Gui Santos: “My goal always was playing in the NBA, playing for the Warriors”
[practice videos/interviews/transcripts]
The Warriors today announced that Gui Santos, who was set to become a restricted free agent on July 1, signed a three-year, $15 million extension. The third year is a player option, per Shams Charania of ESPN.
At $5 million average annual value, that’s an incredible bargain for someone who has checked off both the “role player short spurt energy” box, as well as the “steady starter two-way wing” one.
As I build up this Think-Tank project I’m working on, one of the things we’ll do is explore the so-called “optionality” with the roster as it pertains to the salary cap sheet, the first and second aprons, and so on — now that one of the variables has been set.
You can compare and contrast Jonathan Kuminga all day — and I said in a recent video essay that if you had to pinpoint the main issue, it was turnovers — but I also said it wasn’t worth seeking out blame for why JK didn’t work:
Sometimes things don’t work out and it’s absolutely okay to still root for the guy with whom it didn’t work.
At the same time, you see how everything with Gui unfolded perfectly, it’s a triumph of the Golden State organization. Even assistant GM Larry Harris called it back in 2023 on 95.7 The Game:
Certainly what Santos said on the podium had a lot to do with the extension (full transcript below, per usual):
The road to getting to this point, man, I think the key word for that is patience because when I got here I was a point guard playing back in Brazil, was playing as a point guard having the ball in my hand. Then I spent the whole year in the G League just learning how to fit in the system here because my goal, I always go, my goal, always was playing in the NBA, play for the Warriors. And I asked them, what I gotta do to do that? They said alright, I’m gonna give you the way. You gotta play hard on defense. You gotta be crashing the boards all the time and you just gotta find Steph. It’s easy. So I said, all right, I’m doing that. I’m doing that. So I was just working on that in my first couple years and I think this last season right now has been the best of myself. It’s kind of like what I was doing before I got here because I had to change my game a little bit to fit in the system and I think that’s what a lot of players struggle with because it’s hard. It’s not easy, just, like, all right, I’ve been in point guard my whole life, now I’m gonna be a 4. Sometimes I was playing 5 in the G League and I just keep going, keep going. And the coaches here, the staff, the organization, they always nice with me. They always help me with everything that I need and right now they giving me the option, the opportunity to show a little bit more to — because all that happened, Jimmy, we lost Jimmy during the season. Now we don’t have Steph. Kristaps was out for a couple games, Draymond, and that’s open a little more space to show a little bit more what you can do. And I’m glad they still trusting me for all these papers during this whole path to the NBA.
It kind of makes sense now. I would imagine Gui could have gotten something more than $5 million AAV on the open market. Granted, restricted free agency can’t even be considered that “open”.
And maybe Santos has Kuminga to thank for the recent observed difficulties of RFA in the second apron era, in prioritizing security over dollars, because the Warriors have now locked in a two-way wing who is probably worth twice that, although the influx of talent from the 2026 Draft might put that into question — we won’t really know the going rate for guys like Gui until free agency hits this summer.
Once the Think-Tank is up and running, we can go explore what other wings are making these days, who are comparable to Santos, but for now, it’s just 🙌 for both sides and a win for Golden State up and down, notably for Santa Cruz G League, Steve Kerr — whose transcript from practice is also below, although the extension was done afterwards, so it was not yet discussed with reporters — and one Wardell Stephen Curry because that’s who this whole organizational structure has been built around.
00:00 Steve, what's the latest with — let's start with Kristaps. How's he doing?
00:04 STEVE KERR, PRACTICE, DAY BEFORE LAL-GSW: Kristaps is feeling better. He practiced today. First — I think it's the first time he's really done much since the illness, but he'll be questionable for tomorrow.
00:14 What was he — so he was able to do a little bit. How's his — how is he feeling? Like, how's look out there?
00:19 Yeah, he's feeling better and he went through the full practice.
00:23 Steph, is there an--
00:25 Update on Sunday, right?
00:27 Sunday?
00:27 Yeah.
00:28 Is he able to do anything right now?
00:30 Update on Sunday?
00:34 Got it.
00:34 There's a reason we set--
00:36 Yeah, yeah.
00:38 Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I finally did what Raymond asked me to do.
00:43 We're supposed to talk to Rick (Celebrini) here in a little bit. What's it been getting him back and seeing him and talking to him about his — ?
00:50 Yeah, it's great. Great to have him back. I just saw him this morning for the first time and he shared a lot of stories and it was really fun hearing about the Olympic experience and yeah, he's such a big part of what we do, who we are. Great having him back in the building.
01:10 What were some of the takeaways from the road trip, given how many guys were injured and how you guys kind of had to rally with?
01:15 I love how hard our guys are playing. New Orleans, obviously, forced turnovers, which kept us out of an offensive rhythm, so we've gotta find a way to do that, to take care of the ball and to find rhythm against the better defenses, against more ball pressure, that sort of thing. Memphis game was great. Obviously, they were really shorthanded, but so were we. And I loved the the effort, the energy. A lot of guys played really well.
