Golden State Warriors CEO Joe Lacob CEO has said the NBA luxury tax was “unfair”. However, he also insisted he would do whatever was necessary to manage a competitive team.
“The hardest thing of all is navigating this luxury tax, unfortunately,” he said on the Point Forward podcast.
“I went back to New York this week for labor meetings. I’m on the committee. And you know, obviously, the league wants everyone to have a chance, and right now, there’s a certain element out there that believes we ‘checkbook win’, we won because we have the most salaries on our team.”
Lacob claimed the Warriors only had $400 million more than the luxury tax while insisting that the tax system was “unfair”.
“The truth is, we’re only $40 million more than the luxury tax,” he said. Now, that’s not small but it’s not a massive number. We’re $200 million over in total because most of that is this incredible penal luxury tax.
“And what I consider to be unfair and I’m going to say it on this podcast and I hope it gets back to whoever is listening … and obviously it’s self-serving for me to say this, but I think it’s a very unfair system because our team is built by—all top eight players are all drafted by this team.”
Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green are all signed to high-value contracts, forcing the Warriors to up their bargaining game.
“And I think the luxury tax, you should be paying a high luxury tax if you’re using it to go get free agents and outspend your competition,” he said.
“But if you’re developing your own guys and paying Steph Curry what he deserves and Klay Thompson what he’s earned, why am I paying $200 million in luxury tax? I don’t think that’s fair.”
These four players have a total of over $139 million this past season, exceeding the $136.6 million luxury tax threshold. The Warriors’ final total salary was almost $176 million, leading to a luxury tax bill of over $170 million. The team paid over $346 million for the team that recently won its fourth NBA title in eight seasons.
Glad this was asked on @NBATV
Warriors have drafted and kept their best players and are now being punished while trying to keep Looney and Poole along with Steph, Klay and Draymond. pic.twitter.com/tyenREgMGz
— Candlestick Will (@CandlestickWill) June 23, 2022
James Wiseman to re-join Warriors
James Wiseman will soon re-join Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, and Moses Moody. Meanwhile, Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr., Nemanja Bjelica, and Juan Toscano-Anderson have all entered free agency.
While Wiseman missed the entire season due to a knee injury, Lacob insisted Wiseman still would have an excellent future with the team.
“I really wanted to make sure we kept these young players because I am a great believer in James Wiseman,” Lacob said. “And I know a lot of people when they’re not in front of him, they forget how good this guy is.
“He’s incredibly talented, I’m not trading him away, let’s make sure to give him a shot. It takes a lot longer with a big guy. That’s number one. Our two lottery picks, Kuminga and Moody, I think they are incredibly talented. And Jordan Poole’s already shown what he can do.”