Warriors’ Joe Lacob on Klay Thompson, Steve Kerr, Chris Paul and much more
Just follow the payroll dollars and you can figure out what Joe Lacob is thinking about the Warriors’ future and how much is at stake if things don’t quite work out perfectly.
If you don’t want to do the math, I’ll summarize: A lot of money is pouring out of the Warriors’ coffers these days, more is coming, and a lot is on the line the next few seasons as the franchise’s golden generation tries to squeeze out another championship. A wholelot is on the line. Lots of a lot, multiplied by a lot more.
Underline Draymond Green’s new $100 million deal that takes him through his mid-30s. Understand that Stephen Curry’s contract is on the books for $167.3 million over three more years, expiring when he’s 38. And listen to Lacob’s answer when I asked him if he expects that Klay Thompson, whose current contract expires next July, will be with the team past this season.
“I do,” the Warriorsowner said on my podcast Thursday. “We’ve had some very brief discussions at this point with his agent. But they’re very, very early. … I fully expect that we’ll have some substantial discussions soon sometime and we’ll see if we can’t put something together that allows Klay to be here for a long time, which we clearly would like him to be.”
The practical context is that Draymond just took a cut from his scheduled 2023-24 salary to get long-term security, and last year Andrew Wigginstook an even larger reduction from his previous salary to sign a four-year, $109 million deal. So it isn’t a grand leap to presume that any new Klay deal, whether it happens this fall or next summer, would probably include a pretty steep drop in 2024-25 from the $42.3 million salary he will earn this season.
“Look, it’s August and there’s plenty of time to work all this out,” Lacob said. “His contract doesn’t expire until next year. We love him and I know he knows we love him. And we’re going to try to do something here for the rest of his career.”
When Lacob talks like this about a specific contract situation, it usually means that he has a good idea that a deal is realistic. I’ve said in the past that there was no clear reason for the Warriors or Klay (currently 33) to push for this deal right now, but the tone of this has shifted and it now seems more likely than not that Klay will have a new deal by the start of the season.
And I definitely would say the same thing for Steve Kerr, whose current contract also expires next July. Contractual clarity is always more imperative for a coach than for a player because it gets a little sketchy when a top coach or executive starts working into a lame-duck period (like, say, Bob Myers last season). Kerr, of course, is in the Philippines right now, coaching Team USA in the World Cup, but everything seems to be on track to get his new deal done before the start of training camp next month.
“We have started to talk with his people, again, same as kind of the Klay situation,” Lacob said. “Very early. There’s plenty of time. Steve is just like Klay, we want Steve to be here for a long time. Hall of Fame coach, we really value him. And I’m sure we’ll be able to work out something that’s fair to both sides.”
But the theme is beyond doubt: The Warriors are going for it with this group for as long as this group can go. That might be an easy call for fans and media members to make, but for Lacob and his front office, once they made this decision in the offseason, there were a lot of financial and personnel repercussions.
For instance: Trading24-year-old Jordan Poole for 38-year-old Chris Paul, the Draymond dealand now, probably new Klay and Kerr deals.
The Warriors are not pivoting off of anything. They’re leaning in.
I mean, how else can you explain Lacob agreeing to push the Warriors’ total payroll commitments (counting luxury tax penalties) above $400 million for the coming season?
“That wasn’t the plan,” Lacob said of moving the number over $400 million after going to a record $380 million last season. “I can’t tell you it was the plan, it wasn’t. But again, we want to win. And right now, look, our core players are getting older, we don’t know how long they’re going to be able to play at this level. Hopefully for a while. But I think we have to maximize that opportunity. … We had an opportunity to add Chris; it’s going to cost us a little more money in the short run. We just decided it was worth it. … It wasn’t planned to be that way.
“But I will say, on a longer-term basis … it gives us some optionality going forward. I don’t know how long Chris is going to play. I don’t know exactly what’ll happen here next year, but it looks like we could be in a better position financially long-term. So short-term higher, maybe long-term not as high.
