The mojo is back with the Warriors after a couple seasons filled with mistakes and injuries.
During his hour-long interview with 95.7 The Game’s “The Morning Roast” Wednesday, Warriors owner Joe Lacob discussed where the team has erred during his tenure. Initially, Lacob’s mind drifted to the roster construction last year. You can hear the full interview below:
“I don’t want to put the onus on any particular players, here or there,” Lacob said. “But I probably -- we probably -- should have listened last year, a little bit, with the fit of some of the players, a couple of the players we brought in. Not quite right. I don’t think it mattered as much because we weren’t going to win the title last year, but there’s things like that. We haven’t made a lot [of mistakes] on the basketball side. Honestly, I’m pretty amazed at how well we have done.”
Last season, the Warriors tried to surround Steph Curry with slashers like Kelly Oubre Jr. and Kent Bazemore, along with backup point guard Brad Wanamaker. Now they’ve opened up the floor with players like Nemanja Bjelica, Otto Porter Jr. and Andre Iguodala, who were all signed on one-year veteran minimums.
“Talk about perfect fits,” Lacob said.
How about the draft, though?
While the team is optimistic about the futures of James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, the Warriors haven’t got much production from their draft picks from 2015-2020. Of the team’s 11 selections in that span, only Kevon Looney (2015), Jordan Poole (2018) and Wiseman (2020) are still on the roster.
“Now drafting is another matter,” Lacob said. “Obviously, there’s always somebody that you say, ‘Dang, I knew I was at 28, but I should have taken that guy. That’s just the nature of the beast. It is really hard to predict who is going to be great in the draft. Nikola Jokic at 41? How do you [predict that]? Well, we did see it actually, but we didn’t do it. The drafting thing is the thing I think about when I say ‘mistakes,’ either here or there. But, again, it’s hard to be perfect. I think we’ve done a good job overall. I just think that obviously we could have been better in certain regards.”
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While it sounds like the Warriors did pre-draft homework on Jokic, they didn’t have a 2014 pick after trading both of them away, including their first-rounder in a 2013 sign-and-trade deal for Iguodala.
Can you imagine Nikola Jokic, the reigning NBA MVP, in a Warriors uniform, though? Maybe the Warriors should have bought a draft pick like they did in other drafts and used it on the unknown 19-year-old Serbian in 2014, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Overall, Lacob said he is very involved with personnel decisions.
“The politically appropriate thing to say, probably, would be, ‘Oh, I let people do their jobs,’” Lacob said. “And I do. But I am pretty involved in everything. I have to be honest about that. Whether it’s a business decision or a basketball roster decision. Even the 15th spot -- why do I have to be involved in that? The truth is, I am.
“I’m really all over this, really more than anybody, because it’s what I love and what we’re doing. I’m involved. I know what’s going on. I don’t overrule people very often. If they’ve come to a firm decision, they’ve got their analysis, we go with it.”
