- Guards Derrick Rose, Tomas Satoransky and Reggie Bullock are among the guards the Warriors could target with their $17MM trade exception, Grant Liffmann of NBC Sports Bay Area opines. The Warriors obtained the large exception in the Andre Iguodala trade with Memphis last summer.
“The Last Dance” documentary series is making an impression around the NBA, particularly with the Warriors, who can identify with the challenges of trying to string together championships, writes Nick Friedell of ESPN. One of those challenges is attempting to maintain camaraderie, which became an issue on the way to the 2017/18 title, admits general manager Bob Myers.
“The second time with Kevin (Durant) it felt like, ‘Well, we just did what we were supposed to do, and great job,'” Myers said. “It wasn’t joy. I’m sure a lot of people felt differently. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. I think there’s just a weight to everything. And so I’m sure (the Bulls) felt that weight of everything, weight of relationships.”
Golden State posted 67-15 and 58-24 records and won back-to-back championships during its first two seasons with Durant. But before the quest for a three-peat was derailed by injuries in last year’s Finals, there were frequent reports that Durant was looking to leave the organization and an infamous on-court incident with Draymond Green.
“To be honest, (the documentary) is just confirmation of what I was saying to our team all of last year and 2018,” coach Steve Kerr said. “The whole messaging for the year was based on my experience with Chicago and feeling that level of fatigue (and) emotional toll that had been over the previous four years. … And so watching this now is just a reminder of how difficult it is to sustain that kind of run.”
There’s more Warriors news to pass along:
- Connor Letourneau of The San Francisco Chronicle talked to a few Warriors players who are too young to remember the Michael Jordan era. Several took note of Jordan’s intense leadership style in the documentary, saying it was reminiscent of Green. “When (Jordan) just said he never asked anybody to do anything that he wouldn’t do, that really stuck with me,” Marquese Chriss said. “You want your leader to lead by example, but also be vocal at the same time. It honestly reminded me a bit of Draymond.”
- Even though the Warriors dropped to the bottom of the West this season, the team’s culture continues to be a strong selling point with players, observes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III both expressed disappointment over being traded in February, and Quinn Cook said it was important to him to sign with the Warriors in 2017. “When Golden State called, I told my agent, ‘I didn’t care if I never play,” said Cook, now with the Lakers. “I don’t have to play. I just want to be a part of the organization. I want to learn every single day from those guys.’”
- Grant Liffman of NBC Sports Bay Area identifies 11 free agents that the Warriors should target, even though they will be over the cap and can only offer minimum contracts and the taxpayer mid-level exception.
- The Warriors didn’t acquire Andrew Wiggins from the Timberwolves with the intention of flipping him for another star player, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. While they will aggressively pursue trades for Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bradley Beal and other All-Stars, they anticipate Wiggins being their starting small forward next season, Slater adds.
Every now and then, over the last year, a report has surfaced detailing the Warriors‘ interest in Giannis Antetokounmpo or suggesting that Golden State has been preparing its pursuit of the Bucks star for “years.” However, Anthony Slater of The Athletic is highly skeptical that anything will come of the Warriors’ interest in Giannis, whose current contract with Milwaukee expires in 2021.
As Slater explains, the fact that the Warriors were able to land Kevin Durant in 2016 means they’ll never be ruled out when they pursue other superstars, but in that case, everything lined up perfectly for the franchise — Durant was able to team up with the Warriors’ stars when they were all in their primes and took advantage of a huge cap spike in 2016 to join the team on a max-salary deal.
Several years later, the cap situation for the Warriors and the NBA as a whole isn’t nearly as rosy — Golden State’s cap is loaded with big-money contracts for its stars (and Andrew Wiggins), offering no realistic path to landing Antetokoumpo as a free agent or in a sign-and-trade. The league’s lost revenues also mean that a major dip in the cap is more likely than another spike.
On top of all that, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green are in their 30s now, meaning that if he were to become a Warrior, Giannis “would be joining what’d probably become the early stages of a rebuild around him,” Slater writes.
If a star player badly wants to get to a specific team, there’s often a way to make it work, as we saw with last summer with the likes of Anthony Davis and Paul George. But there has been zero indication that Giannis is itching to leave the team with the NBA’s best record for the one in dead last. And even if that’s what he wanted, the roadblocks in the way would be substantial.
Here’s more on the Warriors:
- In a mailbag for The San Francisco Chronicle, Connor Letourneau discusses Alen Smailagic‘s development, possible options for the Warriors’ $17MM trade exception, and potential draft targets, among other topics. Interestingly, Letourneau indicates that, when it comes to draft-eligible big men, Golden State is higher on Onyeka Okongwu than James Wiseman.
- While there has been plenty of speculation about the Warriors potentially trading their 2020 lottery pick for win-now veteran help, Ethan Strauss of The Athletic contends that it might make more sense for the club to move the Timberwolves’ 2021 first-rounder if a major trade opportunity arises.
- Veteran Israeli forward Lior Eliyahu, who spent the 2019/20 season with Maccabi Ashdod, is considering retirement, per an Israel Hayom report (relayed by Sportando). How is that news relevant to the Warriors? Well, Golden State technically holds Eliyahu’s NBA rights, having acquired them in a trade with Minnesota last July. The No. 44 pick in the 2016 draft never came stateside, but has had a decorated playing career in his home country, winning six Israeli League titles and earning seven All-Star nods.
- Teams around the NBA are reopening their practice facilities for individual voluntary workouts, but that won’t happen anytime soon for the Warriors, who are tentatively aiming for June 1, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic. As Slater observes, the last-place Dubs won’t have the same urgency to return to their building as some other California teams might, so they’re “waiting for the (government) order, not influencing it.”
