How does Bob Myers feel about the Warriors' chances if Steph, Klay and Draymond are all healthy next year?
"If those three guys are on the floor together, I'm not afraid of any team in the NBA." pic.twitter.com/MNTXalQJ10
— KNBR (@KNBR) May 24, 2021
Bob Myers’ end of season press conference on Monday was a good one, filled with a number of interesting anecdotes on multiple topics including the futures of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, James Wiseman and Kelly Oubre, as well as what type of players the Warriors will target this offseason.
Future of Stephen Curry
Let’s start with the most pressing topic, the future of the most important player in franchise history. Curry, 33, is set to become a free agent after next season, and is in line to become the first player to sign two $200+ million extensions in NBA history. Curry became the first player to sign a supermax extension in 2017 while inking a deal worth $201 million over five years. He is now eligible to sign a four-year $215.4 million dollar extension that would keep him under contract through the 2025-26 season, according to ESPN.
The Warriors sound ready to get this deal done as soon as possible. Myers and Steve Kerr both seem to believe there won’t be many issues standing in the way of both sides coming to an agreement.
“I don’t see any reason not to be optimistic,” Myers said. “He seems like he’s motivated, we’re motivated. I would say pretty confident we’ll get something done.”
“Obviously we want Steph back in the worst way,” Kerr said. “There’s no reason to think why that won’t happen. We’re excited about that. We’re excited about next season. You know, coming back with Draymond [Green] and Steph playing at such a high level to finish the season and to get Klay [Thompson] back and to have the opportunity to fortify our roster, to see these young guys emerge, it’s all very exciting.”
Future of Klay Thompson
Things weren’t nearly as optimistic when it came to the subject of Klay Thompson. Myers said it would be “unrealistic” to assume the Warriors’ five-time All-Star will be ready for the start of next season, after missing the last two with a torn ACL and Achilles respectively.
“I don’t know that it’ll be the start of the year,” Myers said. “We’ll see more as camp gets closer. When I say start of the year, I mean game one. I don’t know if that’s realistic or not. That’ll be less than a year. I think that’ll — I don’t know what date the season opens up, but I think that’ll be 11 months. I don’t know that that’s realistic.
“I want to talk about Klay a lot, but I’m reluctant because I don’t want to use that as an excuse. I don’t want people to think, when Klay comes back, everything is going to be great. As great as he is, and it will help a lot, we have to look at our team and say, Klay will be a huge addition, but there’s other areas where we need to improve on, as well. But I don’t know exactly when it’ll be.”
Bob Myers provides a reality check on Klay Thompson.
Says it's not realistic to expect he'll be ready at the start of the regular season. pic.twitter.com/U3shrpoN5V
— KNBR (@KNBR) May 24, 2021
Future of James Wiseman
Wiseman had a pretty rough rookie campaign, even if his stats (over 11 points in over 21 minutes per game) were somewhat impressive. It’s undeniable that the Warriors were better with Wiseman off the floor, and the team went on its best run to close the season after the 20-year-old sustained a torn right meniscus.
Still Wiseman is incredibly young, talented and is coming off a season where he couldn’t really catch a break injury/COVID-wise. Myers says the team has no interest in trading him.
“I think he can help us, I expect him to be on the team next year. We don’t want to trade James Wiseman. I think he’s a tremendous talent, and he was put in a position where the guy has hopefully taken all of his lumps early in his career. But I think he can be very helpful to us in the future and in the present. We plan on him being on the team, we plan on him helping us and maybe that’s because we have seen a lot of things in him. I know you guys watch the games and that’s a good indicator too, but we’re very confident he’s going to be a good player and help us win next year.”
The Warriors want to improve their roster this offseason, but it's very unlikely they sacrifice last year's No. 2 overall pick to do so, according to Bob Myers.
"We don't want to trade James Wiseman." pic.twitter.com/09Szld02kD
— KNBR (@KNBR) May 24, 2021
Future of Kelly Oubre
Both Myers and Kerr spoke about how Oubre, who is about to hit free agency, could feature into their plans next year. For a while, it looked like Oubre had played his way into a rotation spot next season. Then injuries happened, and the team, specifically the first unit, looked better without him. Oubre was then relegated to a bench role which he didn’t seem thrilled about. Then he missed the last 10 games of the regular season, of which the Warriors won eight.
Kerr was more direct when talking about Oubre, making it clear that if he was going to return, it would be in a bench role.
“Klay’s going to start when he gets back,” Kerr said. “So would Kelly be interested in coming off the bench? That’s a question only he can answer. So he’ll weigh his options, we’ll weigh ours and we’ll see where it all goes.”
Free agent targets
Even with the return of Thompson, the Warriors will need to improve their roster, which is light on proven veterans. Myers admitted that many of the veteran players they tried to sign last year lost interest when Thompson went down, and that he’s hoping things are different this offseason. Specifically, Myers said the Warriors are looking to add a floor-spacing big and playmaking guard this offseason.
“I do know we need veterans, and the one area I can say without kind of equivocating is we have to add some veterans in free agency,” he said. “We just have to. We’re well aware of that. We’ll try to do it. We actually tried to do it last year with a few guys, so it wasn’t as if that mindset didn’t exist. It doesn’t matter, nobody cares, but we were in second place with quite a few guys that I think were veteran, could have helped, but they chose to go to a team after Klay’s injury that they thought they could win it more, and that’s fair to them.”
