- 20 hours ago
Willard and Dibs continue to discuss LeBron James' decision, how it impacts the Warriors' options going forward, and more.
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00:00I think I should read this one.
00:03Okay, you look troubled.
00:04Not troubled.
00:06The brow is furrowed.
00:08Well.
00:08And it's quite a brow.
00:11Everything is strategic, right?
00:13Yeah.
00:14So I want to read this without having it take our show in a certain direction for the next hour
00:21and a half.
00:21All roads, Mark.
00:22I know.
00:23All roads.
00:24And that's fine.
00:24I'm not scared of that.
00:25But, like, I mean, that is part of the Warriors' history.
00:29It is part of the Mike Dunleavy story.
00:33I do find it fascinating, though, that as we sit here today, you know, the Warriors were, what was it,
00:42three months ago, they were being embarrassed on national TV.
00:47Nightly.
00:48Nightly.
00:51The fans in Atlanta were screaming, thank you, Warriors.
00:55Dominique Wilkins was pointing and laughing.
00:59And today, Chris Stapps Porzingis has a two-year deal with the Warriors.
01:04Jonathan Kaminga does not have a team.
01:07And that's no victory lap for anyone.
01:09I don't want to do that.
01:11But are we really or really going to continue to go down this road and talk about how the Warriors
01:20screwed this up?
01:22Like, if you want to say they shouldn't have drafted him, if you want to say they should have traded
01:27him sooner.
01:28Yep.
01:28But we are waiting with bated breath for the day that Steve Kerr's Warriors let a player out the door
01:39who becomes a star somewhere else.
01:42For that to fit the way so many of you talk about them.
01:46That's all I'm addressing.
01:48I'm not even addressing Chase Center and the Warriors.
01:50But the way it gets talked about, you'd think there was a one-way ticket out of town where dudes
01:58are just cooking up the stat sheets in the NBA who the Warriors let get away.
02:04It's never happened.
02:05Not once.
02:07And become a star, sure.
02:09Like, Brian Rollins, he's a good player.
02:12I mean, we're talking about somebody who is buried, like, as a late draft pick who then went on somewhere
02:18else to become a shoplifter.
02:20Allegedly.
02:21Before, no, convicted before he then went somewhere else and is interesting in the moment.
02:28Like, he didn't even play.
02:30He wasn't even slated to play.
02:33So that's all.
02:34I just, by the way, I said I was going to read this.
02:37I should read it.
02:38Right, you didn't read it.
02:39You just went on the rant without reading it.
02:41I got going.
02:42All right, 415.
02:43I can't believe people are still litigating JK Handling as if his current status isn't germane to MDJ's vindication more
02:54than criticism.
02:55Hashtag vindication sensation.
02:58Which is a dollar.
02:59It's a buck on the Tim Roy ripoff.
03:01But it has not been vindicated yet.
03:05Nothing has been resolved.
03:06He went to Atlanta.
03:07He was amazing.
03:08And then he didn't play.
03:09And then he played and he was okay.
03:11Amazing is a big word.
03:13He had some dunks.
03:14The point is, it has not been completely resolved in any way.
03:19And right now, he's a free agent.
03:21And I do think when the LeBron thing gets resolved, however it is, teams are going to start to act
03:26on some of these next level free agents.
03:29Yeah, he'll play.
03:30I don't think that he's not going to get what he made last year.
03:34And I know he might get $10 million a year Quentin Post, but probably not a ton more.
03:38And then we'll see him on his new team, his third team.
03:42And then we'll see if the Warriors blew it or if they just blew it by drafting him.
03:47We're going to find out.
03:49I think it's interesting that you don't think that this has already been sharpied.
03:53Like sharpied by?
03:55I'm not like, yeah.
03:55It's a failure for the Warriors.
03:57Well, it's a failure for the Warriors if you want to go back and look at when they drafted him.
04:02Right.
04:03And the style that he plays.
04:05And then just sort of the way everything unfolded from there.
04:10He's a top 10 pick.
04:11So anytime that doesn't work, that's a failure.
04:14But that's never, I mean, to me, the discussion is very rarely about that.
04:19The discussion is sort of more about like, who hosed who?
04:24And who doesn't see through the trees when talent is overwhelmingly obvious?
04:32And Steve hates young people.
04:34Gotcha.
04:35Like that's the conversation.
04:37And to me, if you don't think that the jury is in on that, that's because you're biased.
04:45Well, the jury is in.
04:47The jury is in.
04:47The jury is in based on your bias.
