Myers knows run won’t last forever
OAKLAND » The road to the NBA Finals hasn’t changed for four years. The Warriors got here with a front office, coaching staff and All-Star players collaborating for the common good. The Cleveland Cavaliers got here with LeBron James prevailing through roster turnover and front-office dysfunction.
Will it ever change? The rest of the NBA wishes that already had happened. The Warriors and Cavaliers hope it keeps going. And Warriors general manager Bob Myers? He dreadfully sees an expiration date approaching.
“I definitely know this is ending,” Myers said Wednesday on the eve of Game 1. “I don’t need any reminders. The narrative is, ‘This will go on forever.’ On the record, it can’t. Nothing does, especially in a sport where the competition is so great.”
The Warriors might not want to hear those words as they try to win another NBA championship after winning two of them in the past three years. Myers still remains confident in a third one because of coach Steve Kerr and four healthy AllStars (Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson). Yet, Myers remains wary partly because of LeBron James’ greatness and partly because veteran Andre Iguodala will miss at least Game 1 because of a left leg injury that also sidelined him in Games 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Western Conference finals against the Houston Rockets.
Then, Myers saw how the Warriors came close toward falling short of an NBA Finals appearance for what would have marked the first time since 2014. Hence, Myers admitted that “relief is the predominant emotion” after beating the Rockets as opposed to “the bliss” he wish he had felt.
“No team should last forever. It’s not good for anybody,” Myers said. “I’m fully aware. I don’t need a reminder from Houston to know how fragile this whole thing is. That’s a part of it. That’s why you have to appreciate
it.”
And it is also why Myers hopes to maintain and make tweaks to a team that can delay his prediction from becoming true. But how much will the Warriors’ success or failure against Cleveland in the NBA Finals influence his offseason decisions?
“I don’t know. I don’t think you can evaluate anything until your year is over, good, bad or in the middle,” Myers said. “I have no idea if we win or lose, what that will look like. I think our players have shown they’re made of the right stuff. So you don’t do anything rash. They’ve earned the right to continue on this journey.”
It appears likely that
Curry, Durant and Thompson will earn that right to continue the journey.
Curry re-signed last year with the Warriors with a five-year deal worth $201 million. Though Durant will be a free agent this summer, he has said unequivocally he plans to re-sign with the Warriors. Thompson and the Warriors had talks during training camp about agreeing to an extension at some point before he becomes a free agent in the 2019 offseason.
“At one point, players get older and teams get broken up,” Myers said. “It always happens. You just don’t know when.”
It appears more likely the bench will be broken up in
some fashion this offseason.
The Warriors have four frontcourt players who will be unrestricted free agents (Kevon Looney, Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee, David West). Veteran forward Nick Young, who signed with the Warriors to the midlevel exception at $5.2 million, will be an unrestricted free agent after an inconsistent season with his shooting and defense. And second-year forward Patrick McCaw will be a restricted free agent after suffering a spine contusion that kept him sidelined for almost two months.
Any trades aside, the Warriors can sign players at a mini-midlevel exception worth ($5.2 million)
a biannual exception ($3.3 million) and veteran’s minimum deals. The Warriors will also have the 28th pick in the draft on June 21. While Myers conceded difficulty in evaluating a bench that had varying rotations and overlapping injuries, he praised Kerr “for using a lot of guys” for matchup and depth purposes.
“To try to construct a team in this modern NBA, it’s almost like baseball now where you have one guy that will pitch one out to a left-handed batter and you’re out of the game,” Myers said. “It’s one of those things you have to match up. Our job is to build a roster that has some versatility and will play fast
and play slow, play big and small. You never get it exactly right.”
The Warriors thought they got it right in late October when they declined to guarantee Looney’s $2.2 million contract because of luxury tax implications. It did not help that Looney had hip injuries during his first two NBA seasons. In his third season, though, Looney has impressed the Warriors with his durability, defensive versatility and work habits. Will those qualities attract too much outside interest for the Warriors to match?
“The hypothetical stuff is tough. I expect the unexpected,” Myers said. “Who knows.”
Injuries to McCaw and Iguodala also left the Warriors without two wing players against the Rockets and a surplus of big men that did not fit Kerr’s vision to use his personnel based off of matchups.
“We might have to go bigger in this series against some of those guys,” Myers said. “I don’t know. It depends. You want to build something and cover for injury. But sometimes it’s difficult.”
Myers does not consider it difficult to handle scrutiny for moves he did or did not make.
“Everything’s fair. I criticize myself. You just try to get here and win,” Myers said. “The end of the year, you look at things you might have done differently with what you got right and what you got wrong. There’s a lot of things they can say we didn’t do right or I didn’t do well.”
For now, though, Myers will sit back and watch what unfolds in front of him.