The embedded video above of Bob Myers from his delayed presser — which finally happened at morning shootaround after the Golden State Warriors last night chose to keep Gary Payton II — is clickable. Notes and quotes from the interview are below. I’ll add the notes, quotes and video from the loss to the LA Lakers the other night in the next post.
As for the buyout market, we covered a lot of that at the bottom of our big trade deadline post:
The big detail that everyone is forgetting is this: Why would a buyout candidate play for the Warriors when they know they’re only getting spot minutes? Dwayne Dedmon was just signed from the buyout market by the Philadelphia 76ers. He gets to backup Joel Embiid. Pretty cool role. On the Dubs, with the steep learning curve of “read-and-react” and knowing where Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are on the floor at all times, it’s going to be extremely difficult to integrate this magical rebounder from the buyout market that a lot of fans want.
The other factor is available roster spots. If there even is a rebounder on the buyout market, this person has to be worth the salary and attached luxury taxes and penalties (upwards of 7x-8x the original salary amount).
Is it worth that, as compared to converting Anthony Lamb to a regular contract? What is the likelihood of Andre Iguodala being 100% for the playoffs (I’m guessing it’s likely)? Also note that Ryan Rollins is now out for the season and, while his salary is super-affordable near just the $1-2 million mark per year guaranteed (less than a veteran’s minimum spot), he’s on the hook for the next two years. It would be tough to waive that contract because it is so team-friendly.
We’ve all seen the Warriors rise to the occasion this season against teams like the Boston Celtics and Memphis Grizzlies. It’s an entirely different vibe than when they play down to their competition, such as against the LeBron James-less Lakers the other night, which I deemed on the livestream as the “GP2 Depression Game”:
With Myers stating below that Payton II should be back for the playoffs, it makes sense that the roster this franchise is sending into the 2023 playoffs is 8/9ths the same one as the rotation that hoisted the trophy in Boston after the buzzer sounded at Game 6, with the substitution of Jonathan Kuminga for Otto Porter, Jr. (who actually started that game, not Kevon Looney). In other words, no big man rebounder type.
It’s clear to me that, fully healthy, this team’s playoff run is dependent on focus and energy, which GP2 happens to helps a lot with, both on and off the court. They also need to execute better, obviously, and that shows up on the boxscore as turnovers and fouls and bad shot selection and transition defense. So, again, that comes down to concentration and desire and not the physical presence of a rebounder.
There’s only so many guys named Nic Claxton, Robert Williams and Jarred Vanderbilt to go around in the league — none of them would have fit the Warriors’ salary cap table, fyi (so maybe that’s the archetype going forward in future Drafts?).
Bob saying this morning, “We hope that we have enough,” is in line with my thinking that we had enough to get to Game 6 in Boston last season.
The only thing that’s been missing this season, for the most part, has been energy and focus. I’ve said all along and on nearly every livestream. The Warriors need simply to play better. This has been and will be on the “Foundational Six”. Now with GP2 signed on at least through next year, the Foundational Seven need to play better — JK, Donte DiVincenzo, JaMychal Green, and Andre aren’t impactful enough to lose games. It starts and ends with the leadership and flawless execution of game plans by Steph and Draymond Green.
DISCLAIMER: These are all just notes for my main workflow of YouTube videos, mostly transcribed by me shortly after the interviews and during my coverage of postgame on our livestreams (!). Sometimes I’ll just use what’s tweeted by beatwriters, as listed. The links to the tweets are not available because sometimes I don’t use the full tweet and just having a ton of tweets on this website imo isn’t aesthetically pleasing and gets away from the main goal: transferring information (not so much entertainment) to the brains of DubNation asap.
• Bob Myers on whether he believes the Blazers withheld information about GP2: “Good question, but I don’t want to answer that. I can’t go down that road of accusations… there are things I can’t say for legal reasons and HIPAA reasons… wouldn’t be the best thing to do and probably not even allowed to do.” (Mark Medina, Kerith Burke)
• Warriors are officially calling it “right adductor soreness.” That’s per Rick Celebrini. (Kate Rooney)
• On what they’re looking for from the NBA investigation: “What do I want? Whatever the NBA says is fair. Whatever that is. Just a fair result.” (95.7 The Game)
• Gary Payton II (adductor muscle) will be re-evaluated in a month: “Gary’s going to be out. We’re going to evaluate him in a month. It is our determination he’s not ready to play right now… Pre-playoffs would be the hope.” (95.7 The Game)
• On GPII’s health: “It was our determination he’s not ready to play right now. But when we hopefully do get him back at some point — the goal would be pre-playoffs. That would be the hope, but until we get a sense of how the rehab process is going, I can’t really speculate.” (KNBR)
• On if they considered just keeping Saddiq Bey — either just as the original deal or after the GP2 complications: couldn’t and wouldn’t talk about Bey due to NBA rules on GMs talking about other players. But it’s clear: They wanted GP2 and only GP2 in this deal. Myers said they didn’t have anything red-hot they were ready to do at the deadline other than this deal. I don’t think GSWs are going to argue they were prevented from doing some great alt-deal. The complaint is just about POR’s communication about GP2’s injury. (Tim Kawakami)
• On James Wiseman and his personality: “One of the reasons we drafted (James Wiseman) is because of who he is. He’s a great kid and did everything we asked him to do…It was a tough thing to do, to move someone we liked that much as a person.” (KNBR)
• On Wiseman: “We didn’t see a path for James… it’s a hard rotation to crack… I hope he does well and I hope he gets an opportunity to play.” Warriors still bullish on Wiseman’s long-term development. But believes he needs time/minutes to develop, which wouldn’t be available for team trying to compete for a title. (Mark Medina, Kate Rooney, 95.7 The Game)
• On how hard it was trade Wiseman: “I think we debated it pretty heavily. Mostly because I still believe he can be a good player. It may just be that his path required more minutes than we were able to give him. It may be that his (timeline) is longer than we can wait”. (KNBR)
• On the two-way contracts: Kerr will be part of the decision about whether to covert either of the two-way players, Lamb and Ty Jerome. (Kerith Burke)
• On possibility of adding frontcourt help: “We’ll have to look at the buyout market. … We hope that we have enough, but we’ll look and see… it’s determined by how the coaches will use that player. For us to say, ‘here’s a big guy,’ and coaching staff to say ‘we aren’t playing that guy’ — doesn’t matter if he’s 7, 8 ft tall. Any buyout conversation has to be done in collaboration with the coaching staff. Because why bring a player in if they’re not going to use him.” (95.7 The Game, Shayna Rubin)
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