San Antonio Spurs legend David Robinson isn’t trying to rain on the Golden State Warriors’ superteam parade. He just wants you, and them, to know this feeling of Nirvana won’t last forever.
As The Admiral told Complex’s Zach Frydenlund (h/t Bleacher Report):
“It takes time, you look at what happened with LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. It took them a year or two to get their legs underneath them and figure things out and even then that run was relatively short,” he mentioned. “So if you’re able to put together a team like this, you’re generally going to have a short window because you can’t pay all those guys to keep them together. There’s the short window that’s going to end relatively quickly and it’s not as easy as going out to play.”
Robinson makes two valid points, the first of which is that there will be a learning curve in Oakland. On paper, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson just fit. But formations of this magnitude take time to gel. Each of the Warriors’ key pieces must learn how to play off one another. The team may hit its stride at some point next season, but in all likelihood, it won’t be right away.
The second point from Robinson is that Golden State’s title window is not forever. It may not even be open long enough to forge a dynasty. It sounds crazy to say now, before the Core Four has even played a game together, but it’s the truth.
Assuming Curry signs a five-year super max next summer and Durant puts pen to paper on a four-year deal, both of which we’ll presume have player options before the final season, the Warriors won’t have to worry about re-signing any of their Core Four for two years.
After two years, in 2019, Thompson will be a free agent. And then Green is slated for free agency in 2020. And then Durant would, theoretically, be able to hit the open market in 2021. He would be followed by Curry in 2022. So keeping this band together beyond, say, 2019 is going to get hella expensive, and that’s with all of these guys entering or firmly entrenched in the back end of their primes. This is also before factoring in contracts for supporting role players.
This isn’t meant to be some hyperbolic death knell for the Warriors’ future. Robinson’s point is unsettling, but it’s legitimate: Golden State’s infrastructure is not forever.
