After two years of difficulty and hardship, the Golden State Warriors are back on top of the world again with their 4th title in 8 years.
The good news is that the payroll is not $400-$500 million as many predicted, and their mix of young talent and older veteran players should keep the team competitive for a long time. The bad news is, keeping all of their budding young superstars is going to be a challenge — and team owner Joe Lacob knows it.
In an interview with Tim Kawakami of The Athletic, Lacob got real on the state of the Warriors and his plans to keep the team together.
“We have time to do those things,” Joe Lacob said. “There’s no rush on all that. I’m sure there will be some discussions this summer, but we haven’t talked to them. They are two great players in their 20s. We’d love to retain them, but this becomes the problem going forward when you have a team like ours where you’ve got three guys that have been with us for a long time, make a lot of money, huge salaries: Steph, Klay, and Draymond. You’ve got these two guys who will be getting into, well, Wiggins already is in big salary mode and wants to stay there. And Poole is going to be clearly making a lot more money.”
For the Warriors, the legendary trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green is getting old. Who knows how much longer they can remain elite.
The future of the team rests in guys like James Wiseman, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Poole. If they can ascend to another level of play as the older guys start their decline, it could set the Dubs up to continue running the league without missing a beat.
But Joe Lacob, Bob Meyers, and the rest of the front office will have some big decisions to make on who to pay and who to let go. There’s just not enough money to go around to satisfy every member of the team.
