As ecstatic Cleveland Cavaliers players celebrated under Oracle Arena confetti after overcoming a 3-1 series deficit to stun the Warriors on Kyrie Irving’s rainbow dagger, as Golden State’s players sagged in shock and defeat, a preposterous idea began to take shape. A question that would’ve been unthinkable mere months ago, when 73 wins became the newest standard in the NBA, was suddenly at the forefront of the post-Finals conversation.
Was it time to break up the Warriors?
In a recent interview with KNBR, general manager Bob Myers summed up the current of change that began to possess the organization after that Finals loss.
“You know, you look at ways to get better… there’s also something in sports where you have to realize when you might need a change, right?”
Spoiler: the Warriors DID break up, and then they reloaded with more firepower than the NBA has ever seen.
It wasn’t that simple, though. The break-up was only possible through the confluence of elements like certain player performances, free agency, contracts, and the essential final ingredient: failure.
Without a second consecutive NBA title, the questions and doubts that had lurked in the shadows cast by Golden State’s golden season reared their heads. Stephen Curry’s greatness was questioned and Draymond Green became the NBA’s villain. The team’s achievements — 73-9 — earned skepticism from past players and modern haters. A self-satisfied Charles Barkley got to say, “I told you so.”
Some of the criticism was warranted. The Warriors’ playoff performances against the Portland Trailblazers and Oklahoma City Thunder reinforced the idea that Golden State was mortal, and vulnerable.
Amidst a whirlwind of factors that contributed to the Warriors’ overhaul, the best place to start is with the players themselves.
Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is a key figure from the 2015-16 Warriors; first and foremost, he played a key role in the 73-win world-beaters that dominated the regular season as a versatile two-way player that could shoot, defend, and rebound while taking a willing backseat to Golden State’s star trio. There’s no denying the positive impact Barnes has had since being drafted in 2012 with the seventh overall pick. Since he was drafted, the team’s overall record and performance has improved each and every year.
But the other version of Barnes is a different story: timid and slow-thinking with the ball, unable to hit a simple jump shot, and less effective defensively, he vanished in the biggest moments.
His stat line from the crucial last three games of the NBA Finals is frightening: 5/32 from the field, 15 points, 2 assists, and 9 rebounds. Across THREE games.
Along with the Game 7 loss, that stat line condemned Barnes. It was time to look for a replacement at the small forward position.
Andrew Bogut
Another Warrior who changed the direction of the franchise upon arriving, Andrew Bogut should forever be remembered for — along with Mark Jackson — instilling in the Warriors a defensive mindset and pride in performing on both ends of the floor. Without Bogut, the Warriors would not have risen to such lofty heights.
But he, too, vanished when the Warriors needed his defense the most. Consistently injury-prone since his arrival — he’s only played in 236 of a possible 328 regular season games as a Warrior — Bogut was an injury scratch during two important playoffs series during his tenure. The first was Warriors-Clippers in the first round of the 2014 playoffs, which the Warriors lost in seven games while sorely missing his defensive presence. The second was the final two-and-a-half games of this year’s Finals rematch with the Cavaliers.
It was time to find a frontcourt player who could be consistently relied upon to stay on the floor.
Klay Thompson
Klay Thompson had the single most important performance of the playoffs in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals against the Thunder in Oklahoma City, scoring 41 points to force Game 7 in one of the greatest playoff solo acts of all time.
It was the penultimate piece of the puzzle titled “Let’s make a run at Kevin Durant” because if Klay had not dragged the Warriors into Game 7 and eventually a Finals rematch, it would have been Durant and the Thunder who faced off with LeBron James. No one knows who might’ve prevailed in that matchup. But the Thunder were playing great basketball and embarrassing the Warriors until they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Instead, Durant was knocked from the playoffs and left to consider his future after tough losses instead of unifying wins. Klay’s 11 three-pointers and 41 points are what put him in a position to leave the only franchise he’d ever known.
Stephen Curry
One player defined the Warriors’ need for reinforcements more than any other. Stephen Curry, reigning 2-time MVP and defending NBA champion, he who eclipsed 400 threes in the regular season, was proven human in the playoffs.
After sustaining two lower-body injuries in the playoffs — one to his ankle and the other to his knee — Curry was a shadow of himself in the Finals and succumbed to the physical pressure of the Cavaliers. He didn’t perform up to his MVP standards and was overwhelmed by the Warriors’ reliance on him and Klay to carry the offense.
His below-average performance against the Cavaliers illustrated a crucial need for the Warriors.
Curry, Klay, and Dray needed help.
