As the defending NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors were the team everyone wanted to beat last season. But, the Warriors followed up their title-winning season by racking up an NBA-record 73 wins. Golden State, of course, made the biggest move of the offseason in adding Kevin Durant and will once again be a top target for a win on just about every team’s list. In an interview with KNBR’s Murph & Mac on Wednesday, GM Bob Myers expects his squad to face plenty of challenges in 2016-17:
“I think a lot of people think we signed Durant and everything is great, which in reality, that is a really good thing. But we have a lot of new parts. This is not a team like last year’s team, where we could just hit training camp in stride. As much as we like our roster, it’s gonna take some time to evolve with guys like Durant, David West, [Zaza] Pachulia. We lost six guys. So even though we’re happy with the offseason, I do think we’re gonna have some turbulence. Because the other thing is, I think the scrutiny on the team is gonna be so high that any loss, anything that happens in a negative way, is gonna be exaggerated, right? It’s just gonna be, ‘I can’t believe they lost a home game,’ or ‘I can’t believe they lost two in a row, they never did that last year.’ I mean, last year I think we started out 24-0 or something crazy. So if we start out, whatever we start out, it’s not gonna be that, I imagine. So people might write or say, ‘Oh, they’re not as good as last year. […]
“It takes time to develop chemistry. And that doesn’t happen in one day or one week or one month. It’s exciting. I think it’s gonna be a great process to watch unfold. But I do think because of the expectation level, probably the highest expectation you can ever put certainly on a Warriors team — even though I think a lot of people thought we would win the championship last year, I think people now are even having higher expectations. When you have that level of expectation, that’s where you want to be as an organization, but it also magnifies any adversity or any stretch of losing. So it’s good, it’s fine, but you have to be aware of it, and not be shocked when it comes.”
