Bob Myers Spent Money to Make Money During Warriors Tenure

Following Bob Myers’ announcement of stepping down as lead Golden State Warriors executive, Boardroom looks back at the numbers behind his historic tenure.

It’s certainly not hyperbole to say that Bob Myers had one of the most successful runs as an executive in NBA history, a run that will end next month after he announced Tuesday that he’ll be stepping down from the Golden State Warriors lead executive role.

In 11 seasons as the Warriors’ president of basketball operations and general manager, the team won four NBA championships and made two additional Finals appearances. Myers played a huge role in transforming a franchise that had made the playoffs once in the previous 18 seasons and turned it into one of the most successful and valuable sports teams in the world.

While Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson had already been drafted by the time Myers took over in April 2012, Golden State took Draymond Green in the 2012 draft, hired Steve Kerr at the end of the 2013-2014 campaign, signed Kevin Durant after the 2015-2016 season, and brought in players like Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole to win a fourth title last season.

Myers won the league’s Executive of the Year award in 2015 and 2017, negotiated extensions to keep the team’s core intact the whole time, helped convince ownership to spend at league-record levels, oversaw a new arena being built, and was a major reason why the Warriors’ valuation grew so much since his arrival.

Golden State Warriors	Franchise Valuation (Forbes)	Payroll (Spotrac)	Luxury Tax Payments (Spotrac)
2022-23	$7 billion	$188,354,959	$163,709,263
2021-22*	$5.6 billion	$175,192,325	$170,331,206
2020-21	$4.7 billion	$168,323,849	$117,073,943
2019-20	$4.3 billion	$130,342,231	$0
2018-19	$3.5 billion	$144,517,971	$51,487,868
2017-18*	$3.1 billion	$133,611,005	$34,474,921
2016-17*	$2.6 billion	$97,520,106	$0
2015-16	$1.9 billion	$88,971,214	$19,099,750
2014-15*	$1.3 billion	$71,881,167	$0
2013-14	$750 million	$71,069,466	$0
2012-13	$555 million	$69,667,990	$0

* Denotes winning the NBA championship that season.

Golden State was worth $450 million in 2011, according to Forbes, and grew by $6.55 billion in just a dozen years, an almost unheard-of rise. Joe Lacob had to authorize record spending, including luxury tax bills the last two seasons larger than nearly every NBA payroll in history.

Bob Myers run as the leader of our Basketball Operations group was historic. pic.twitter.com/P3uydap7q6
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 30, 2023

But it was up to Myers to keep Curry, Thompson, and Green under contract — content in their roles with the team — and build supporting casts around them to contend year in and year out. He was and still is highly respected among players, owners, executives, coaches, and agents. To make the Finals more years than not over a decade span is incredibly rare in any sport, and that’s what Myers accomplished during his tenure in The Bay.

While it’s unclear what the 48-year-old Bob Myers will do next, the architect behind four titles in the last eight years has built a Hall of Fame-level resume leading one of the most meteoric rises for a global sports franchise we’ve seen in a long time.