bob myers: miracle-worker (Photo: Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)
It’s been about a month-and-a-half since Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers sat down with reporters — present company included — at Oracle Arena before the game against the Denver Nuggets and gave an in-depth account of how he acquired Jordan Crawford.
That and this past weekend’s MIT Sloan Sports Conference, where Myers gave an insider’s account of the free agent deal that brought Andre Iguodala to the Bay Area, reveal how an NBA general manager can turn into a miracle-worker at times.
A lot of it really just comes down to trust and relationships, which you find in everyday life.
“Anytime you add a third team, it does allow you to do a deal but also it creates a lot of possibilities for a deal to fall through,” Myers said on January 15th in reference to the three-team trade between the Warriors, Boston Celtics, and Miami Heat that brought Crawford to Golden State, “Fortunately, the good thing is when you talk to someone like (Celtics general manager) Danny Ainge and he was the one speaking to the Miami people, working with organizations like that, you can trust what they’re telling you. So we didn’t feel like we were chasing our tail, we felt like there was a real chance of happening.”
“Whether though media or my own or our front office efforts, people were aware that we were looking at bolstering that position (backup point guard),” Myers said, “You have many conversations, so I’m not sure if I broached the idea of Jordan Crawford first or Danny did, but it was a situation where you have to have a team that’s looking to do something on their own end.
“Without the Miami piece, the deal doesn’t happen, really,” Myers added, “Boston wanted to get future assets out of the move, which they did. It didn’t work in a straight up capacity because Boston was driving the deal from that side. I really wasn’t aware of that piece until kind of the very end. That’s kind of how it works, but for what I knew, what we were giving up and what we were getting, I said, ‘We’re in.'”
The Iguodala deal was a little more nerve-wracking. As Andrew Lynch of ESPN.com tweeted from the conference, Myers had to make a square peg fit into a round hole:
Bob Myers outlining Iguodala acquisition. Negotiated with Andre's agent before GSW had space to sign him to see how much they needed #SSAC14
— Andrew Lynch (@AndrewLynch) February 28, 2014
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Andy Larsen‘s brilliant piece over at Salt City Hoops (worth the entire read), reveals how Myers consummated the deal and made sure it was a win-win for all parties involved:
Myers, the attempted superhero achieving the physically impossible, went around the league. He called (or text messaged) each team’s GM: was there anybody willing to take on $24 million? Naturally, not many teams were: $24 million represents nearly half of a team’s salary cap. The team would have to be in a unique position to be even able to take on that much salary, especially in the forms of Andris Biedrins and Richard Jefferson, two players who gave the Warriors very little on the court.
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Worse, the teams that were able to make a move became suspicious of Golden State’s intentions: were they doing this because they knew they could sign Dwight Howard? Myers pleaded innocent, promising that his team merely wanted Iguodala, but it was of little use. Teams demanded 4, even 5 1st round draft picks as compensation for the salary. GMs, again, thought they could fleece Myers in his time of desperation. It wouldn’t work.
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But Myers was desperate. The Warriors’ brain trust had now mentally pictured Iguodala on their team, and correctly saw him as a perfect fit. Myers couldn’t sleep, the deal yet to be done floating in his head. Pelinka, with limited time for his free agent to work on the open market, set a deadline for noon the following day. If Myers couldn’t solve his cap problems by then, the deal was off.
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Myers again scoured the league, calling the teams that had even shown vague interest at the time of his initial call. Utah had been one of those teams, but wasn’t seriously interested without more incentive. But on the morning before the deadline, Myers played his last card: adding the maximum $3.2 million in cash allowed by the CBA.
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Surprisingly, the new extra bait worked: Utah had just sent $3.2 million dollars to Denver for the rights to Rudy Gobert, the #27 pick, and was eager to get its money back.
We don’t know the extent of Myers’s relationship with teams like the Utah Jazz or Denver Nuggets, but let’s assume the worst, that there’s no real personal relationship and it’s just business. Well, in looking out for other teams’ best interests, Myers is building trust.
Trust was a theme that the conference panel addressed:
The key to GMs negotiating with each other? "Trust falls." #SSAC14
— Andrew Lynch (@AndrewLynch) February 28, 2014
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And, as Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, who sat on the conference panel with Myers, pointed out:
On instituting retreats and having ‘trust falls’ for NBA general managers to build confidence in one another:
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“I’ll catch Jerry West!”
So it’s nice to know for #DubNation fans that “The Logo” (West) works for Golden State.
Also, on the flipside, you wonder if tactics like the so-called “poison pill” restricted free agent offers that Morey employed against the New York Knicks (in acquiring Jeremy Lin) and the Chicago Bulls (in acquiring Omer Asik) might be come back to haunt Morey and the Rockets, long-term.
Of course, personal relationships can trump everything.
“Danny said to me, ‘You owe me brother,’ and I said, ‘Man, you already got me the job,'” Myers said, “He’s the one that introduced me to (Warriors owner) Joe (Lacob), so I can’t really owe him anymore than that, but you know what, you work with people — just like anything in life — relationships matter.
“I don’t know that that’s the reason the deal got done, but like I said, previously when you’re working with quality organizations you can trust what they tell you,” Myers expounded, “Having personal relationships is good, but deals don’t work unless they work for the organization and we feel like this will work for us. Obviously, Boston felt like it’ll work for them, as did Miami. Everybody got something out of it that they liked.”
Myers also revealed himself as an admitted worry-wart, but we’ll cover that in a future piece.
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