01:47 Family is so important to everything you guys do around here. Was it pretty much a given that Rick was gonna go, then?
01:51 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was given, for sure.
01:54 How did you guys, I mean, you've got Drew (Yoder) and staff, but how did you delineate duties, to kind of cover for his absence while you deal with — ?
02:00 Oh, we've got a lot of people in that performance group who are really good at what they do and they were communicating with Rick every single day.
02:13 How's Draymond doing?
02:14 Dray's good. Yeah, he went through practice today and I expect him to play tomorrow.
02:18 The offensive rhythm that you guys found against Denver and Memphis, without him, how do you find that rhythm with him out there?
02:25 Well, we have to read the situation. In New Orleans we found more rhythm in the second half with Dray out there than we did in the first. And so it's kind of some sets that we can call, doing some of our off-ball stuff and then some adjustments that he has to make without Steph. And those are all things that we talked about internally and with the whole group and with Draymond, individually.
02:55 What are some of those adjustments that he has to make without stuff?
02:58 Well, he's crashing, getting some offensive boards. We saw him do that against New Orleans. I think he had three of them that helped us generate some extra points, sprinting the floor. You saw him get a layup, a reverse layup in transition instead of trailing the play all the time, sometimes getting ahead, out ahead of the play. The faster we can play without Steph, the more likely we are to generate a good shot.
03:27 Steve, (inaudible) of Moses and Gui seems untraditional, but why does it work at least a lot of times?
03:37 Well, I think mo's playing with a lot of confidence. He's really shooting the ball well and then Gui has become one of our shot creators. He does it in some unorthodox ways, but he's got a great sense of the game, when to cut. His cutting frequently opens up somebody else. Sometimes that's Moses. Both guys have good size. They can switch defensively. I do like the pairing, for sure.
04:03 And you said you seem to be inching closer toward Melt playing back-to-backs and stuff like that. In his minutes bumping up, where's that stand? You got a couple of back-to-backs in the next couple weeks here. Any idea yet what you're gonna do with that?
04:16 Not yet. Yeah, we'll know when those back-to-backs come up. He's getting closer to that, but it's up to Rick.
04:27 Did Macklin (Celebrini) spend a lot of time around the facility growing up?
04:31 Yeah, I mean, here and there, we saw him quite a bit.
04:37 And what kind of example, I guess, seeing Steph up close and now we see Macklin kind of taking on the role of maybe a face of the franchise, what can he maybe learn from, I guess, that up close nature of just — ?
04:49 From Steph?
04:51 Yeah, he's a pretty good example.
04:52 Yeah, I mean, it's really more a question for him, but there can't be a better example, someone to learn from, than Steph, not only just from watching him, but Steph is so generous with his ideas and his advice and I know he's formed a connection with him, so I'm sure Macklin learned a lot from him.
05:12 How much more ingrained in the system does Luka (Doncic) look to you with the Lakers, now that he's been there a while?
05:19 He's brilliant, no matter what what system he's in, who's around him. I think the Lakers are still in the early iteration of the Luka era, for sure. And as they go in the coming years, they're gonna adjust the roster more and more to him, as that becomes more possible, but it doesn't matter whether he's playing with Dallas or playing with the Lakers, he's still the same guy. He's gonna create a good shot almost every single possession, either for himself or for one of his teammates and yeah, he's just a brilliant offensive player.
06:04 You changed your starting guards last two games. What was behind that change?
06:11 Well, Melt and Pat started in New Orleans, right?
06:14 I mean, Melt obviously wasn't gonna play back-to-back.
06:15 Yeah, Melt was not playing back-to-back, but so with Melt out we wanted to get BP in there, but we wanted to bring Pat off the bench so that he could come in for BP and then play with him some as well, so we definitely have some questions now. So with the starting lineup, I think we were pretty consistent with it there for a little bit, but with Al coming back tomorrow, Kristaps, we do have some questions. I'm not gonna tell you who we're gonna start tomorrow, but there could be some changes.
06:57 So might we see Al and Kristaps out there together?
07:04 You mean in the starting lineup?
07:05 Yeah, at some point?
07:07 Wow, man, you're really — you're probing.
07:10 No, no, I'm just kind of wondering if that's even conceivable.
07:12 When are we giving the update on Steph, Sunday? Okay. We'll give the update on Steph Sunday and I'll give the update on the starting lineup tomorrow, pre-game.
07:24 I don't mean tomorrow. I mean, at some point.
07:27 I don't know. I don't know. We have to figure this out. I mean, trying to start or play two of the three together, Al, Draymond. We know that Al and Draymond with Steph, pretty successful. Without Steph, not as much. We have one 17-minute sample size with KP right now. That's not enough to really get a feel, so we definitely have to mix and match a little bit and get a feel for it.
08:03 After last game, you talked about how fun it is to coach this group. I guess what about this group makes it so fun for you to coach them?
