The Lengthy Island Expressway ends at a fork within the street 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Head south and reside the excessive life with the outdated cash in The Hamptons.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 chance, nevertheless it makes little sense. You possibly can preserve going straight… proper into the Atlantic.
Mike Dunleavy Jr. inherited a troublesome job 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 yr 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 strategy, 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 power proprietor Joe Lacob to promote his Hamptons getaway with a purpose 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 blokes Myers had drafted to be the long run might develop shortly sufficient to maintain the famous person level guard .
Dunleavy selected east. Bub, bub, bub.
Is it too late to repair? In all probability so. However that doesn’t imply you simply bleed out.
The street 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 decide would pave even a path to the convention finals.
And if that’s the very best 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 course 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 onerous to imagine because it may appear—the Warriors have truly gotten older. And positively no higher.
In truth, fairly a bit worse.
Getting youthful at this level could be even more durable than buying LeBron. And, absolutely, it will be a lot riskier.
It could 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 imagine 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 strains open at Golden State HQ?
Presuming neither plan goes to pan out—and there’s no cause to imagine the overmatched Dunleavy even has a snorkel lengthy sufficient to breathe life into both—maybe there’s a extra lifelike third choice that might work:
Get severe about profitable the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes.
Because it stands, the Warriors have the Twelfth-worst report within the NBA, which implies they’d have near the best odds towards 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 Submit, Pat Spencer and Jackson Rowe can do, an additional drop within the standings is imminently doable.
Then there’s Kuminga, a extremely regarded prospect. If he have been within the draft subsequent yr, he would possibly 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 prone to get within the draft. Get one to chunk on a first-round decide, and now you’ll be able to a minimum of dream of lucking into Flagg.
And lastly, the Warriors even have their 2026 first-rounder, after 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 can be helpful. Heck, throw in 2024 all-rookie Brandin Podziemski to get their consideration.
The Bulls, who might head severely south after a sell-off on the commerce deadline, simply would possibly 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 may not be the lure of The Hamptons or Greenport, however Sag Harbor is fairly good.
It positive beats cozying as much as the Titanic.
