Part of Bob Myers wonders how he will feel returning to a Warriors of the Golden State game at Chase Center for the first time in 10 months. Will emotion win out? Will it be warm to see familiar faces in familiar posts? Will relief be the overriding feeling after feeling the Warriors’ current despair again?
He will uncover one of the pressing questions humanity has faced in life: what does it feel like to watch your own tribute video?
“I don’t know, man,” Myers said in a phone interview Tuesday, his voice trailing under the weight of the expected embarrassment surrounding his return Wednesday night as the Warriors host the game. Milwaukee Bucks on ESPN, his new employer. “I told them not to do it.”
He might prefer the Warriors not prey on that sentiment, but they will. But that probably won’t make the former Golden State general manager miss him. The only thing he says he won’t feel is regret. His absence, after a decade in Warriors basketball hell, validated his decision to walk away from it all. In this world, the search for answers is constant and urgent. Certainty is the most valuable commodity for which days, months and years are spent mining.
The four-time champion as an executive, now an ESPN color commentator, has come to appreciate ignorance. Peace is a benefit of accepting uncertainty.
His last game at Chase Center: May 10, 2023. It was the fifth game of the second round series against the Lakers. The Warriors won to extend the series. But they lost in Game 6, were eliminated from the playoffs and Myers relinquished his throne atop the Warriors basketball operations.
Since then, he has worked two jobs. One on TV. The other consult Washington commanders. Nothing he does now seems likely to consume his next decade. These are hobbies for the obsessive worker who seems to choose the most torturous and highest paying professions. Maybe he’s riding this TV thing. Maybe he’ll find another front office to run. Perhaps he will become principal of Monte Vista High School in Danville, California, giving back to the land that gave him birth.
Except the directors don’t wear tailor-made Italian suits. This may not be the right decision.
Typically, you want to meet your ex when you are together. But the beauty for Myers is not having understood. What makes this whole thing copacetic – his unceremonious departure, his planned return, his next big thing to be determined – is what he knows.
“I did everything I could, the best I could do,” Myers said. “I just felt like (owner) Joe (Lacob) hired me to do something. I did it as long (and) as well as I could. And I got to a point where I realized that I had been doing this work in my mind. And it’s time for someone else to do it. There was no part of me that wasn’t happy. It wasn’t like I was unhappy. I just realized it was time.
Bob Myers has presided over four title runs as the Warriors’ general manager, most recently in 2022. On Wednesday, he returns to Chase Center as an ESPN commentator. (Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)
What could deprive some of this evening of its emotion is that Myers still maintains contact with several figures in the organization, including Mike Dunleavy Jr., his successor. He also still lives in the Bay Area, so he’s still there. His return to Chase Center is more of a final catch.
But Myers hasn’t been in those particularly bright lights. One of the main architects of the championship era didn’t hear his applause from the fans. Wednesday is his turn. As the Warriors host the Bucks, it will also unofficially be Bob Myers Day. Perhaps this will have special meaning given that he is a product of the fanbase. The Bay Area product became a Bay Area staple during the last Bay Area dynasty.
Double NBA The Executive of the Year still has his fingerprints all over the Warriors. He wrote Green Draymond in the second round in 2012 and Jonathan Kuminga in 2021. Both are vital for the current Warriors. He turned Kevin Durantthe biggest free agent coup in Warriors history, in Andrew Wigginsan unlikely choice that worked to the tune of a title. Gary Payton IIanother gem discovered by his front office, is still bearing fruit.
It must be said, he also wrote James Wiseman with the No. 2 pick in 2020, one of the biggest misses in franchise history. This is also part of it. The misses with the hits. The Otto Porters and Jacob Evans.
He feels good about where he left the program. He believes he has found a viable replacement for Dunleavy. He’s played an important role in holding things together during many dramatic episodes over the years. His relationship with Stephen Curry was significant.
It helped to walk away knowing the transition work was complete.
Looking back, his sentimental farewell came in June 2019 when the Warriors lost Game 6 of the NBA Finals to Toronto at Oracle Arena. After Durant tore his Achilles tendon, and Klay Thompson tore his ACL and the Warriors’ days of dominance felt over, Myers sat in the empty stands and drank a beer.
The confetti was still on the field. The visions of Raptors the celebration replayed in his mind. There is no doubt that the other moments of the championship were as well. Especially when Curry took the court. Not knowing anyone was watching him, Curry walked around the empty court and observed him. It was the last game at Oracle. The end of an era.
Maybe it was the beginning of the end, when he knew it was time to move on. It was at this point that the peace he now began to form. That’s when the boldness to walk away from it all started to creep in.
(Top photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
