Despite the rocky start, the Joe Lacob era of Warriors basketball has reflected the teams regional name, as the Dubs have been in a Golden State of euphoria throughout his tenure as owner. It is very hard to point at things that went sideways, and even harder to find those moments of absolute buffoonery that once were the hallmark of the Warriors under the ownership of Chris Cohan.
Sure, success took some time to take hold, but when it did, oh lordy did it ever. Playoff appearances went from being a luxury to the norm. The Warriors were once barred from ever thinking about mid-tier free agents, and then suddenly made the biggest free agent signing in all of sports (arguably). And the championships, all four of them, representing four more championships than any long time Warriors fan ever would have expected to see this team win as recently as 2013.
Not much was known about Lacob and his business partner Peter Guber, except that Lacob had an intense desire to win and a penchant for getting what he wants. He was a man known for building successful businesses from the bottom up and always finding a way to finish at the top.
“I don’t intend to fail at this,” Lacob said at the time of his purchase of the Warriors. “I’m not going to stand for losing. Not going to happen. And we’ll change whatever we have to change to win, and I mean consistently. There is no reason we can’t do this.”
Lacob changed literally everything about the Golden State Warriors. Every move he made under his stewardship was a winning one. Even the moves that were not well received at the time (trading Monta Ellis or firing Mark Jackson) proved to be the right moves. It did not take long for Warriors fans to do something that once upon a time seemed impossible: trust the owner.
That trust was rewarded again in 2016, when Lacob had his quartet of superstars (and Jerry West) to convince Kevin Durant to hitch his wagon to the Warriors, leading to three years of basketball nirvana and two more championships to add on to the one the Warriors won in 2015.
And after Durant left, there was still little reason to doubt the Warriors would find their way back to the top again, health permitting. Lacob made a point to hire the smartest people he could to operate his basketball team, and those smart people rewarded him, and all of Dub Nation, with a fourth title in eight years.
And if the winning was not enough (which to some it might not be but that is a topic for another day) the man even built a brand-spanking new arena that cannot be described as anything other than a crown jewel in Chase Center. The Warriors were/are truly Golden thanks to Lacob.
Lacob has changed everything about the Warriors. He took a team that was lower than a doormat and made them the model franchise in professional sports. There is seemingly nothing else left for him to improve for the Warriors. Except one thing. Under his leadership, there is still one last great white rhino that has eluded the Warriors: the franchise center.
In the hour leading up to the NBA Trade Deadline, the Warriors finally called it quits on the James Wiseman experiment, sending him to the Detroit Pistons in a complex, four-team deal that eventually brought fan favorite Gary Payton II back to the Warriors. And the Warriors long, tortured history at the center position continues.
For whatever reason, finding a true center for the Warriors has literally been the equivalent to finding the needle in a haystack. Except the Warriors were not so much struggling to find the needle as they were constantly coming up with stray bit of hay that they truly believed was that mythical needle.
The list is as impressive as it is depressing. There are some impressive misses, such as
- Joe Barry Carrol
- Russell Cross
- Chris Washburn
- Ralph Sampson
- Alton Lister
- Chris Gatling and Victor Alexander (back-to-back picks in the 1991 draft!)
- Adonal Foyal
- Andris Biedrins
- Ekpe Udoh
The list could go on for so much longer, and you will notice that list does not even include former Warriors Robert Parish or Chris Webber, both whom started off their illustrious careers with the Warriors before moving on to bigger and better things elsewhere. Another list could be made of coulda-been Warriors centers, from Kevin McHale to Joakim Noah and many more in between.
Even the centers that have hit for the Warriors were veritable comets, as the tenures of Andrew Bogut and Zaza Pachulia were as short as they were successful, which was very.
It remains to be seen which list of Warriors centers past Wiseman will appear on? He got off to a better start than Washburn and Cross, both low bars that we can breathe a sigh of relief he cleared. Perhaps he will one day join Parish and Webber on the list of big men who spent their career haunting the Warriors and cavorting the nightmares of Warriors fans like Freddy Krueger.
Regardless of how Wiseman’s career turns out, his time with the Warriors has, for the first time in a long time, reminded fans of the Chris Cohan era. For the first time in over a decade, the same frustrations that once plagued this organization have bubbled up, if only slightly.
Before you start throwing rocks and bottles at me, know that Lacob is FAR better an owner than Cohan ever could have hoped to be. The Warriors are not suddenly slipping back into the days of being, not even a doormat, but the stain a doormat leaves.
The Warriors have long since exorcized their past demons that we once knew and hated. This is not the This Day in Suck Warriors anymore. And while the times are better now, and forever will be under Lacob, one last demon has revealed itself to still haunt the halls of Chase Center. Lacob has fixed so much for the Warriors, so there is no real reason to be upset with him or the Warriors that they failed to do what so many before have failed to do as well.
Lacob has done many great things. Defeating the Warriors' curse at the center position is, so far, not one of them.
Related
