Warriors co-Owner Joe Lacob said there is a "time and place" when paying the luxury tax, and it is "the right thing to do" this season following their NBA championship last year. Appearing on San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami's "The TK Show" podcast, Lacob said, "No one wants to pay the luxury tax. That’s why it is as penal as it is and no team should want to do it." However, he said there are times when paying it "might be required because of the nature of your contract situations and the nature of where you are as an organization and the chance to win." He said, "It’s the right thing to do maybe sometimes for your fan base. We feel that this year is the time for our fan base and our organization, and we just have to pay it. We always said we would do it and I have no problem doing it. We want to win." Lacob said the team has a "great young core and we’re going to try to keep everybody together and it cost what it costs." But he added the team "certainly would try" to get out of the luxury tax next season, and the "expectation would be that we can and should able to do that because ... the numbers go up again." Meanwhile, Lacob addressed the process of building a new arena for the team in Mission Bay, saying it is "going to happen," as the organization has "completed the purchase of the land which was always targeted for this date." He said the Warriors signed a traffic-management deal with the Univ. of California-S.F. because the team is "trying to be a good neighbor." Lacob: "We’ve designed this arena, we’ve done everything we can do. We expect approval here in December and then of course, there will be the 30-day window whereby anyone can sue to try and stop it. I don’t think they’ll have much chance of being successful, but it could happen" ("The TK Show," MERCURYNEWS.com, 10/20).
FAN-NING THE FLAMES: Warriors Exec Board member Jerry West, appearing earlier this week on CBS Sports Radio's "The Jim Rome Show," said the team's fans are "incredible" and called them the "best fans I’ve ever seen in my life, to be honest with you." West: "I’ve never seen anything like it. It just has been a thrill for me to be a part of it." Comparing them to fans of the Lakers, with whom West spent the majority of this NBA career, he said, "Oh, much better than L.A. fans. Ok, much better, they don’t ever leave the game" (JIMROME.com, 10/19). The Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s Lowell Cohn asked if the fans in Oakland “are so great, why are they moving to San Francisco?” SI’s Phil Taylor said the comments were a “shot at the Lakers,” but added fans at Staples Center “are kind of corporate and they only get excited when they’re good and when things are happening." Taylor: "Let’s see when the Warriors have this new arena if and when it gets built, will it be the same thing? ... It’s going to be more corporate, high rollers and more quiet” (“Sports Talk Live,” CSN Bay Area, 10/22).
