Warriors GM Myers details how close team came to not signing Iguodala

That worked out well, now didn't it?

By Matt Moore

Jun 4, 2016 at 10:43 pm ET • 4 min read

In an interview on CBS Sports Radio with CBS Sports NBA writer Ken Berger, Warriors GM Bob Myers revealed that as the team frantically searched for takers to absorb Andris Biedrins' anchor of a contract, and clear all the other additional space they were looking to clear in the summer of 2013 as they pursued Andre Iguodala, Myers never believed that the deal was actually going to happen and the future Finals MVP was not going to become a Warrior.

"That Iguodala deal in a microcosm was interesting," Myers told CBS Sports. "That was a deal, a transaction that I didn't think was actually going to happen. I kept having late, midnight calls, that went on for eight, nine days, hours and hours and hours. And I remember telling my wife numerous times, I would walk in the house or come home late and say, 'You know what sucks? This is one of the hardest things I've tried to do, and we've tried to do, and it's not going to happen.' Nobody cares if it doesn't happen, they only care if it happens. And I thought for the entire duration of trying to get that done it was not going to happen. But I had to know and we had to know in our front office that if it didn't, we made every single effort possible to make it happen."

It's interesting in that most of the conversation in those days was about the Warriors trying to create room to sign Dwight Howard. So for all the talk about Iguodala, if Chandler Parsons doesn't do a fantastic job of recruiting Howard, does he wind up in the Bay while Iguodala goes elsewhere (or stays in Denver) and none of the Warriors' fairy tale run happens? Myers seems to indicate it was entirely about Iguodala, though, that he was their target as a guy who could make the Warriors better. And he was getting desperate, trying to clear cap room to sign whoever they were going for. (The Warriors eventually dealt the contracts and first-round picks to Utah. It worked out OK for Golden State.)

"We were shopping contracts to clear space, and I was literally calling every single team in the league and asking what the price would be to accept these contracts," Myers told CBS Sports. "Andre, to his credit, could have signed earlier, but he waited and waited and waited.

"Finally his agent Rob Pelinka kind of gave a deadline," Myers continued. "He said, 'Listen, we've tried to wait.' I had told Rob, 'Do what you gotta do because we're not gonna be able to move this money. I tried, it's not going to happen.'"

But in the end, the contracts were moved, and the 2015 Finals MVP who played a big part in the Warriors' Game 1 win Thursday joined the yellow and blue.

"Thankfully he hadn't made a decision to go anywhere else. I credit Andre with having that vision more than us. Many players are going to be free agents. It takes a very high IQ player to look at a team and say 'That's a team I can help.' We weren't a championship team. We were a sixth seed in the West. He was a three-seed in Denver. And we beat them that year, but for Andre to have the wherewithal to complete his season and then come in free agency in July and say, 'That's a team that I can help,' maybe he's a better GM than me. He's the one that figured it out."

That Iguodala decided to wait on Golden State may have been less of a preemptive awareness of Golden State's potential and more the simple fact that Iguodala had been drawn to the Warriors all year as a potential free agent in his contract year with the Nuggets. Joe Lacob later said that Iguodala's cousin had informed the team during their first-round series of his appreciation of the team. George Karl later accused Andre Iguodala of being the "mole" who was communicating with the Warriors during the Nuggets' first-round series against them about Denver's intention of playing physical with Stephen Curry.

The Warriors offered Iguodala everything he wanted. A bigger market and urban environment in the Bay Area, tech interests for him to invest in, a coach in Mark Jackson at the time who spoke to his religious views, and a team with great shooters on the rise. It's not shocking that Iguodala held out for Golden State. What is shocking is how great of a shooter Iguodala became in the aftermath after his shot was always a limitation to his otherwise exceptionally well-rounded game, and the unbelievable heights that Iguodala helped lift the Warriors to. If Myers doesn't pull off that deal, none of this happens for Golden State. That's how delicate the turns of fate in the NBA are.