The Golden State Warriors just won their 4th championship in eight years last month, proving that they are far away from done. The Dubs assembled a terrific team, led by Stephen Curry, that didn’t have any issue beating their rivals on their way to the promised land.
This offseason, though, they had to say goodbye to some of the players that helped them reach the glory again. Gary Payton II, Juan Toscano, and Nemanja Bjelica, to name a few, all left the Bay to find a new challenge in the league and even overseas.
Meanwhile, they’re now ready to give Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole a big contract, which could take their payroll to the next level. The luxury tax has been tough for the Dubs, and recently, owner Joe Lacob lashed out against it, saying it is the ‘hardest thing’ the team has to deal with.
Via NBC Sports:
“The hardest thing of all is navigating this luxury tax, unfortunately,” Lacob said to Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner on the last episode of their “Point Forward” podcast. “I went back to New York this week for labor meetings. I’m on the committee. And you know, obviously, the league wants everyone to have a chance and right now, there’s a certain element out there that believes we “checkbook win,” we won because we have the most salaries on our team.
“The truth is, we’re only $40 million more than the luxury tax. Now, that’s not small but it’s not a massive number. We’re $200 million over in total because most of that is this incredible penal luxury tax. And what I consider to be unfair and I’m going to say it on this podcast and I hope it gets back to whoever is listening … and obviously it’s self-serving for me to say this, but I think it’s a very unfair system because our team is built by — all top eight players are all drafted by this team.”
Wiggins obviously wasn’t drafted by the Warriors but as Iguodala reminded Lacob, the former No. 1 pick was acquired from the Minnesota Timberwolves with his Bird Rights intact, meaning the Warriors could go over the salary cap to retain him.
“Right,” Lacob said. “And we have guys that were undrafted and we found and developed in Santa Cruz. We had not one free agent who isn’t a minimum. Not one. All minimums the guys we brought in this year. So the only guy you could make a case for us outspending the competition, not being fair is that we turned [Kevin] Durant leaving into one guy who turned into Wiggins, and that worked out great. But they all criticized us for doing it, said he was overpaid and that [we] did a bad deal. So you can’t have it both ways.”
This is a tricky situation for the Warriors, who have been criticized for all the money they spend due to luxury tax. Well, nobody is happy about it, apparently, and Mr. Lacob is the first one trying to get out of that. However, if they have the money, they should use it, and try to keep their talented core together for the future. The Dubs have big chances to win a couple of more titles, but they must keep their stars on the roster.
