Warriors general manager Bob Myers joined Gary Radnich and Joe Hughes on KNBR and covered a wide range of topics, from Steph Curry’s decision to sit the Rio Olympics out to how he’s handling the “Warriors-as-villains” talk around the league.
Early in the conversation, Gary asked Myers if Curry could’ve played in the Olympics considering his knee injury:
“The best way to characterize it is let’s just say you’ve been working for a long stretch, and you haven’t had a vacation and you haven’t seen your family, and you know you’re doing your job. But the day you wake up, your tank feels like it’s on empty. You can go and do the work, but your show is going to suffer, and your mental health is going to suffer, and your whole life is going to suffer. So I think Steph wisely realized ‘I have to push the pause button here at some point.’ He played in the world championships two years ago, then went all the way to the Finals, then had another year going all the way to the Finals. So at some point athletes — and not only that, he’s doing a lot off the court — I think he realized, ‘I need, for my longevity, for my peace of mind, I need to take a break here.’ I think that’s what drove the decision. But was he entirely healthy? I mean it depends on what you quantify as healthy, right, I mean there’s no injury that is acute, that needed surgery, but there’s a wear and tear component that is part of playing professional sports that he realized ‘I gotta take a little break here.’”
Myers also addressed the concern that the addition of Kevin Durant will take a toll on Klay Thompson, who may now struggle to get a healthy dose of shots per game.
“Klay, his shots might go down but not to the degree that it would matter, I think it would be negligible. I think because Klay, If you know Klay and watch him, he’s going to shoot it when he’s open. Without a doubt. And our team is unselfish enough that we’re going to move the ball. So I think what will be interesting is, there’ll be games where he’ll get as many shots, there’ll be games where he gets more, there’ll be games where he gets less, and that’s just part of it. But he, the best thing you can say about Klay is, he is, he holds himself to a high standard. So he measures himself against himself. But I don’t worry about him or anybody else for that matter, adjusting to a Kevin Durant. That’s probably what people want to know, is with a new player like him, how does that affect the rest of the team? That’s the deal. And I think, you know the word sacrifice he brought that up, I’m not going to sacrifice anything, and people have kind of grabbed on to that, it’s for me if you flip that coin on its head and say okay, you have to sacrifice what to win; well, what we’re talking about is individual stats, right? So let’s just say for us to win — and we didn’t win the championship, and that’s why you go get a guy like Kevin Durant. You want to win a championship, you want to improve your team, we hope we did. But the idea is to win a championship; that’s the only thing we’re trying to do. So if that takes some guys taking less shots, having a few less assists, less rebounds, whatever it might be, to win — then you do that. Because what’s the alternative? Let’s sacrifice winning? So you can get more shots? Which is nonsensical, because people talk about sacrifice, if sacrifice means you take a few less shots and you win more games, to me that’s not sacrifice. Unless you value individual stats more than winning. If you do that then you got your own problem.
What about the idea that Steph Curry will have an issue with losing some of the spotlight to Durant?
Myers: “I think that he’s not built that way, he’s not an insecure guy, he’s not an arrogant guy, but he’s very secure in who he is without needing additional confirmation from media or friends. He knows what he can do, he’s had to be that way to become who he is. And I think at some point in your life, he has all the money he needs. He’s got huge endorsement deals, he’s going to make even more money in the NBA, but he doesn’t need any more money. He has the individual recognition, whether it’s commercials, MVPs. He’s got one championship. At a certain point in a player’s career, you’ve checked all these boxes. What’s the only box left to check? It’s really championships and Hall of Fame. That’s it. Once you reach that rarefied air where it’s ‘yea I could win another MVP’…”
Radnich: “He could quit today and be in the Hall of Fame.”
Myers: “He could! So what do you want if you’re him and you put yourself in his position? I think you want to enjoy your life, you want figure out what you want out of your life, but you want to win. When you look back on your career, you want to win, and for him it’s multiple championships. Because the other stuff, whether you win 3-4 MVPs or not, people are going to remember that to a certain degree, but they’re going to remember championships more. I think for him, he looks at it like, I think he has the right viewpoint, which is ‘what team can we put together that gives me the best chance to win championships?’ And I think that’s where he feels good about it, and I don’t think, it’s funny, Steph doesn’t, I don’t even think he processes in his mind what you just asked me. Am I going to have to get less recognition? Us—me, you, we might say ‘You know what? I’m going to have to get less but I’m ok with that.’ I’m not even sure the first part happens.”
Myers went on to talk about what the addition of Durant meant for his approach to building a new-look bench this offseason.
“You can’t win without any kind of bench, but you also can’t win without stars. And so you hope to get both. And last year I think what, look, we were one or two baskets away from winning a championship, which is about as close as you can get and then not. But you know you look it, look at ways to get better, we thought we could get better with Durant — hopefully we will — and then with the bench, you know, there’s also something in sports where you have to realize when you might need a change…”
Last but not least, Myers addressed the idea that the Warriors are “villains” to the rest of the league.
Radnich: “First of all, do you care?”
Myers: No, I don’t care.
Radnich: “If you’re villains.”
Myers: “I care if I’m around good people. If I’m around jerks, yeah that would bother me if I had to go to work with jerks every day, but I know who they are. I know they’re not villains.”
Hughes: “You’re not going to come work for KNBR, huh?”
Myers: “Not here, not with you guys. Especially with — the only reason I’m here today is because [Larry] Krueger’s not here. No, but here’s the thing, what does a villain even mean? I mean I could talk about that all day, but [Steve] Kerr’s a great guy, Curry’s a great guy, Durant’s a great guy, all these guys are really good guys, so what it does it mean to be a villain? That may mean that you know, people think the team is constructed in a way that’s not fair, whatever they might want to say. But it is, and so when we go on the road, it will be interesting to see. That’s when we’ll know if we’re villains or not. I don’t know that we will be, because can you really be a villain when Curry’s walking out there and the whole place is packed to watch him warm up? And then Durant comes out, and I’m sure they’re going to want all the autographs. A villain in my mind is somebody you want no part of. Right now you might want to watch, but you don’t want to associate with. I do think our players are people that young boys, young girls, men, women want to be around. They’re good people.”
Myers continued with a defense of the Warriors’ ‘Superteam’ by bringing up dominant teams from previous eras that used to beat up on the Warriors.
Myers: “Was it fair when all these other powerhouses were coming through, and the Lakers had Worthy, and Magic, and Kareem, and Byron Scott, and the Celtics had Bird and Parish… we’ve been on the other side of that our whole tenure here in the Bay Area.”
Radnich: “You grew up watching this.”
Myers: “Yeah I grew up watching all that stuff. Why couldn’t we have four stars? Well, your time will come. If I’m talking to these other teams, I mean everybody has a turn, and hopefully our turn is now, and that results in winning at the highest level, but I think this stuff is cyclical, and you know I reward the patience of our fans, they deserve to see a great product. The people that have watched the team for 20-30 years. So I wouldn’t say that anything’s different now. It’s easy to talk about what’s happening today, but if you look back there’s always been two or three teams that have a lot of talent in the NBA. And probably more in the NBA because one player can be so impactful, even Miami when they had their guys, but you go back to like the Lakers, I mean how did the Spurs end up with all the guys they ended up with? I mean really, really good players. So it depends on, you can make an argument, if you come to the conversation Gary with this isn’t fair, you can make an argument about that. If you come to the conversation with these guys are villains, you can make an argument about that. It’s just your own personal preferences.”