Interview with Joe Lacob, Warriors’ owner: On moving from Oakland to SF; atmosphere at new arena; cost of PSLs, East Bay fans; whether name-change coming, more

The Warriors held their groundbreaking for the new San Francisco Arena on Tuesday. If everything goes according to plan, the Warriors will be tipping off at the Chase Center in time to start the 2019-20 season.

Of course, there are a lot of aspects to the franchise’s move from Oakland to San Francisco, and we tried to get into as many of them as we could when we interviewed Warriors owner Joe Lacob.

Interview with Warriors owner Joe Lacob on 95.7-FM The Game.

Among the subjects:

–Back in 2010, nobody had heard of Lacob — until he found a way to outbid Larry Ellison for the Golden State Warriors. He was not a fan favorite early on because — did I mention he outbid Larry Ellison?

The fact of the matter is it was almost a foregone conclusion that Ellison was going to get the Warriors back then, so when Lacob did get the team, the Bay Area was disappointed and underwhelmed. After more than a decade of former owner Chris Cohan operating on a tight leash, Warriors fans wanted Ellison, the guy with ALL the money.

Lacob reflected back to that time, when few wanted him to own the Warriors.

–What’s the move going to do to the Warriors’ fan base, if anything? Well, it’s going to do something. We all know that. We’re just not sure of exactly what. Will there be a significant portion of East Bay/Oakland fans that will swear off the team? How are the long-time loyal fans going to afford to go to a game in this new arena? Are the Warriors’ going to lose their home-court advantage, moving from Oracle Arena, known around the league as one of basketball’s best environments?

–What’s the deal with PSLs? Yeah, Lacob addressed the whole PSL, cost thing, and who’s fooling who? Things are going to be pricy. But they haven’t figured out the details yet of how that’s all going to work. But Lacob gets into the thought process about it all.

–Lacob is always up for talking basketball and we asked him if the Warriors needed to make a move and, ideally, find someone who can help them. He said they’re sniffing around, but he couldn’t say one way or another. He did make it clear that the Warriors didn’t have many chips — meaning there are core players who aren’t going anywhere and Golden State owns no draft picks this season.

–Lacob also talked about whether the team would change its name from Golden State Warriors to San Francisco Warriors. That’s been another intriguing issue that’s come up with the new arena.

 

 

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About Steinmetz

Matt Steinmetz is a veteran San Francisco Bay Area sports journalist. He covered the Golden State Warriors for the Bay Area News Group for more than a decade before becoming a television analyst with Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. Steinmetz can be heard on "Steiny & Guru" on 95.7-FM The Game in San Francisco, from 12-3.
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