GM Mike Dunleavy Jr. shares take over why Golden State feel ‘targeted’ by the NBA’s new rules

No one can argue against the fact that the Warriors have been the most successful NBA franchise in the past decade, and this comes with glory, just as well as consequences. Not only did they earn four titles since 2015, but their style of play has revolutionized basketball in the United States. 

Due to their expensive roster, they’ve had to pay large amounts of luxury tax bills, and at the same time, spending big money in order to keep the team competitive and hunting for more championships. Now, the league has changed the NBA rule book in many ways, including a second tax that comes with severe penalties if not respected.

Most of these new regulations were set to prevent teams from spending excessive amounts of cash on their rosters, just like Golden State have had to do these past years to keep their championship players happy in San Francisco. Even though the NBA would never admit that they are targeting the Warriors, new GM Mike Dunleavy Jr. sure seems to think so.

“I think first and foremost for Joe [Lacob] and the whole franchise it’s a compliment,” he shared on The Athletic NBA Show. “They’re making rules to prevent you from succeeding, and I think that’s the way some of us, certainly Joe sees it as. Financial implications that would maybe keep us from going to a certain level.”

But Dunleavy, who took over Bob Myers’ role just three months ago, also believes that the new resting rules involving superstars are also targeting the Bay Area franchise.

“The rest stuff as well a little bit, it seems to be targeted at a roster similar to ours,” he expressed. “So I think first of all you take it as a compliment. Just like Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] when they took the dunk out [of college basketball], so you gotta first let it soak in. ‘OK we did something right.'”

Dunleavy Jr. explains why they didn’t decide to offer Dwight Howard a contract after two weeks training with the club

The past couple of weeks, it seemed like veteran star Dwight Howard might’ve made his sensational NBA comeback with the Golden State team, as he trained with them since the start of September. Despite the fact that both the fans and press entertained this idea, Mike Dunleavy Jr. explained the real reason why they decided to diss the opportunity.

“I think looking at it going into training camp right now, we have five guys who can give us minutes at the five position,” the Warriors GM said this week, making a direct reference to their recent addition of Usman Garuba on a two-way deal.

Here’s Mike Dunleavy on the Warriors’ reasoning for not signing an extra big.

“We have five guys who can give us minutes at (center)”

Full podcast conversation with Dunleavy on @AthleticNBAShow feed tomorrow with @SamAmick pic.twitter.com/fc2z3grHwN

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) September 26, 2023

However, Dunleavy Jr. was sure to express just how badly he’s expecting the current signed roster to have enough representants in each position. He believes that now that the training camp will start, the coaching staff will identify if they made the correct trades this offseason.

“We wanna make sure there’s enough reps in camp and early on in the season. We will constantly be evaluating and keeping flexibility open,” he added.