“To some extent, this is a year-by-year league. When you’ve got a chance to win, you’ve got to go for it. We did the best thing we thought we could do. This is going for it. So we’ll see what happens.”
The Paul acquisition makes the Warriors a lot older, but it also gives them flexibility because his $30 million salary in 2024-25 is non-guaranteed. The Warriors could let Paul go after this season, could try to sign him for less or could trade him for another player making a lot of money.
‘There’s a lot of possibilities,” Lacob said. “… But I don’t think our goal, quite frankly, is to trade Chris Paulaway or do something with that contract. We like the idea of having Chris Paul on the team. And we’re excited about it. So let’s see what happens, how it works and how successful we are, and we’ll take it from there.”
Here are some other highlights from our conversation …
• Lacob said that, like a lot of Warriors fans, he was dubious when he first heard about the idea to acquire Paul, who has been through several playoff battles with the Warriors over the years.
“Chris Paul, when I first heard that and thought about it, it was, like, really? Seems highly unlikely we would do that,” Lacob said. “But the more we thought about it, the more we considered our options, the more we realized, hey, he’s a great player, always has made other people better. He hasn’t won a championship, maybe he can do that with our group. It would be a helluva storybook ending to his career, or near-ending, if he were able to do that with us.
“We kind of warmed to that idea and the more we processed it the more we thought it really made sense — at least for the short-to-intermediate term. Certainly longer-term, I’m not going to deny, we gave up a great asset in Jordan Poole, probably has a decade or so left to play in this league. He’s probably going to just get better. We were going short-term versus long-term on this. But for a lot of different reasons, both basketball reasons and financial reasons, it just made sense to do it.”
• Given the tension around this team after Draymond punched Poole last October, is it fair to say that the biggest offseason decision might’ve been which one to keep, either Draymond or Poole, and that you couldn’t keep both?
“I don’t want to say absolutely that’s true,” Lacob said. “I think it’s fair to say there was some level of concern going forward whether that was going to be something that would work out. To be honest with you, I think it would’ve worked out, could’ve worked out. But I think it is fair to say that in order to make the numbers work and so on, someone probably was going to be the odd man out. It just turned out, and it wasn’t planned, that it was Jordan.”
• Lacob brought up the comparison himself earlier in the episode, so let’s go ahead and follow up: Was he as struck as everybody else by the similarities between the Warriors’ experience with James Wiseman(traded halfway through his third season, after being selected No. 2 overall) and the 49ers’ with Trey Lance (traded before his third season, after being selected No. 3 overall)?
“Yeah, it is (similar),” Lacob said. “We can’t sit here and deny it. It has some similarities, no question. Both were traded in Year 3, right? Second pick in the draft, third pick in the draft. Clearly both sustained injuries at very bad times in their development and missed kind of a whole year or close to it. … You know, circumstances sometimes dictate success in a career. It’s not always just about the talent. … But yeah, there are a lot of similarities. I couldn’t help but notice it.”
• Mike Dunleavy Jr. moved into the general-manager rolereplacing Myers right before the draft and free agency. How does Lacob assess Dunleavy’s offseason?
“I thought he was really great,” Lacob said. “I thought he jumped right in. He didn’t have any time, the training wheels had to come off really fast. There was a lot to do for me and us and for him. We processed a lot of things, did a great job in the draft, free agency, trades, he was integrally involved in all of that. … The great thing about Mike is he’s so collaborative and so great to work with… it’s just proven right off the bat to be the case.
“Here’s a great addition: I like to play golf and Steph Curry had his Eat Learn Play charity tournament on Monday, and I played with Mike in that. I love Bob, but he doesn’t play golf. (Laughs.)I wish he played golf. Mike’s a great guy, fits in great, we’re really, really excited and lucky to have him. As great, great, as Bob Myers was and the great job that he did over 12 years, I don’t think we’re going to miss a beat here.”
• Lacob confirmed that the team’s goal will be to get under the second apron by next July and escape the penalties that cost them their midlevel exception and other roster-building tools this summer: “It is very penal to be above it. I think our goal would be to be under it, yeah. You just lose too many options in terms of constructing your roster, draft choices and a variety of things. It is very difficult to contemplate not being under it. But look, it’s a year-by-year thing and we’ll see what happens.”