08:09 Just great energy and when you're shorthanded, there's kind of a mentality of all hands on deck and you can really feel the guys pulling for each other and trying to fill in the gaps with energy and just grit. And those are always fun teams to play to coach, when you get that vibe. There's a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, and you kind of have some nothing-to-lose in there because of all the injuries. And so you just want to come out swinging and that's how our guys have been. It's been fun to watch.
—
08:45 Hey Gui, what'd you guys kind of go over today?
08:48 GUI SANTOS: We went a little bit from a little bit from the last two games that we had some good and bad stuff that we did. We, of course, win some. Stuff that we gotta do tomorrow against the Lakers and, yeah, that was basically that.
09:04 What were some of the takeaways from that quick road trip?
09:06 I think it's most the way that we play, like, when we play with pace is a whole different game. When we play moving the ball, everybody running around for each other, it's just such a different game for us. When we do that and when we don't move the ball side to side and trying to get into the paint, a lot of like athletic team like New Orleans, that was kind of tougher for us. But we gonna figure that out.
09:32 I don't know if you got to see Kristaps practice at all, but if, if if you did, how did he kind of look?
09:37 Nah, he was good. Yeah, he was good he was out there with us today. He's always looking very, very, very nice on the court, so yeah.
09:51 Gui, we've watched you over these years, last few years, kind of go from when you first got drafted here and G League time and now you're in the starting lineup a lot. What do you look back on and say, okay, how'd you get here, I guess, is what I'm asking?
10:08 The road to getting to this point, man, I think the key word for that is patience because when I got here I was a point guard playing back in Brazil, was playing as a point guard having the ball in my hand. Then I spent the whole year in the G League just learning how to fit in the system here because my goal, I always go, my goal, I always was playing in the NBA, play for the Warriors. And I asked them, what I gotta do to do that? They said alright, I'm gonna give you the way. You gotta play hard on defense. You gotta be crashing the boards all the time and you just gotta find Steph. It's easy. So I said, all right, I'm doing that. I'm doing that. So I was just working on that in my first couple years and I think this last season right now has been the best of myself. It's kind of like what I was doing before I got here because I had to change my game a little bit to fit in the system and I think that's what a lot of players struggle with because it's hard. It's not easy, just, like, all right, I've been in point guard my whole life, now I'm gonna be a 4. Sometimes I was playing 5 in the G League and I just keep going, keep going. And the coaches here, the staff, the organization, they always nice with me. They always help me with everything that I need and right now they giving me the option, the opportunity to show a little bit more to — because all that happened, Jimmy, we lost Jimmy during the season. Now we don't have Steph. Kristaps was out for a couple games, Draymond, and that's open a little more space to show a little bit more what you can do. And I'm glad they still trusting me for all these papers during this whole path to the NBA.
12:03 When you have the ball though, you can see, we're starting to see more of that point guard skills as far as passing the ball, getting five and six assists and so forth. Are you enjoying that part of it?
12:13 Man, I'm loving it. Yeah, I'm loving it because — not that I don't like the other part. I love to just be in the NBA floor, but when you're in the NBA floor and you got the little bit more freedom to find teammates and either go to the basket and do all that, that give you some so much more joy to play, so I really love it, the momentum. Then, of course, we know when we had Steph and Kristaps that we're gonna be a lot of different, but we still having a great team. Everybody been playing together. Everybody been playing well in the last couple games. We have a lot of players score more than 10 points, so that's one big — that's a big step for us right now.
13:03 Rick is back from Milan. Did you guys feel his absence in the training room or was it pretty seamless?
13:10 For who?
13:10 Rick, Rick Celebrini.
13:11 Rick? Oh, yes. He just back today, so that was good to see him. Of course, he, Rick, is a nice guy. Rick is always joking around, the best at what he does, so we miss him and now he's back with us. I am not from USA, but I guess that everybody that is from USA is probably talking something to hinder — I was not watching that.
13:45 Everything you've gone through to get here and play here, now, I know you're worried about your own thing, but is there any element of, I don't know, being starstruck or whatever, when you're going to step on the court with guys like Luka and LeBron James. Do you take that moment to say, wow?
13:58 I think I feel that more in my first years. Right now, of course, you respect them for all they've been doing and all they did, but it's a different feeling. First, when I got here in the league, my first year, I was in the court just like, damn, that's Luka, that's LeBron, all these guys, but right now you see them, like, oh, right now I'm not thinking about, that's him or I'm just thinking, like, oh, he does that. That one does another thing, so it's more kind of like a scout vision than a fan vision.
14:30 And when you look at Luka, what makes him so tough to defend?
14:35 Man, the fact that he can stop and go all the time. He knows how to use his body. He's a great passer at the same time that he's a good shooter. He's a good driver, so he can do everything on the court. So that's what make really, really tough to guard him.
14:52 Are you at the point now where you're looking at this game and seeing, alright, what are the ramifications, if we win, if we lose, and for the Lakers too?
14:59 Yeah, we definitely watching that because we know how important it is for us, each victory right now. Doesn't matter if it's against who we playing, but specifically Lakers, we know that ahead of us, a couple games ahead of us, so that's an important matchup for us.
🫶💙💛