The Golden State Warriors have enjoyed prosperity for nearly a decade now. And even with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green aging, it seems like they are poised to be good for another decade or more.
Ultimately, it all comes down to money for Golden State. While they might not have the funds to sign everyone they want, they’ll have enough to keep their core intact for years to come.
Warriors president of basketball operations/general manager Bob Myers joined 95.7 The Game’s “The Morning Roast” for his bi-weekly appearance Tuesday to discuss the NBA Finals and more. Myers takes issue with any critics of the franchise’s exorbitant spending.
“You should be allowed to spend on your own players,” Myers said. “We drafted a lot of these guys, we developed them. It’s not like we went out and signed all these guys as free agents and built some team that way. Larry Riley drafted Curry. I was here when we drafted Klay, we Draymond. We drafted (Jordan) Poole. We traded for Wiggins. Nobody wanted Wiggins. Nobody was saying anything then.”
“My response to a lot of that is, if you draft your own guys and develop them you should be able to pay those guys and potentially not even a tax,” Myers said. “Everybody’s got an equal playing field in the draft,” Myers said. “Everybody drafts unless you trade your pick. It’s an opportunity where it’s not about big or small markets. It’s about how well you do with that. And then it’s about development. I could hear it a little bit more maybe where it was some sort of situation where we just signed all these guys in free agency or something like that. But these are our guys. We’ve rode it out with them. When we had the worst record in the league, we had a lot of the same guys. You know what? Fine. We just gotta go play the game and try to win this.”
You can’t blame the Warriors for making the right moves. Over the past few years, they have continued to build upon their dominant foundation of players and have already set up their next generation of leaders. It has cost them a pretty penny, but success never comes cheap.
Golden State is going to be relevant for a long time and the rest of the league better get used to that new reality and get with the program.