- After Klay Thompson recently cautioned against assuming the Warriors‘ dynasty is over, fellow Splash Brother Stephen Curry conveyed a similar sentiment in an interview with Jermaine O’Neal (video link via Chris Montano). “It’s going to look different. It’s going to have a new cast of characters that are going to contribute at a high level,” Curry said. “But the DNA and the chemistry that us three (Curry, Thompson, and Draymond Green) have, we’re going to be in good shape coming out of this.”
The National Basketball Players Association has begun to poll its members on whether or not they want to resume the 2019/20 season, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. As Woj explains, the NBPA’s regional representatives are among the union officials asking players a “yes or no” question about their desire to return to play amid the coronavirus pandemic. The union has assured players that their individual responses will be kept confidential.
While it may seem like a given that players on contending teams will want to resume the season, there’s certainly no guarantee that players on all 30 clubs feel the same way. Even among players who have a chance to win a title in ’19/20, there could be differences of opinion based on potential safety and health concerns.
With Major League Baseball working on its own plan for a potential return to play, pitcher Sean Doolittle published a Twitter thread on Monday outlining concerns that he and other players would have as they consider suiting up for the season. Doolittle’s thread goes more in-depth and lays out more specific concerns than those we’ve heard publicly from basketball players, but I’d imagine there are many around the NBA who share some of his reservations.
For what it’s worth, the NBPA said in a statement to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link) that the union “is not engaging in and has not authorized any formal poll of its players.” As such, it sounds like the outreach being described by Wojnarowski is informal.
Here’s more on the coronavirus situation and its impact on the NBA:
- A source tells Marc Berman of The New York Post that one scenario the NBA has discussed as it explores the resumption of the 2019/20 season would see the eighth seed in each conference up for grabs, with the current eighth through 12th seeds participating in a play-in tournament. As Berman explains, it would provide an incentive for a handful of teams who are currently out of the postseason picture, while not requiring the clubs at the very bottom of the standings to return and participate. Of course, it’s just one of many ideas the league has explored.
- The Warriors still don’t expect they’ll be one of the teams playing games if and when the NBA resumes its season, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want to be involved, writes Anthony Slater of The Athletic. According to Slater, one Warriors coach suggested that playing a handful of regular season games in the summer could essentially function as a “replacement summer league” for Golden State.
- The NBA and NBPA are forming a “working group” and will have a call on Tuesday to discuss potential return-to-play scenarios, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic. Charania tweets that Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Jayson Tatum, Kyle Lowry, and Dwight Powell will be among the players on the call.
- In an interesting piece for The Athletic, Bill Shea explores how the pandemic will impact the way fans attend sporting events, once they’re allowed to reenter arenas and stadiums.
Warriors minority owner Mark Stevens will return to active status as a team stakeholder and also rejoin the team’s executive board once this season officially ends, Tim Kawakami of The Athletic reports. Stevens received a one-year suspension and was fined $500K after he shoved and yelled at the Raptors’ Kyle Lowry during Game 3 of last season’s Finals.
Despite reports to the contrary, Stevens was never bought out, nor was he in danger of being kicked out of the ownership group, Kawakami continues. Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob believes Stevens had a momentary lapse in judgment and has served the suspension without complaint, Kawakami adds.
FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 will be held that summer from August 25 to September 10, according to a FIBA press release. The group phase of World Cup 2023 will be played in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, with the final phase taking place in the Philippine capital city of Manila. It will be the first time the competition has been staged in more than one country. Spain defeated Argentina in the finals of last year’s Cup, which was held in China.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- Turkey became the latest country to cancel the remainder of its basketball season. Former NBA player Hedo Turkoglu, the basketball federation’s president, officially announced the cancellation of BSL and TBL seasons, according to Alessandro Maggi of Sportando.
- Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski turned down numerous offers over the years to become an NBA coach, Sportando’s Nicola Lupo relays. In an interview on WIP radio, the Duke coach said he turned down the Sixers job in 2003, the Celtics in 1990 and the Lakers in 2005.
- The Warriors’ signing of Kevin Durant, the Spurs’ draft-night acquisition on Kawhi Leonard and the Rockets’ trade for James Harden rank as the biggest and best transactions over the past decade, according to ESPN Insiders. A list of 74 major moves was compiled by ESPN’s NBA experts.
Warriors head of basketball operations Bob Myers offered assurances that his team will be in a competitive mode if play resumes this season, Ramona Shelburne of ESPN reports. Coach Steve Kerr raised some eyebrows last week when he said the franchise was already in “offseason mode.” But Myers indicated his team will give its best. “The truth is we have the worst record in the league. … It’s hard to motivate in our unique position,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean players don’t have pride and won’t come back and play and care about the league as a whole. We want to be good partners and we will be good partners.”
After appearing in five consecutive NBA Finals and winning three of them, the Warriors fell off hard this season, entering the hiatus with the league’s worst record. Klay Thompson, one of the injured stars whose absence contributed to Golden State’s drop-off, has spent the year recovering from an ACL tear and was frustrated by his inability to help the team.
In a short documentary called ‘Above The Waves,’ which details Thompson’s rehab process, the veteran sharpshooter said he’s looking forward to proving the Warriors’ dynasty isn’t over yet, as Josh Schrock of NBC Sports Bay Area relays.
“It just kills me inside when I see these other teams, so many talking heads, and some of my peers saying, ‘The dynasty is over, they had a great run,'” the Warriors star said in the doc. “I have so much more to give this game, but patience definitely builds character. You don’t have to prove anything anymore, you know? You have three championships. Multiple All-Star appearances. … I’ll just be that eager to prove everyone wrong again.”