04:49Like, you either think that Kaminga is not very good and the Warriors did what they could and ultimately they
04:55shouldn't have taken him.
04:56Or you think that Kaminga can cook with the ha-ha and Steve Kerr and Mike Dunleavy and all the
05:01rest of them.
05:02They messed up by trying to keep him down.
05:05So for me, what happens next is, for me, very enlightening as far as what the reality was.
05:13Because if Kaminga goes out and has a 10-year career and makes three All-Star games, okay, the Warriors
05:18probably messed it up.
05:19If he goes out there and has a Jordan Poole kind of career, then, you know.
05:25What kind of avenue does he have to make an All-Star team?
05:27Go to a new team and play and improve.
05:29Well, he's only 25.
05:30I understand that.
05:31But somebody's got to invest in you and give you that opportunity.
05:34And we're now on the second team that has seemingly no interest in doing that.
05:40Right.
05:41Still very young.
05:42Yeah.
05:43Still plenty of time for him to.
05:44No, I mean, he's going to be in the league.
05:45But, I mean, the idea that somebody is going to create runway for him to start and score his 25
05:51a night, feeling a little far-fetched in this moment.
05:54A little.
05:55But, I mean, Quinton Post just got a three-year offer sheet with Memphis for $10 million a year.
05:59That felt a little far-fetched.
06:01So, many things that are far-fetched can actually come to pass.
06:05And he might land in a spot where he gets to go out there and play 30 minutes a night.
06:10He's allowed to.
06:11Yeah, and just go out there and just play.
06:13And he's also allowed to get better.
06:14So, I think that this whole thing has not been, for me, the book has not been closed on, you
06:21know, where would you put the majority of the fault in the matter?
06:24Yeah, well, and I just, I don't even look at it that way.
06:27To me, it's, obviously, the thing went completely awry.
06:32And I know the Warriors this year did a pretty good job of explaining that that's on everyone.
06:38That's on everyone.
06:39But that's not even, like, to me, that's not, it's not about fault.
06:44And it's not about blame.
06:47It's kind of reached a time where it's about the conversation that we all had.
06:52And it's about this idea of the Warriors are anti-young person, and they just don't have any ability to
07:02see how great someone is who's sitting on their bench.
07:05And, like, that stuff.
07:08That stuff.
07:10That's a bunch of crap.
07:12And I think that Steve Kerr plays the players that he thinks gives him the best chance to win, regardless
07:19of your birth certificate or, you know, where you were taken and the rest of it.
07:23And so, you know, maybe they were wrong in how they developed him and handled him.
07:28I think that, you know, time will tell.
07:30And we'll see what kind of a player he goes out and becomes.
07:32But it clearly had to end, and it had to end when it ended, and it probably should have ended
07:38before that.
07:38But you got to that spot where, you know, you're finally at the deadline in year five.
07:43It's like, okay, now we've got to do something here.
07:45And you did what you did.
07:47And poor Zingas comes in this year, and he's going to make $10 million a year less than he did
07:51last year.
07:52And maybe he goes out there and he helps you.
07:54I don't know.
07:55He's allowed to be healthy.
07:56I mean, he was not bad last year.
07:59Yeah, he wasn't bad.
08:00Like in, what, 15 games or something for the Warriors?
08:03Well, I feel like it was a little more than that.
08:04I don't remember.
08:05But, yeah, like it's certainly speculative.
08:08And I think that that kind of speaks to where we've spent the majority of the day.
08:12And this is what I would call kind of a fair fear for Warrior fans right now.
08:17I don't know how the LeBron thing is going to play out.
08:20And I don't know what there even is to pivot to if LeBron doesn't join the Warriors.
08:28You know me.
08:29I'm not sitting here.
08:30I'm not one of these fans that's banging on a table telling everybody that over the
08:34summer you must look like a championship contender because, Steph, that's just I don't look at it
08:39that way.
08:39It's fine if you do.
08:41That's not how I see this.
08:43So I'm not demanding that from the Warriors.
08:48But I don't think there's any way around this unfortunate truth for the Golden State Warriors.
08:56If you go through a 37-win season and then you go through a 45-minute feature article by Wright
09:08Thompson
09:08about the Steve Kerr situation, and then that leads to three weeks of meetings, and then there's white smoke
09:17and Steve Kerr stays, and then you hold press conferences, and you talk about how this all didn't work and
09:25needs to be different next year.
09:26And that starts with younger players who can play on back-to-backs, and we have had three weeks of
09:34meetings, and we have come up with an agreement on how to do things differently around here.
