The owner of the Golden State Warriors Joe Lacob has never hidden his feelings about his fellow NBA teams. After all, this is the man who once claimed that his organization was “light years” ahead of the rest of the NBA.
In an appearance on “The Athletic NBA Show” podcast Tuesday, Lacob decried how the other teams in the NBA make it difficult to pull off a trade.
“If I could share anything with many of the fans out there — and I read everything, you know, I read what people say, the criticisms and the positive things — they don’t understand how hard it is and how illogical some of the parties on the other side are sometimes,” Lacob said.
“Maybe we’re illogical too, to some extent, but my point is it’s just really, really hard to pull these things off. And everyone writes all this stuff and they have no idea what the other side is asking for in some of these things.”
Lacob spoke for more than half an hour with hosts David Aldridge and Marcus Thompson, with Thompson quickly asking Lacob to give an example of an “illogical” team. Lacob declined to do so, but said, “You can figure it out.”
As has been widely reported, the Warriors have been trying to add another superstar to pair alongside Steph Curry all offseason. They heavily pursued Paul George in a deal with the Clippers, though no move materialized and George instead went to the Philadelphia 76ers.
Now, Golden State is in a waiting game with the Utah Jazz to try and acquire forward Lauri Markkanen. On Monday, the Athletic’s Shams Charania reported that the two teams have a sizable gap between their two trade offers for Markkanen.
Lacob stressed that part of the difficulty with making trades is that GMs “want to prove how smart they are” with every move. The Warriors were able to make some moves, being a big part of the first six-team trade in NBA history by turning Klay Thompson’s departure to Dallas into Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson.
The Warriors also added De’Anthony Melton, leaving Lacob to say the Warriors are “definitely better” than they were last year, but that they still have moves to still make.
“I’m pretty excited about where we are right now,” Lacob said.
“Am I satisfied? No. Never. We’re always going to be in the market to improve our team. Always. Always. I don’t care what team we have. If we can get someone else and work out a deal that makes us better? Great, we will. We’re always looking. We’re going to be the most aggressive team in the league.”
At other points during Lacob’s podcast appearance, which was published Tuesday but recorded Monday, the Warriors owner reminisced about Thompson and said that the public perception that the Warriors only got Kevin Durant in 2016 because of the jump in the NBA’s salary cap is “such revisionist history and BS.”
The Warriors would have “gotten him no matter what,” he said. He also vowed that Warriors will “never tank” under him.
In the podcast’s final question, Thompson asked if Lacob felt the other NBA teams were specifically not doing deals with the Warriors because of their four NBA titles in the past decade. Lacob demurred before saying teams were now focusing on going after the current defending champions, the Boston Celtics.
“They would never say that, but I would think that you’re pointing to something that’s a little bit of human nature,” Lacob said.
“We had an extended, great run. And I have, in the past, definitely felt that at certain times.
“But, you know, we haven’t won it in two years. It seems like a long time ago to me, now.”
