The Warriors yesterday marked the three-year anniversary of Joe Lacob and Peter Guber acquiring ownership of the team and "for most people" the Warriors' success has been "very surprising," according to CSN Bay Area's Monte Poole. When the Lacob-Guber group took over, there was "so much negativity and so many bad seasons over the course of a couple decades, basically, that it was really easy to believe that this wasn't going work, that the ownership would come in talking big and doing little." Lacob and Guber came in "promising that this was going to be a different organization -- run differently from top down -- and they've made some major moves that have shown us that." Poole said the current state of the franchise is a "team where players around the league look at their franchise and go, 'You know what, that would not be a bad place to go.'" He added there has been a "major culture change." Poole: "When you look at what they do inside the arena here, inside the administrative offices and just really rebranding the Warriors, raising the profile and just putting some gloss on what had really been a pretty dull product ... they've just made it more professional." Poole noted Lacob is now focused on getting approval for a new arena in S.F., which is going to be a "real difficult" accomplishment. However, he is "really committed to it and so far, he's not backing off." CSN Bay Area's Jim Kozimor noted Warriors fans initially booed Lacob, but they "got the right guy," as he has "been good for the Warriors." The San Jose Mercury News' Mark Purdy said Lacob has "every right to be proud of what he's done," though there is "still part of Joe that wants to act like he invented fire" ("Yahoo Sports Talk Live," CSN Bay Area, 11/12).
NEW DESIGN: The Warriors yesterday released an updated design for their proposed S.F. waterfront arena on Piers 30-32. The new design reduces the event center area by over 30,000 square feet, expands total open space by 1.6 acres and lowers building heights (Warriors).
