OAKLAND — From the outside looking in, the Golden State Warriors look unbreakable.
Nightly triple-double performances from LeBron James and Kyrie Irving at his absolute best couldn’t sniff the Warriors in a 4-1 NBA Finals rout. Now that Kevin Durant is here, Golden State is looking down on the rest of the league from their pristine throne.
And nobody is going anywhere. At least not for the next few seasons.
“There’s no end in sight,” Klay Thompson said. “That’s the truth right there.”
Steph Curry is 29, Durant is 28, Thompson and Draymond Green are each 27. Curry is about to sign a mega-contract, Durant is reportedly willing to take a little less to ensure free agents Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston can stay in the mix. Thompson is locked into a very fair contract until after the 2019 season; Green is the same, except it’s 2020.
Other role players will be shuffled in and out. Bob Myers has proven to be an absolute gangster in putting the side characters together for this team. Matt Barnes and David West will contemplate retirement. There will be a decision to make on free agent JaVale McGee, who gave the Warriors some of the best minutes of his career and a different athletic element the team never possessed. A serious pay day would be in order for him if he wanted to leave Golden State.
In a telling sign about his bright future, Patrick McCaw finished a tough layup in traffic on LeBron late in the fourth quarter of a closeout NBA Finals game. As Iguodala says, that boy is nice. Ian Clark might also cash in with a mediocre team looking to grab some of the Warriors’ scraps.
Really, the only question mark surrounding the Warriors is Steve Kerr. Bob Myers insisted he will coach the team next year, but none of us, including Kerr, know the future of his health. Signing Mike Brown to an extension this offseason could become a top priority. Expecting Kerr to coach the duration of this dynasty — four, five, six years — seems like a stretch. Everyone is rightfully obsessed with Kerr, but Joe Lacob and Myers have to have a long-term backup plan in place.
And as ESPN.com’s Zach Lowe points out, the Warriors are so good, there are legitimate teams who might start tanking now — because they know they can’t topple Golden State. Lowe says that won’t include the Spurs or Rockets, but the Celtics have enough young pieces and draft picks to start preparing for their takeover once the Warriors finally age.
Unforeseen things can happen overnight. Just ask the San Francisco Giants. Star players lose some of their magical powers, role players on other teams can become stars. Nothing is ever etched in stone in sports.
Theoretically, Thompson could be the first to leave in 2019. If the Warriors were to give him a max contract, which he deserves, it would push the payroll close to $300 million including luxury taxes. Is there a breaking point for Lacob where he would be willing to break this team up to save some money? Forecasting the future, the Lakers would likely be Thompson’s top suitor, and where he wants to play with Luke Walton. By then, their young roster by then could be competitive enough to compete with the aging Warriors. Probably not. But maybe.
According to Lowe, if the Warriors keep Thompson and Green on max contracts, the payroll would approach an unprecedented $440 million. One thing to keep in mind, Lacob is set to make a ton of money off the new Chase Center, set to open for the 2019 season. He’s in love with this basketball team, but he’s also a billionaire who knows smart financial decisions when he sees them.
It’s the Warriors’ style of basketball that separates them from the rest of the league as much as their superstars.
“They are talented, they’re really talented, that’s not the whole equation,” Gregg Popovich said after being swept by Golden State. “That’s not everything that describes them. This is maybe the best defensive team in the league, on top of everything. They don’t just play with talent, they execute on the defensive end of the floor.
“On offense, no team is more unselfish on finding the open man and that sort of thing. They get credit for that, coaches are always trying to get their team to do that, but they’ve got a multitude of people who are unselfish in that regard and play a beautiful game and on top of that, play D at the other end. So they deserve a lot more credit than ‘well they’re talented, they’re supposed to win.’ That is disrespectful to them in my book, they’re way, way more than just their talent.”
The day after a championship, let’s not fret too far into the future.
This is what a wide open championship window looks like, Bay Area.