09:38And then you head off to go play golf or whatever you do for your offseason, and then we get
09:43back here at the end of July.
09:44Let's say another two weeks, three weeks goes by, and your roster is essentially the exact same roster that we
09:53left here with plus Yaxle.
09:58Dude, yikes.
09:59Right.
09:59What the hell?
10:00I would ask the Warriors this.
10:02How do you want a fan to feel?
10:05Because I know they're wonderful at, you know, shaping the conversation, and everybody's wonderful at defending themselves.
10:13And I get the difficulty of where the Warriors are.
10:15Most people do.
10:16But what would you say to a fan when that was the process?
10:2037 wins, a bunch of meetings.
10:22We're going to do it different.
10:24We need players who can play back-to-back nights.
10:27And then you head to July, and you come back, and you're like, it's the exact same roster.
10:32Trades are hard.
10:33What do you say to a fan?
10:35Trades are hard.
10:37And, you know, we tried.
10:40Like, you know what?
10:42We tried like heck to get Kawhi, and Ballmer didn't want to trade him to us.
10:46And, you know, we wanted to get Giannis, but that price was too steep.
10:50And we thought about Anthony Davis, but darn it, they didn't want broken Jimmy Butler in his contract.
10:55And so we tried.
10:57And, you know, they could go full far on and say, yeah, I think we were in second place for
11:01a lot of these.
11:02Oh, God.
11:03I mean, we're kind of getting into that territory, though, if it goes that way.
11:06Oh, you just made me think of something.
11:08Oh, I hope that never comes out.
11:10I hope Rich Paul never pulls out a whiteboard to tell you what place you came in if you didn't
11:15get him.
11:16Oh, I don't want to know.
11:17I mean, Warriors.
11:18I don't want to be second.
11:19Warriors got second.
11:20What if they got seventh?
11:21That would be even worse, you know?
11:23But I don't just please, please don't ever come out with what place you came in.
11:29I don't want I don't I don't want to know if LeBron ultimately goes somewhere else.
11:34And, you know, he says something to the effect of Warriors never even on my on my radar.
11:40Like the amount of sports hate for LeBron in this town would go up about a hundred fold.
11:46Already people are sick to their stomach over the idea of him being a warrior.
11:49But I think that a hardcore warrior fan, if you really are a fan and that happens like you did
11:55with Chris Paul, it's like, OK, I don't really care for Chris Paul, but he's a warrior.
11:59So you're going to have to swallow hard.
12:01And, you know, he's a warrior.
12:03And that's the way that that went.
12:05But if LeBron doesn't become a warrior and says, I mean, you saw the whiteboard.
12:09They were all all the way up in the corner for a reason.
12:12I'm not going to the Warriors.
12:13That would make warrior fans so much more angry, I believe.
12:17It doesn't even make any sense.
12:20It doesn't like what doesn't.
12:21Well, it's not like Draymond can't call LeBron.
12:26Hey, pal, what are you thinking?
12:29Well, why would they do all of this if there was never a chance?
12:34Maybe he's just playing with them.
12:36He's toying.
12:37Why would he do that?
12:38He's got nothing against the Warriors and LeBron and Steph and Draymond.
12:42Why would he try to pull a fast one on him?
12:44Why would he do a wide variety of things that he has done, such as?
12:49I've never been knowing him to be like that.
12:51Not like that.
12:52But now here we are, July 6th, and, you know, free agency's kind of on hold waiting for him, aside
12:58from, you know, smaller deals.
12:59Is it?
13:00Who's waiting?
13:01Well, the seven teams that are on the whiteboard are probably waiting.
13:04Yeah, but, I mean, free agency on hold, to me, means there's a bunch of players that are waiting to
13:09sign, but everyone's waiting on LeBron, so they won't sign yet, but everybody's signed.
13:13For the most part.
13:14I'm looking at the list right now, and, you know, there are people, basketball players, who are free agents, but
13:20it's not a bumper crop this year.
13:23Dude, it is scraps.
13:25It is scraps.
13:27Ty Ty Washington Jr., he's out there.
13:29That's like going into a movie theater after it's over and being like, well, there's popcorn on the ground, so
13:35we could eat that.
13:36There are, I think, five former warriors who are all free agents, and you could, like, Kaminga and Kavon Looney.
13:44Lindy Waters III, like, you want to run it back?
13:47You could run it, Chris Berman, back, back, back, back, back, with a lot of these former warriors.
13:54GP2's out there.
13:55He is out there, isn't he?
13:57I mean, he's going to be on the team, I'm pretty sure.
