Something to be said for a patient approach
Q: Throw your agent hat back on for a second. Did you ever get to a point with a client where you’re going to publicly demand a trade? A: Let me give you a great example. I think our society is instant gratification — I need it now. And that’s not just in the NBA, that’s everyone. When we text somebody we want a response right now. My thought is, with anything, whether the team is struggling or we need to make a change or a player is unhappy, the long view is better. You remember when Steph Curry didn’t want to work out for the Warriors? You remember when Steph wouldn’t come in. You remember when there were rumblings that he didn’t want to be a Warrior. You remember him potentially not showing up for a press conference. So Steph Curry, he is who he is so he shows up. His first few years were not a good initial experience. As far as I know, I never heard him saying, “Get me out of here.” My point is this, when he got to our organization we were not a team or destination that the most ardent Warrior would say was capable of winning a championship; the playoffs were our championship.
Q: (At one time for the Warriors) the playoffs were this holy grail. Advancing in the playoffs wasn’t even thought about, just qualify.
A: You’re right. I grew up a fan, I know. And when I got the job I had the same mentality. It was almost like, if we
could just get a good team, if we could just be respectable, if we could just make the playoffs. So circling back, Steph Curry stays the course, he had no business believing this was a place he could succeed, that this was a place he could actually win a championship, where he could become an MVP. If you put a crystal ball in front of him and you told him he’d be a two-time MVP, you’re gonna win championships, he wouldn’t have believed any of it. My point is that in life, I’m a long-view guy. Stay the course because you don’t know what’s gonna happen. Q: How would you handle it if someone publicly said they wanted to get out of here? A: I think personally I would try to understand it. I wouldn’t come at them in a harsh way, I would try to understand what they thought it might accomplish. People always ask me
what we said to Kevin (Durant) in the Hamptons. It wasn’t what anyone said in that four-hour period. It was Steph Curry building a foundation, being selfless enough to go. It was Andre Iguodala, who knew we were going after a guy who played his position. It was Draymond Green, it was Steve Kerr, it was all the things that those guys had done that put us in a position to be in a place where Kevin Durant said, “I wanna meet with that team.” There’s no magic words in life. If one hour without any foundation sways someone, that’s a Pyrrhic victory, anyway. But because of the foundation they built individually and as an organization, you get to a place where things happen for you like that. But it’s all the building blocks.