The Signs
Bob Myers knows Curry wasn’t 100% in the Finals, although he didn’t state outright that he was injured, and his take on Curry is pretty logical.
Curry had an empty tank.
“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, you’re tank feels like it’s on empty. You can go and do the work, but you’re show is going to suffer, and you’re mental health is going to suffer, and you’re whole life is going to suffer.”
After consecutive Finals appearances, nagging injuries, and a record-breaking regular season, the “empty tank” explanation makes sense. It makes sense for the whole team, one that had seen its performance decline in the second half of the regular season under the weight of 73-win expectations.
But there’s another explanation, too — perhaps this historic Warriors squad had reached its ceiling. And if that was the case, then how could the team continue to get better?
Myers had a succinct answer when posed the same question.
“We thought we could get better with Kevin Durant.”
2016 Free Agency and Kevin Durant
2016 NBA Free Agency will forever be remembered for the decision of one man: Kevin Durant. Durant is one of the 3 best players in the NBA, along with LeBron James and Stephen Curry. He is a total monster on the court and a genuinely good person off it. He was certainly the biggest free agent to hit the market since LeBron took his talents to South Beach.
He plays small forward, too. More importantly for the Warriors, he fits the switchable, versatile, sweet-shooting archetype they target. But Durant to the Warriors? The possibility seemed nonexistent as the Thunder and Warriors faced off in the WCF.
The keys to the Warriors’ courtship and his decision to defect were particular and have everything to with timing. So was it really time to break up the Warriors?
This summer was the only time to break up the Warriors.
Contracts, Cap Space, and Timing
Kevin Durant was only going to be within the Warriors’ reach in the 2016 offseason. They weren’t going to have another clear-cut chance to get him.
So before Golden State could make a charge at him, the team had to offload expensive contracts such as Bogut’s eight-figure salary, while also declining to extend Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli. Both signed elsewhere. Other players, such as fan favorites Leandro Barbosa and Marreese Speights, were also left to explore new options so that the Warriors had the financial space to sign Durant.
The two most important bench players on the Warriors, Shaun Livingston and Andre Igoudala, were prioritized and kept at the expense of anyone else outside of Curry, Green, and Thompson. Curry is due for a payday in one year, and this impending contract heightened the sense of urgency to lock up Durant this summer so that the Warriors could accommodate Curry when the cap rises again next year.
These moves wouldn’t have been possible last year, and it wouldn’t have made sense next offseason. The contracts the Warriors had control over and the huge rise in the salary cap dictated that there was only one time to add a mega-star and sacrifice half of the roster for him, and that time was this summer.
Why it’s going to work
The question to really ask yourself as a front office during the offseason, according to Myers, is “What team can we put together that gives [us] the best chance to win championships?”
When the dust settled on July 4, the Warriors had seven concrete names on their roster that would form the backbone of a new contending squad. Stephen Curry. Klay Thompson. Draymond Green. Shaun Livingston. Andre Iguodala. Zaza Pachulia, signed from Dallas. And Kevin Durant.
Lots of All-NBA players. Lots of All-Stars. But the beginnings of a strong bench too. Myers knows the importance of having both.
“You can’t win without any kind of bench, but you also can’t win without stars. And so you hope to get both.”
It’s safe to say they got both. But assembling this type of roster meant Myers had to be sure of several things. Were the existing Warriors players receptive to adding another high-usage, 27 points-per-game star who would change the dynamic of a 73-win squad?
The short answer: yes. But Myers was able to shed light on the mindsets of Curry and Thompson, the two players who, along with Green, probably stand to lose the most individual attention for the sake of the team.
On Curry: “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 [with Steph].”
Curry is the NBA’s most humble and team-oriented star, and as the unquestioned face of the franchise, his selflessness will be critical in ensuring Durant’s successful fit with the team. It’s also what made Durant confident about moving to Golden State
On Klay: “Klay, his shots might [decrease] but not to the degree that it would matter… 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… 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.”
In other words, Klay is going to be just fine. He’s a student of the Kobe school of “just keep shooting”, and that’s what he’ll do this season.
When the top two scorers approached Durant and urged him to come join the Warriors, that team-first attitude was crucial in landing him and it also communicated the most important quality of this Warriors core.
They want to win.
Ultimately, that simple desire illustrates why it was time to break up the Warriors beyond a core of five players. They manufactured the final ingredient with that fateful Game 7 loss—failure.
How to improve a 73-win team? Sign Kevin Durant. Sacrifice whatever it takes to get him, because Golden State wants to win. They want to win now.
It’s now up to Steve Kerr and the Warriors to prove that it was indeed the right time to break up the Warriors and come back even stronger.