14:00Where else are you going to go?
14:02Russell Westbrook, 37 years old.
14:05Probably not old enough, but bring him in.
14:08Bring him all in, Mark.
14:10Bring him all in.
14:11What are we doing?
14:13If Draymond just signs back for two years, and then they'll plop a minimum or two in there, you know,
14:21GP2 and somebody else, and DeRozan.
14:26Does that feel like a good off-season to you?
14:29I believe I said, ugh, and I'm standing behind my noise.
14:32I know, but you just had surgery, so I thought that could have been, you know, like, maybe you just
14:36had a little moment.
14:37Yeah, that too, but, like, DeMar DeRozan, he's fine.
14:41He's a, you know, he's a guy who can score.
14:43He plays a lot.
14:44I don't think that he's going to take you into being a winning team, but, yeah, if you just run
14:51it back and you sprinkle in some DeRozan on top, like, okay, get ready to lose 135 to 130 every
14:58night.
14:59Like, here's my question.
15:00Here's a perception that I don't know is reality.
15:04People will say, if they don't get him, people are going to say, oh, you sat there and waited on
15:08LeBron, and because you waited on LeBron, you didn't get all these other people.
15:14And I'm thinking to myself, I don't even know if that's true.
15:17I don't know if those other people, A, wanted to come.
15:19I don't know if the Warriors wanted them to come.
15:22And I don't know if the Warriors had the financial wherewithal to get them anyway.
15:26They don't have a lot of room.
15:29They're allowed to do some of these things in order to bring back their own players, although they didn't use
15:34bird rights in order to bring back Chris Stapps.
15:37My surprise is not that the Warriors weren't, like, crazy active on the free agent market.
15:43And I'm not surprised that the Warriors didn't push a bunch of future draft capital in on a trade.
15:49What I'm surprised by is they just brought back the exact same people.
15:54The exact same people.
15:56Yep.
15:57You know, the Porzingis thing was like, well, there could be a sign-in trade.
16:01We don't even know.
16:02Still could be, right?
16:02Yes.
16:03They don't even know if he wants to play.
16:05We don't know what that number is.
16:07Oh, but Melton's opting out, and he's gone.
16:10This is the way people talked.
16:12And the Warriors just went, yeah, just bring everybody back.
16:16Like, Chris Stapps, you take a little less.
16:19We're going to give it to Melton.
16:21We're going to do this again.
16:22So Chris Stapps is, what, two years and $40 million?
16:25Correct.
16:25So he lost $10 million.
16:27Horford opted in, so not much you could do about that.
16:29No, no, no, no.
16:30He got a new two-year deal.
16:32My bad.
16:33He got what we think Draymond's going to get, and he got a small raise.
16:37And that, to me, is the biggest signal as to something has to be going on, because Draymond
16:42Green opted out of $27 million.
16:44And I think he did that, not with the guarantee that LeBron was coming, but with the understanding
16:49that they were going to try like heck to do something.
16:51Yeah, but you know people hate the word try, like Yoda.
16:58Sure.
16:58They hate it.
17:00So if the only reason that Draymond opted out, because I'm with you, I think it's a good
17:04point that you bring up.
17:06But if the only reason Draymond opted out was that the Warriors were like, we're going to
17:10try and do some stuff.
17:12And then you go back to Draymond two weeks later, none of it worked.
17:18That's it?
17:19That's it?
17:21He opted out so they could go play in the sandbox, and then everyone went home?
17:26Ugh.
17:27But it has to be, as you mentioned before, it's a two-way street.
17:30So you can, you know, Draymond had to opt out by June 29th.
17:34And so, yeah, he did that.
17:36And the team basically saying, we're going to try.
17:39We can go out there and give the old college try, Day-Day.
17:42And, you know, you got Westbrook, and you got Harden, and you got LeBron.
17:47These are all free agents.
17:48And I don't think that you would want Harden not with this team.
17:51And Westbrook is just intriguing.
17:54He's maddening.
17:55But he's a guy who runs around and plays, at least.
17:57Are you actually intrigued by Russell Westbrook?
18:00I'm just intrigued because...
18:02I've never known anyone to be less of a warrior than Russell Westbrook.
18:04Well, you already had, like, Kelly Oubre Jr., who was...
18:08Right, and they immediately hated it.
18:10And Chris Paul is not necessarily a guy who you thought would be a stereotypical warrior.
18:16And he's a smart basketball player.
18:18Right.
18:19Smart basketball player.
18:20Russell Westbrook, at least, like, plays.
