The Checkbook machine that is the Golden State Warriors, Father's Day, Juneteenth, and my wedding anniversary weekend
Stretch Four Insights Volume 28
Happy Saturday,
I am in Clear Lake today with some friends for a few nights and then Whitney, Cain, and I are heading down to Calistoga for some R&R to celebrate our anniversary, Juneteenth, and my first Father’s Day.
This week I want to pay homage to the Golden State Warriors who brought home their fourth NBA title in eight years.
The Warriors returned to the mountain top of the NBA and the elite sports championship. This was the coolest championship I have seen the Warriors achieve. Seeing Steph Curry, aka “30”, in tears was one of the greatest moments in sports history.
This week's edition is dedicated to the Dub Nation. I married into the Bay Area sports scene and the last two seasons were spent watching the Warriors grind it out in a bit of mediocrity while also managing COVID shutdowns while everyone was saying that San Francisco was dead in particular.
I was featured on my friend Darius Grant’s The Build Tech Stack Equity Podcast I talked about my founder's journey and building ModernTax. Check out the podcast here.
Now on to the newsletter.
The Checkbook Machine that is the Golden State Warriors
According to Brian Windhorst of ESPN, the Warriors are a checkbook team. While he later clarified his statement what he meant at the moment was that the Warriors spend an absorbent amount of money to compete for titles and they should be this good. This is a half-truth. The Warrior's core is built in-house through great draft picks and Steph Curry clarified that they can be a checkbook team because of the core that has been built. The supporting roles are filled by Andrew Wiggins, who was a gift they received in a trade with Minnesota after Kevin Durant left and agreed to a sign and trade as opposed to signing with Brooklyn outright as an unrestricted free agent.
The Warriors won their fourth championship and shut everyone up including all the mainstream media, other players, and teams but the biggest winner was Bob Myers.
Myers is a Bay Area native and UCLA alum. He spent his initial post-playing days as an agent. He joined the Warriors front office in 2011 and is responsible for drafting each and every player on the team except Steph Curry including Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. He’s built the perfect pedigree and is in the perfect storm. Joe Lacob and Peter Guber purchased the Warriors for under $500m in the year prior to Bob Myers joining in 2010 and now the franchise is valued at over $5B prior to getting the fourth title in eight years.
The perfect storm started in 2009 when “30” decided he had proven enough at Davidson College and decided to enter the draft. It wasn’t that he needed to rush, he hailed from a good family, had an ex-NBA dad, and was sharp enough to wait. He then slipped to number seven in the draft, and the Warriors chose him despite already having a young guard like Monta Ellis. I was lucky enough to attend a game during Steph’s rookie year thanks to another Charlotte hometown hero Anthony Morrow while I was out in the Bay playing against Stanford in college.
30 got off to a rocky start that game and his career in general. He had ankle injuries, aka “Mr. Glass Ankles”, and the Warriors resigned him to what he called “the most favorable” contract in sports history.
The checkbook dynasty is a mix of draft luck, Silicon Valley philosophies of going big, and most importantly work. Across the board, the work ethic bleeds throughout the organization and has become a cultural phenomenon in itself. Bill Simmons clarified that this team is not a dynasty I beg to differ. In the age of player empowerment and teaming up to create super teams the Warriors have built the longest-running super team on the backs of great talent evaluations and draft picks, timely contract extensions, hiring a great coach that joined the Warriors in his first head coaching job in Steve Kerr, and an incredible array of basketball wizardry. I am long on the Warriors to continue their dominance through the prime years of their core team and honestly as long as this band wants to continue playing together.
Email Feedback to me at matt@stretchfour.co
Back to the trenches,
Matt