Golden State Warriors President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Bob Myers has announced he is stepping down when his current contract expires next month.
Myers is a former agent who has been a part of the Golden State front office since 2011 and is largely credited for building the Warriors’ latest run of championship-caliber teams over the last 11 years as the general manager.
“I have so many different things, emotions, that I’m still processing, but the bottom line is this job requires complete engagement [and] complete effort. 1,000%,” Myers said as he opened a press conference on Tuesday. “If you can’t do it, then you shouldn’t do it.”
“I can’t do that to our players, I can’t do that to [co-owner] Joe [Lacob] and [co-owner] Peter [Guber], and I really can’t do that to myself,” he continued. “That’s a question I’ve been wrestling with. I appreciate your patience [in] letting me make that decision, everyone in this room.”
“I’ve only known how to do things one way my whole life. [That] is kind of all the way, and it doesn’t feel right to do something when I can’t give it everything, and that’s what it takes to do what we’ve done over the last 12 years.”
Under Myers, the Warriors broke the regular season record for wins in a single season and went to six NBA Finals, snapping a championship drought of 40 years and winning four total NBA titles.
He was also part of a front office that drafted Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, Kent Bazemore, Harrison Barnes, and Jordan Poole, among others, and added key veterans like Andre Iguodala, Andrew Wiggins, Andrew Bogut, Shaun Livingston, and Kevin Durant.
Durant joined the team as a prized free agent signing in July 2016 and helped form an unstoppable lineup that won back-to-back championships.
“We would not have won those next two championships if Bob had not done what he did,” Lacob told the media during the press conference. “He was the key guy. It was his idea and his execution.”
“I’m proud. I should say that. I’m proud of what I did, and I’m proud of what we did,” Myers concluded.
Joe also said that he found out about Myers’s decision on Tuesday morning and had not formulated a plan for hiring his successor, but it is expected that Vice President of Basketball Operations Mike Dunleavy Jr. and Kirk Lacob, Joe’s son, have expanded roles in the new front office.
Myers’s contract expires on June 30, so he will still be under the team’s employment for the 2023 NBA Draft on June 22, but once his contract expires, Golden State will begin a new chapter in its front office.
“We’ve all worked together for a long time,” Joe Lacob added. “It’s going to take some time adjusting, but nothing lasts forever.”