18:22He plays hard, too.
18:23Yes.
18:23He runs.
18:24Really fast.
18:26He runs until something stops him, like the stands.
18:29Yeah.
18:30That's not warrior basketball.
18:32It's not.
18:32We're not just running around, hucking the ball all over the place.
18:35Well, we were last year.
18:36And then mean mugging people.
18:37Right.
18:38I mean, last year, that was kind of the epitome of what the Warriors were.
18:41Running around and hucking the ball all over the place.
18:43I mean, they turned it over a lot.
18:45I just...
18:45You know, their people got hurt, and I don't think they executed very well.
18:49But I don't think everybody was like, all right, here's the plan.
18:51You get the ball, and then you just run.
18:53Just run, and then throw it up.
18:56And then if it doesn't go your way, you turn around and yell at a ref.
19:00And then on your way to the locker room afterward, get into at least one argument with a fan.
19:06What are we doing?
19:08Like, no.
19:09Well, what are we doing if they don't get LeBron James?
19:11I would rather run it back than run with Russ.
19:14Yeah, I mean, you're going to have to...
19:16I don't know.
19:16You don't have to come up with other free agent possibilities.
19:19But to your point, if you don't land LeBron and you do just basically, all right, GP2, come on in
19:26for three minutes, whatever you wind up bringing back, and you were a 10 seed last year, and now you're
19:33going to just try to be better with the same cast?
19:35I don't know.
19:36No, that's what I'm saying.
19:37There's no way around.
19:38Even if I could sit here and the Warriors will do a great job of this, of explaining why they
19:43ended up where they are, there's absolutely no way for a fan base to feel good.
19:49If you win 37 games, tell everybody that, you know, you've got kind of a new way of looking at
19:57life, and then you come back with the same roster.
20:00And then that's it.
20:02Triple A-Axel.
20:03Right.
20:04And I, look, I'm excited about him.
20:07I'm excited about him.
20:09But, like, the Warriors are not dumb.
20:12They understand perception.
20:13They understand the news.
20:16They understand the way information gets exchanged.
20:19And that's a very big part of running a sports franchise.
20:22It's not just wins and losses.
20:24It's the story that you're telling to your public.
20:27I guess that's my question.
20:29What is your story?
20:31What are you telling everybody if you just come back with the same roster?
20:36Boy, Ritter.
20:38Whew.
20:38Good luck there.
20:39What is the press release?
20:42I mean, the press release.
20:43Write the press release for the Warriors, who have the same group in Yaxel.
20:48I mean, Warriors gutted to lose Pat and Post.
20:52Pat to Phoenix and Post gets an offer sheet that they don't match.
20:56But, boy, we got Yaxel and some of these other youngsters.
21:00Don't miss the new look Warriors.
21:02I mean, I don't know what the press release is.
21:05Jimmy and Moses have no legs.
21:07Right.
21:08We think Steph does, but we don't actually know.
21:11Yep.
21:12New normal.
21:13What is it?
21:13I don't know.
21:14It actually, right now, it looks like the old normal.
21:17Keep your eyes on the golf course.
21:19Is that this weekend, I think?
21:21Which one?
21:22The old Tahoe one?
21:23I think it is.
21:24See if there's a little hitch in his giddy up as he's, you know, walking down fairways.
21:29But something to keep an eye on.
21:30I don't know.
21:31I don't know what the press release is other than we tried.
21:37I don't know, Mark.
21:38I mean, if it's all eggs in the LeBron.
21:40Traits are hard.
21:40If it's all eggs in the LeBron basket and you don't.
21:44I don't know.
21:46Strength in trying?
21:48Is that what we're doing?
21:50But where's the pivot?
21:51If you don't get LeBron, what would be the PR save of a pivot, you know?
21:56I don't know.
21:57I don't think it's out there.
21:58I don't know.
22:00Yeah.
22:01Like, I don't know what I expected.
22:05I knew they'd go after LeBron.
22:06I knew there weren't a lot of names out there for them.
22:09I knew that they probably weren't going to push a bunch of future draft assets into the table to get
22:16somebody to come.
22:17I knew all of these things.
22:18But somehow in my mind, I'm like, but there'll be something, something that they can kind of pitch to people,
22:25even if it might be fool's gold.
22:28But something that felt new is, I guess, what I would have thought.
22:33Well, even if short of exciting, but new.
22:37Right.
22:38New and at least the thought, like healthy, new and healthy, you know?
22:43Here's this, you know?
22:43Well, you know?
22:43We can go and go and go.
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