• So let’s get Lacob to join the late-summer’s favorite debate: Who’s the greatest point guard of all time, Curry or Magic Johnson?
“I think the truth is they are two of the greatest, if not the two greatest, and that’s a big thing,” Lacob said. “Magic Johnson, I don’t think there’ll ever be anybody quite like him … 6-9 point guard. … Steph Curry, on the other hand, revolutionized the game completely with the long shots. He’s also a great team leader. Both of them were good team leaders, but Steph, this is what really sets him apart in my mind. He’s such an incredible human being, such a great face for our organization overall. We’re all so proud to have him be in that role. … He’s historically great in that regard, so you have to include that when you’re analyzing these two. They’re both great. I don’t know how you can make a choice. What, did Magic win five titles, I think? And Steph has four, we’re going to get the fifth this year. And if not this year, next. … Anyone should be lucky to have either of them.”
To be clear, Lacob was laughing while he said those last few sentences. But that was mostly because of the audacity of saying it, I think, not because he thought it was silly to say.
“I’ve told Steph the last few years, I’ve said to him, ‘You need to be Tom Brady,'” Lacob said. “What I meant by that is having an incredibly long career at a high, high level. It never happened before. I obviously would love for Steph to be the equivalent in basketball. I don’t know if anybody can predict that; Father Time certainly wins that on the basis of odds. But he is an incredibly well-conditioned athlete.
“He looked great this last year. I have no doubt he’ll be great again this year. He’ll turn 36 this year, by historical standards, that’s pretty up there. But who knows? Maybe he can continue on like this for a number of years yet, we just don’t know. One thing that he has that will never go away, right? That incredible shooting. Even if he couldn’t do quite the same things later on in his career, he’s still always going to be able to shoot that ball at a world-class level. I don’t know how long it’s going to last; right now we’re going to ride it and see how far we can go.”
Warriors’ Joe Lacob on Klay Thompson, Steve Kerr, Chris Paul and much more
Just follow the payroll dollars and you can figure out what Joe Lacob is thinking about the Warriors’ future and how much is at stake if things don’t quite work out perfectly.
If you don’t want to do the math, I’ll summarize: A lot of money is pouring out of the Warriors’ coffers these days, more is coming, and a lot is on the line the next few seasons as the franchise’s golden generation tries to squeeze out another championship. A wholelot is on the line. Lots of a lot, multiplied by a lot more.
Underline Draymond Green’s new $100 million deal that takes him through his mid-30s. Understand that Stephen Curry’s contract is on the books for $167.3 million over three more years, expiring when he’s 38. And listen to Lacob’s answer when I asked him if he expects that Klay Thompson, whose current contract expires next July, will be with the team past this season.
“I do,” the Warriorsowner said on my podcast Thursday. “We’ve had some very brief discussions at this point with his agent. But they’re very, very early. … I fully expect that we’ll have some substantial discussions soon sometime and we’ll see if we can’t put something together that allows Klay to be here for a long time, which we clearly would like him to be.”
The practical context is that Draymond just took a cut from his scheduled 2023-24 salary to get long-term security, and last year Andrew Wigginstook an even larger reduction from his previous salary to sign a four-year, $109 million deal. So it isn’t a grand leap to presume that any new Klay deal, whether it happens this fall or next summer, would probably include a pretty steep drop in 2024-25 from the $42.3 million salary he will earn this season.
“Look, it’s August and there’s plenty of time to work all this out,” Lacob said. “His contract doesn’t expire until next year. We love him and I know he knows we love him. And we’re going to try to do something here for the rest of his career.”
When Lacob talks like this about a specific contract situation, it usually means that he has a good idea that a deal is realistic. I’ve said in the past that there was no clear reason for the Warriors or Klay (currently 33) to push for this deal right now, but the tone of this has shifted and it now seems more likely than not that Klay will have a new deal by the start of the season.
