Lacob tampering, Wiggins non-vax, and Myers is a “Warriors”
Lacob tampering, Wiggins non-vax, and Myers is a “Warriors”
Some pre-MediaDay stuff
Wow, what a week it was in terms of NBA news content right before training camp. With Golden State Warriors Media Day set to start at 10:30AM PDT on Monday, looks like the pipeline is ready to feed the firehose. More on Media Day later on this site, but let’s recap how things went down on our private Discord server (free for $5/mo or $50/yr subscribers to this Substack) Wednesday, September 22, just five days before training camp.
Less big-name free agent movement
Bobby Marks of ESPN started off giving us a little nugget on another reason how Kevin Durant [my latest on KD here] joined the Warriors back in 2016: the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) only allowed for the OKC Thunder to extend KD for two years at just $44.9 million. Under current CBA rules, OKC would’ve been able to offer him four years at $139 million or five years at $178 million. So, this time, the Warriors lucked out. But I look at it as karma because the CBA was changed (at least) twice in the past due to the loopholes that left the Dubs holding the empty bag: Chris Webber and Gilbert Arenas.
The article also mentioned Ben Simmons becoming a free agent in 2025, a year after the cap should increase, which might allow for more free agent movement, which the NBA hasn’t seen much of since KD went to the Brooklyn Nets and Kawhi Leonard and Paul George landed on the LA Clippers.
So with the more franchise-friendly extensions they can give, all the agents and players in the NBA are currently trending more towards “sign now and ask (for an) out later.”
Bob x Showtime
Bob Myers went on Instagram Live for Aaron “Showtime” Taylor, whom we’ve had on our YouTube Live [can’t find the link as YouTube can’t search on our old livestreams]:
My favorite part was when Myers told the story of having season tickets in the nosebleeds, then getting a Cohan-era Warriors sweatshirt somehow from Antawn Jamison and wearing that while Myers attended UCLA. Someone asked him, “Who are the Golden State Warriors? I don’t even know where that is,” and suggested he could switch to being a Los Angeles Lakers fan, no problem.
But Bob didn’t bite, he remained loyal to the Warriors. I did a quick Google search and found that there was a time in the past when he was offered up as a name to replace Magic Johnson as the GM of the Lakers, a position that eventually went to Rob Pelinka.
Had we known the sweatshirt story back then, the rumor would’ve never made the light of day, or at least more people would’ve known that was impossible.
DubNation can now take comfort that Myers, indeed, bleeds blue and gold, i.e., “he’s a Warriors”. Sure, it’s not a tattoo or anything — one of my first-ever tweets from #GSWMediaDay was an observation of Monta Ellis, who is famous for saying, “I’m a Warriors”:
Check out the podcast with Showtime above for that segment, it’s timestamped [plus I may have gotten the story wrong a tad, sorry for the lazy journalism].
Lacob gets fined for tampering
My two hot takes from this is that (1) Rusty Simmons of the SF Chronicle is back (!), and (2) this shows that Lacob never thought there was a chance to land Simmons, so we can shut the door on any Draymond Green trade talk because if he’s not going to be included in a trade for this particularly available up-and-coming superstar, then what other near-superstar is there?
I’ve said this on here before, but I just don’t see Myers ever trading Draymond. Maybe Lacob senses this? [Gross speculation warning!]
Btw I’ve been told Rusty will be back doing more beatwriting stuff and Connor Letourneau will transition to more feature articles for the SF Chronicle.
Wiggins/vaccination
My only hot take on this is, at the end of an interview after practice on March 23, 2021, Andrew Wiggins said that he would get the vaccine if he were “forced to, somehow.” I still have hope!
Sure, there’s fear of the worst-case scenario, which is that he doesn’t get the vaccine. All we can do is wait and see. If he doesn’t, then yeah, it’s quite a Rubik’s Cube to figure out what to do as a basketball franchise, but let’s cross that bridge only if indeed there is a bridge. But it’s understandable why Nick Friedell of ESPN reported on either The Jump or 95.7 The Game last week that the Warriors have been frustrated all summer.
The one thing that’s interesting to me right now in this moment is 1) good for Rusty to report it, 2) on a podcast with Tim Kawakami of The Athletic, Steve Kerr didn’t like the fact it was made public, but 3) I think someone in GSW leaked it to Rusty in order for it to be public. In other words the handling of this whole situation, you wonder if it was made better by it becoming public or if it would’ve been better to have been handled behind closed doors.
Admittedly, an “aside” of a thought experiment, at least until the news drops of whether or not Wiggs is getting the vaccine.
I hope he doesn't because that dehumanizing
Wiggins says he's comfortable with his decision. Iguodala has backed up his choice. The players are probably more realistic than the fans who demand that he get jabbed. Isn't it his choice? I don't care whether he's jabbed or not. Even if he plays half the time we are good to go and will go.