Bob Myers announced his resignation as president of the Golden State Warriors this week, and he did so in a manner that’s become familiar over his 11 years as the team’s chief architect. He held a press conference (a rarity in these situations), and franchise owner Joe Lacob joined him on the stage, primarily to thank him for his service. But if this sounds like just another “team executive steps down” story, then let me remind you of some other Bob Myers moments on a podium.
Like June 11, 2019, maybe an hour after Game 5 of the Finals in Toronto. I remember Myers fighting back tears as he discussed Kevin Durant’s ruptured Achilles, and the process that led the Warriors to clear Durant to play that night.
Or October 7, 2022, a day after news broke that Warriors star Draymond Green had punched teammate Jordan Poole in the face, when Myers addressed the Bay Area media, explaining with as much tact and grace as he can, how the Warriors would handle the matter. He spoke for 16 minutes, and answered every question.
There’s been much to admire about the Warriors these last nine years—their sublime shooting, their beautiful offense, their rare mix of bravado and humility—but as Myers steps away and we start to assess the era, it’s the Warriors’ values that strike me first. And it’s hard not to wonder: How much longer will the Warriors be, you know, the Warriors? Or at least, the Warriors as we’ve come to know them?
To be sure, Myers’ departure does not signal The End in the way that Stephen Curry’s retirement some day will. It’s not as massive a tremor as, say, the potential departures of Klay Thompson or Draymond Green or coach Steve Kerr. But Myers has played as vital a role as anyone in building and nurturing this dynasty, as the franchise’s visionary and caretaker, its conscience and confidant. And his departure does signal a shift—the first pulled thread in their championship fabric, the first glimmer of the dynasty’s twilight. This was a rare disappointing season, with the Warriors falling in the second round of the playoffs, and there are other weighty matters on deck: potential extensions for Green and fellow 33-year-old Klay Thompson; a bench that needs fortifying; questions about Poole’s long-term fit; salary-cap and luxury-tax concerns. And, oh yeah, coach Steve Kerr, a close friend of Myers’, is entering the last year of his contract.
It's surely premature to bury the Warriors now—a mistake we made four Junes ago, when they lost multiple stars to injury and lost the title to the Toronto Raptors. But it’s not too soon (as we await tipoff of the 2023 Finals) to pay tribute to everything the Warriors have represented for the last nine years—and, admittedly, what I hope they’ll continue to embody for years to come.
Those qualities that feel most Warriors aren’t just the star power, the pyrotechnics and parades. It’s not just about the staggering number of games won, or the beautiful brand of basketball they used to win them. It’s the way the Warriors have carried themselves throughout—even, and especially, in their lowest moments—and the lessons learned along the way. It’s about their joy and resilience, sure, but also their frailties and their defiance, and the fact that they’ve never run from any of it.
Start with the joy, a term invoked so often by Kerr that it’s almost become a cliché. Joy has been in free supply throughout the era, largely because it’s Curry’s defining trait on the court. He’s the rare superstar who can shimmy and preen and have it come off as charming instead of boorish. His buoyancy and selflessness have empowered teammates and allowed the Warriors to win titles in multiple forms: as the egalitarian “Strength in Numbers” crew in 2015, as an overpowering superteam in 2017 and 2018, and finally as a (necessarily) Curry-centric operation in 2022.
The thing about that joy is that it’s rarer than you think among dynasties. Michael Jordan’s teams were merciless. Shaq and Kobe provoked fear and loathing. Tim Duncan inspired dutiful admiration. They were all amazing,, but no one described the Bulls, Lakers and Spurs dynasties as “joyful,” much less called that joy a defining trait.
Most strikingly, that joy hasn’t been confined to Curry: it’s been the language the entire team speaks. In this era of ball-dominant stars (think Russell Westbrook and James Harden) and soaring usage rates (hello, Luka Doncic), Curry has consistently kept the ball moving and the offense flowing—a credit also to Kerr’s coaching philosophy, which also stands out in a league that’s become obsessed with pick-and-roll sets and isolation play.
Even the much-villainized version of the Warriors—the one featuring Durant from 2016-19—started with an act of ego suppression. How many players of Curry’s caliber would invite another MVP to join his team, knowing it would cost him shots and points and individual accolades? But then, this era was built in part on sacrifice—starting with Andre Iguodala’s embrace of the sixth man role in 2014, a move that unlocked so much of the Warriors’ potency and versatility.
They’ve also shown remarkable resiliency through it all. Losing the 2019 Finals could have ended the dynasty. Losing Durant to free agency that summer looked like a fatal blow. Losing Thompson for two seasons—to a blown ACL, followed by a blown Achilles—was both competitively and spiritually devastating. And yet the Warriors, recast once more as underdogs, adapted, adjusted, and clawed their way to a fourth title last June, a full seven years after their first.
This isn’t to say that it’s all puppy dogs and rainbows in the city by the Bay. Green is among the most polarizing NBA figures of the last decade, a defensive maestro who can power his team to the championship one year, then sabotage its title defense by getting suspended mid-Finals the next. His outsize ferocity has been one of the Warriors’ greatest assets, and occasionally their greatest weakness. His punch of Poole last fall nearly broke the Warriors -- and by their own telling, put a crimp in their entire season, which ended with a second-round loss to the Lakers.
Still, the team has found ways to navigate the NBA minefield for an entire decade without falling prey to egos, power struggles or personality clashes. As Andre Iguodala recently said to The Ringer’s Logan Murdock, “We’ve been in fantasyland for so long,” but this season was “more like the real NBA.”
At the risk of sounding Pollyannish, it’s in moments of crisis when I’ve sometimes admired the Warriors most. Myers didn’t have to hold that press conference after the punch. Green spoke to the media the day after the video surfaced—for 36 minutes! Most teams would have issued a perfunctory statement, circled the wagons and insisted on “basketball questions only” at the next media availability. But at their most vulnerable moments, the Warriors lead with accountability and (within limits) transparency. They never hide. And where another franchise might have jettisoned Green for any of these infractions, the Warriors stood by him, displaying a loyalty rare in pro sports.
Which brings us back to Myers, and to perhaps the most profound trait of this Warriors dynasty: their humanity. When Green was suspended for Game 5 of the 2016 Finals, Myers watched the game with him, from a suite at the neighboring Oakland Coliseum. And that night in 2019, after Durant ruptured his Achilles? It was as emotional as I’ve ever seen a team executive. (Worth noting: Durant was among the first to reach out to Myers this week, when news of his resignation hit social media.)
And whenever things have felt “more like the real NBA,” Myers always infuses a dose of humanity back into the moment. Two months ago, Myers was at the podium again, this time sitting next to Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins, who had just returned from a two-month absence to attend to a family matter. There was no real reason for Myers to be there, other than as moral support.
In the weeks ahead, the Warriors will have to decide on all those potential contract extensions and roster issues. These are all critical, delicate discussions, and for the first time in a decade it won’t be Myers handling them.
There’s no telling what impact his absence will have, or which strand will come loose next, or how much longer the Warriors are we know them will endure. But if this is the beginning—even the very beginning—of the end of these Warriors, I’m already starting to miss them.