And I definitely would say the same thing for Steve Kerr, whose current contract also expires next July. Contractual clarity is always more imperative for a coach than for a player because it gets a little sketchy when a top coach or executive starts working into a lame-duck period (like, say, Bob Myers last season). Kerr, of course, is in the Philippines right now, coaching Team USA in the World Cup, but everything seems to be on track to get his new deal done before the start of training camp next month.
“We have started to talk with his people, again, same as kind of the Klay situation,” Lacob said. “Very early. There’s plenty of time. Steve is just like Klay, we want Steve to be here for a long time. Hall of Fame coach, we really value him. And I’m sure we’ll be able to work out something that’s fair to both sides.”
But the theme is beyond doubt: The Warriors are going for it with this group for as long as this group can go. That might be an easy call for fans and media members to make, but for Lacob and his front office, once they made this decision in the offseason, there were a lot of financial and personnel repercussions.
For instance: Trading24-year-old Jordan Poole for 38-year-old Chris Paul, the Draymond dealand now, probably new Klay and Kerr deals.
The Warriors are not pivoting off of anything. They’re leaning in.
I mean, how else can you explain Lacob agreeing to push the Warriors’ total payroll commitments (counting luxury tax penalties) above $400 million for the coming season?
“That wasn’t the plan,” Lacob said of moving the number over $400 million after going to a record $380 million last season. “I can’t tell you it was the plan, it wasn’t. But again, we want to win. And right now, look, our core players are getting older, we don’t know how long they’re going to be able to play at this level. Hopefully for a while. But I think we have to maximize that opportunity. … We had an opportunity to add Chris; it’s going to cost us a little more money in the short run. We just decided it was worth it. … It wasn’t planned to be that way.
“But I will say, on a longer-term basis … it gives us some optionality going forward. I don’t know how long Chris is going to play. I don’t know exactly what’ll happen here next year, but it looks like we could be in a better position financially long-term. So short-term higher, maybe long-term not as high.
“To some extent, this is a year-by-year league. When you’ve got a chance to win, you’ve got to go for it. We did the best thing we thought we could do. This is going for it. So we’ll see what happens.”
The Paul acquisition makes the Warriors a lot older, but it also gives them flexibility because his $30 million salary in 2024-25 is non-guaranteed. The Warriors could let Paul go after this season, could try to sign him for less or could trade him for another player making a lot of money.
‘There’s a lot of possibilities,” Lacob said. “… But I don’t think our goal, quite frankly, is to trade Chris Paulaway or do something with that contract. We like the idea of having Chris Paul on the team. And we’re excited about it. So let’s see what happens, how it works and how successful we are, and we’ll take it from there.”
Here are some other highlights from our conversation …
• Lacob said that, like a lot of Warriors fans, he was dubious when he first heard about the idea to acquire Paul, who has been through several playoff battles with the Warriors over the years.
“Chris Paul, when I first heard that and thought about it, it was, like, really? Seems highly unlikely we would do that,” Lacob said. “But the more we thought about it, the more we considered our options, the more we realized, hey, he’s a great player, always has made other people better. He hasn’t won a championship, maybe he can do that with our group. It would be a helluva storybook ending to his career, or near-ending, if he were able to do that with us.
“We kind of warmed to that idea and the more we processed it the more we thought it really made sense — at least for the short-to-intermediate term. Certainly longer-term, I’m not going to deny, we gave up a great asset in Jordan Poole, probably has a decade or so left to play in this league. He’s probably going to just get better. We were going short-term versus long-term on this. But for a lot of different reasons, both basketball reasons and financial reasons, it just made sense to do it.”
• Given the tension around this team after Draymond punched Poole last October, is it fair to say that the biggest offseason decision might’ve been which one to keep, either Draymond or Poole, and that you couldn’t keep both?
“I don’t want to say absolutely that’s true,” Lacob said. “I think it’s fair to say there was some level of concern going forward whether that was going to be something that would work out. To be honest with you, I think it would’ve worked out, could’ve worked out. But I think it is fair to say that in order to make the numbers work and so on, someone probably was going to be the odd man out. It just turned out, and it wasn’t planned, that it was Jordan.”
