The Lengthy Island Expressway ends at a fork within the highway in Riverhead, leaving you two choices.
Head south and reside the excessive life with the outdated cash in The Hamptons.
Or veer north and settle in with the up-and-comers in Greenport.
Each are dreamy locations.
There’s a third risk, however it makes little sense. You possibly can hold going straight… proper into the Atlantic.
Mike Dunleavy Jr. inherited a troublesome process when he took over as Warriors normal supervisor in June of 2023. Some referred to as it a no-win state of affairs, and Dunleavy actually has lived as much as the billing.
When final seen, the Dunleavy-steered Golden State staff bus was swimming with the Titanic.
One season after beating the Celtics for the 2022 championship, the Warriors tried to drink champagne and eat their cake, too. They believed the core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Inexperienced, Andrew Wiggins and Andre Iguodala had one other title or two in them, even whereas having to babysit the likes of Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and James Wiseman.
Three years later, the bubbly stays on melted ice, and the cake… properly, Inexperienced smushed it into Poole’s face.
One 12 months faraway from the title, having completed sixth within the West and been eradicated within the convention semifinals, GM Bob Myers was so fed up with the two-direction method, he left to spend halftimes sitting subsequent to Stephen A. Smith.
Enter Dunleavy, with flip sign in hand:
Go proper at Riverhead, commerce off the younger weapons for ready-to-win expertise and pressure proprietor Joe Lacob to promote his Hamptons getaway with a view to finance a shot at NBA immortality.
Or go left, drop off all of the old-timers besides Curry on the first truck cease and hope the fellows Myers had drafted to be the longer term might develop shortly sufficient to maintain the famous person level guard .
Dunleavy selected east. Bub, bub, bub.
Is it too late to repair? Most likely so. However that doesn’t imply you simply bleed out.
The highway to the Hamptons stays open, albeit congested.
With the Nuggets nonetheless highly effective and new blood (the Thunder, Grizzlies and Rockets) having stepped over the West’s different has-beens (the Suns, Lakers and Clippers), there’s no assurance buying LeBron James for Wiggins, Kuminga and a first-round choose would pave even a path to the convention finals.
And if that’s the most effective a LeBron/Curry pairing can do, it’s straightforward to think about what a Nikola Vucevic or Jimmy Butler addition would accomplish.
The plain path is north, and in some methods Dunleavy has proven an curiosity in heading that route with the jettisoning of Thompson and Chris Paul final low season.
Sadly, he introduced on a Thompson wannabe (Buddy Hield), a Paul never-has-been (De’Anthony Melton) and Father Expired Time (Kyle Anderson).
Throw within the head-scratching in-season addition of Dennis Schroder and—as laborious to consider because it might sound—the Warriors have really gotten older. And definitely no higher.
In actual fact, fairly a bit worse.
Getting youthful at this level could be even tougher than buying LeBron. And, certainly, it might be a lot riskier.
It will require placing “For Sale” sandwich boards on Inexperienced, Wiggins, Schroder, Hield, Anderson, Schroder, Kevon Looney and Gary Payton II and hope both the brand new contenders consider they’re one veteran away from a championship run, or the has-beens panic and stubbornly insist their second life begins now.
Check out these eight names. Is it any surprise there are telephone traces open at Golden State HQ?
Presuming neither plan goes to pan out—and there’s no purpose to consider the overmatched Dunleavy even has a snorkel lengthy sufficient to breathe life into both—maybe there’s a extra lifelike third possibility that might work:
Get critical about successful the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes.
Because it stands, the Warriors have the Twelfth-worst file within the NBA, which implies they’d have near the best odds in opposition to them to win the jackpot among the many lottery groups.
However given their present kind (10-19 since a 12-3 begin), some great benefits of giving Curry’s sore knees and aching thumb the spring off after a protracted summer season, and the always-important want to see what Quinten Publish, Pat Spencer and Jackson Rowe can do, an additional drop within the standings is imminently potential.
Then there’s Kuminga, a extremely regarded prospect. If he have been within the draft subsequent 12 months, he may go second.
So provide him round to groups just like the Path Blazers, Raptors and Hornets, hoping one sees him as a greater prospect than they’re more likely to get within the draft. Get one to chunk on a first-round choose, and now you possibly can not less than dream of lucking into Flagg.
And lastly, the Warriors even have their 2026 first-rounder, once they may very well be REALLY unhealthy. Groups would line as much as purchase that asset.
However there’s no Flagg in 2026, so dealing it to the best bidder for his or her 2025 seat on the Flagg sweepstakes could be useful. Heck, throw in 2024 all-rookie Brandin Podziemski to get their consideration.
The Bulls, who might head significantly south after a sell-off on the commerce deadline, simply may go for it.
Think about that: Three pictures at a generational expertise like Flagg. And a really lifelike plan to stockpile ping-pong balls.
It won’t be the lure of The Hamptons or Greenport, however Sag Harbor is fairly good.
It certain beats cozying as much as the Titanic.
