[Slater] Joe Lacob on Wiggins: "He’s a prototypical wing who just played for a not-so-good team, didn’t get perhaps the best culture. We thought if you put him in our situation, he could be great. He didn’t have to be 1A. You saw what he did in these playoffs. He was really, really great.”

“Absolutely,” Lacob said. “I’ve said that from Day 1, and Steve Kerr said the same thing. He’s a prototypical wing who just played for a not-so-good team, didn’t get perhaps the best culture. We thought if you put him in our situation, he could be great. He didn’t have to be 1A. You saw what he did in these playoffs. He was really, really great.”

The Wiggins contract is the symbol of the Warriors’ payroll excess. They were always going to spend on Curry, Thompson and Green. The D’Angelo Russell sign-and-trade max that turned into Wiggins was the choice of management to keep a salary slot alive, despite punitive tax penalties, under the belief they’d eventually rise back to the top.

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