• Lacob brought up the comparison himself earlier in the episode, so let’s go ahead and follow up: Was he as struck as everybody else by the similarities between the Warriors’ experience with James Wiseman(traded halfway through his third season, after being selected No. 2 overall) and the 49ers’ with Trey Lance (traded before his third season, after being selected No. 3 overall)?
“Yeah, it is (similar),” Lacob said. “We can’t sit here and deny it. It has some similarities, no question. Both were traded in Year 3, right? Second pick in the draft, third pick in the draft. Clearly both sustained injuries at very bad times in their development and missed kind of a whole year or close to it. … You know, circumstances sometimes dictate success in a career. It’s not always just about the talent. … But yeah, there are a lot of similarities. I couldn’t help but notice it.”
• Mike Dunleavy Jr. moved into the general-manager rolereplacing Myers right before the draft and free agency. How does Lacob assess Dunleavy’s offseason?
“I thought he was really great,” Lacob said. “I thought he jumped right in. He didn’t have any time, the training wheels had to come off really fast. There was a lot to do for me and us and for him. We processed a lot of things, did a great job in the draft, free agency, trades, he was integrally involved in all of that. … The great thing about Mike is he’s so collaborative and so great to work with… it’s just proven right off the bat to be the case.
“Here’s a great addition: I like to play golf and Steph Curry had his Eat Learn Play charity tournament on Monday, and I played with Mike in that. I love Bob, but he doesn’t play golf. (Laughs.)I wish he played golf. Mike’s a great guy, fits in great, we’re really, really excited and lucky to have him. As great, great, as Bob Myers was and the great job that he did over 12 years, I don’t think we’re going to miss a beat here.”
• Lacob confirmed that the team’s goal will be to get under the second apron by next July and escape the penalties that cost them their midlevel exception and other roster-building tools this summer: “It is very penal to be above it. I think our goal would be to be under it, yeah. You just lose too many options in terms of constructing your roster, draft choices and a variety of things. It is very difficult to contemplate not being under it. But look, it’s a year-by-year thing and we’ll see what happens.”
• So let’s get Lacob to join the late-summer’s favorite debate: Who’s the greatest point guard of all time, Curry or Magic Johnson?
“I think the truth is they are two of the greatest, if not the two greatest, and that’s a big thing,” Lacob said. “Magic Johnson, I don’t think there’ll ever be anybody quite like him … 6-9 point guard. … Steph Curry, on the other hand, revolutionized the game completely with the long shots. He’s also a great team leader. Both of them were good team leaders, but Steph, this is what really sets him apart in my mind. He’s such an incredible human being, such a great face for our organization overall. We’re all so proud to have him be in that role. … He’s historically great in that regard, so you have to include that when you’re analyzing these two. They’re both great. I don’t know how you can make a choice. What, did Magic win five titles, I think? And Steph has four, we’re going to get the fifth this year. And if not this year, next. … Anyone should be lucky to have either of them.”
To be clear, Lacob was laughing while he said those last few sentences. But that was mostly because of the audacity of saying it, I think, not because he thought it was silly to say.
“I’ve told Steph the last few years, I’ve said to him, ‘You need to be Tom Brady,'” Lacob said. “What I meant by that is having an incredibly long career at a high, high level. It never happened before. I obviously would love for Steph to be the equivalent in basketball. I don’t know if anybody can predict that; Father Time certainly wins that on the basis of odds. But he is an incredibly well-conditioned athlete.
“He looked great this last year. I have no doubt he’ll be great again this year. He’ll turn 36 this year, by historical standards, that’s pretty up there. But who knows? Maybe he can continue on like this for a number of years yet, we just don’t know. One thing that he has that will never go away, right? That incredible shooting. Even if he couldn’t do quite the same things later on in his career, he’s still always going to be able to shoot that ball at a world-class level. I don’t know how long it’s going to last; right now we’re going to ride it and see how far we can go.”
