Warriors owner Joe Lacob did not want to see Kevin Durant leave Golden State in free agency last summer.
But you can't always get what you want.
The two-time NBA Finals MVP -- who is expected to miss the entire 2019-20 season because of a ruptured right Achilles tendon sustained in Game 5 of last year's NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors -- now is a member of the Brooklyn Nets.
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“I was sad to see him go because I think if he’d have stayed -- which I think he should have -- we would have, maybe not this year but for the next five years, one of the best players in basketball,” Lacob recently told Wes Goldberg of the Bay Area News Group. “So that was sad.
"On the other hand, he was going to be injured and out this year and he’s 31, he’s getting older. So there’s a part of me that said it might be for the best, long-term, for the franchise.”
It's safe to assume that it's a very, very small part of Lacob that feels it might be for the better that KD is no longer with the Warriors. And it's not a surprise to hear this sort of rationalization from Lacob because he always is looking ahead and is forward-thinking at his core.
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For the man who "took" the Warriors away from Oracle founder Larry Ellison in 2010, there is no time to dwell on the past. It's all about assembling a roster that can compete for titles as soon as possible.
“We have no reason to not be in the hunt for championships all the time, every year, forever,” Lacob told BANG. “If we don’t, we’ll make sure we get people who do.”