future in a trade package?
“I think all teams have to be careful with doing that, because with the new CBA and the way things are, I mean, it’s pretty scary to go naked on not having trades,” Lacob said. “There are some teams in this league that don’t have any picks for the rest of the decade, essentially under their own control. I’m not saying that’s something you can’t do, or shouldn’t do ever, but you better be right if you do it.
“It’s a balance, I think we have to balance. We would do it, we would send all types of picks in a particular trade or players if we felt we were getting back something that was really great and that made sense, and that got someone that was the right age and the right cultural fit and also fit within the construct of the team. It’s possible. I will consider, and we’ll consider anything and have considered all of these options.
“But I think you’re missing the real point, and I know what you’re alluding to, but you have to have two parties that are reasonably willing to do deals together that make sense for both sides in order for things to happen.”
• What does Lacob see as Jonathan Kuminga’s role this season? Kuminga took a big leap last season but still hasn’t quite carved out a permanent role and is eligible for a rookie extension now.
“I’m a big, big believer in Jonathan Kuminga,” Lacob said. “Everyone knows I’m a big JK fan. So is our basketball operations, Mike (Dunleavy Jr.) and Kirk (Lacob) and those guys. And by the way, so are our coaches. I know people sometimes think that’s not true, but that is true. …
“He had a big step last year. We expect him to have another big step this year. I expect him to be a Warrior for a long time.”
• And Brandin Podziemski after his very impressive rookie season? “We’re extremely high (on him),” Lacob said. “By the way, so are a lot of other teams that are interested. We get a lot of calls on both him and JK. We do on Moses, as well, by the way. … I do believe that if you talk about Podz in particular, I said it at the Summer League, I think he has the potential to be an All-Star in this league. And I absolutely believe it. And so does everyone in our organization.
“I think that JK is in the same boat. He has the potential to be an All-Star in this league. The potential.”
• Is it possible that, as rumored, Podziemski is the pivot point of a big Warriors trade offer? That he’s the young player other teams want and also the young player the Warriors don’t want to put into an offer?
“I’m not going to get into specifics like that, there’s no way,” Lacob said. “(But) I don’t want to give him up, or JK. We love these guys. And Moses, Trayce (Jackson-Davis). These are good young players.
“Now, everyone can be traded. Anyone and everyone. If it means that we’re going to be better as an organization, we’re going to acquire someone that just really makes sense going forward and we felt the deal was fair and it was something we should do, there probably isn’t anyone on this team other than maybe one guy, maybe two, that couldn’t be traded.”
• Curry is eligible for a max, $62.6 million one-year extension this summer that would take him through the 2026-27 season. Could Lacob see that extension happening soon?
“We have not discussed it. He’s busy right now and he should stay busy and focused on that with the Olympics,” Lacob said. “But if he wants to talk about that, that’s up to him. He’s not said that at all, but if he wants to, we’ll certainly entertain that discussion. … Let’s put it this way, Steph Curry I fully anticipate he’ll be a Warrior for life. I thought Klay was going to be, too, but I was wrong.
“And I think Steph has been … what he’s meant to this franchise has been tremendous and it’s every intention of ours to see him play as long as he wants to play and as long as he is able to play at the level he’s continued to play. He’s incredible shape, so I have no reason to believe that he couldn’t play quite a bit longer. Maybe he’s Tom Brady.”
• Lacob on WNBA murmurings that his Valkyries expansion team, set to launch next season, could be extremely aggressive trying to sign big-name players in free agency starting this offseason:
“Whatever the rules are, we’re going to play by the rules and we’re going to just be as good as we can be and as aggressive as we can be. Because our job is to win. This is a sports team. The job is to win.
“The good news is, as I’ve said, we’re set up pretty well because a lot of these players, knowing there’s a new CBA coming in the women’s game, have signed pretty short-term contracts. So free agency, you might presume, will be a pretty active area for us and other teams early on. We’ll be aggressive with respect to free agency. … So yes, we’re going to be aggressive to go out and get the best players we can. And we’re going to create the best environment we can. And hopefully we’re going to win early.”
(Top photo of Joe Lacob: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
