Ancient Golden State Warriors And The Los Angeles Lakers Guard Quinn Cook spoke about his NBA career earlier this week on the Jefe Island Podcast. Cook, who last played for the Taiwan Mustangs, spoke about his departure from the Dubs after the 2018-19 season. He said he had accepted a qualifying offer from Golden State to return to the team for another season when management rescinded the offer and prevented it from being finalized.
“I was a restricted free agent, they gave me a qualifying offer, but I had a good season, so my agent told me to wait and see if we get another offer,” Cook recalled. “My agent called me three times, he was like, ‘Yo, everything’s kind of slow. I think we just gotta sign the offer and kill this shit. You’re gonna play, you know the ins and outs of the offense, Klay’s not gonna be there.’” Thompson tore his ACL during the 2019 season NBA Finals.
“So he sent me the contract. I don’t think I’ve shared this story publicly yet,” Cook continued. “They sent me the offer, I literally signed my qualifying offer to the Warriors, as I was doing that, they sent me a withdrawal. I have the screenshots and everything. It’s all signed… I literally completed it and I got the withdrawal from the Warriors.”
After a productive career at Duke, Cook bounced around professional basketball before signing a two-way contract with Golden State prior to the 2017–18 season. Cook proved to be a solid secondary contributor, scoring nearly 10 points per game in 22.5 minutes per game during his appearances. While he lacked size and exceptional playmaking ability, Cook was an excellent shooter, hitting 44.2 percent of his three-pointers.
Cook’s performances led the Warriors to promote him to their active roster, where he remained through the 2018–19 season. Cook remained an effective shooter as a backup, but his defensive limitations made head coach Steve Kerr hesitant to give him a larger role, even after Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson suffered serious injuries during the playoffs.
The Warriors’ decision to rescind their qualifying offer to Cook may have been motivated by a desire to bring in more veterans to complement the young guards that had been added to the organization’s depth (Jordan Poole, Jacob Evans, and Ky Bowman). The Dubs eventually brought in Glenn Robinson III and Alec Burks. However, their 2019-20 campaign would be doomed by an injury to Steph Curry. Cook, on the other hand, would join the Los Angeles Lakers en route to his second career NBA title.
