The Long Island Expressway ends at a fork in Riverhead, giving you two options.
Head south and live the high life with the old money in The Hamptons.
Or head north and settle down with the upstarts in Greenport.
Both are dream destinations.
There is a third possibility, but it is not wise. You can continue straight out… straight into the Atlantic Ocean.
Mike Dunleavy Jr. inherited a tough task when he took over as Warriors general manager in June 2023. Some called it a no-win situation, and Dunleavy has certainly lived up to the billing.
When last seen, the Dunleavy-driven Golden State team bus was swimming with the Titanic.
A season after defeating the Celtics for the 2022 championship, the Warriors tried to drink the champagne and eat their cake too. They believed the core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins and Andre Iguodala had another title or two in them, even when they had to babysit the likes of Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and James Wiseman.
Three years later, the bubble remains on melted ice, and the cookie … well, Green shoved it into Poole’s face.
A year removed from the title, after finishing sixth in the West and being eliminated in the conference semifinals, GM Bob Myers was so fed up with that two-way strategy that he left to spend halftime sitting next to Stephen A. Smith.
Drive into Dunleavy, blinkers in hand:
Go right at Riverhead, trade the young guns for talent ready to win and force owner Joe Lacob to sell his Hamptons getaway to finance a shot at NBA immortality.
Or go left, drop everyone old except Curry at the first truck stop and hope the guys Myers had drafted to be the future could develop quickly enough to keep the superstar point guard interested.
Dunleavy chose east. Bub, bub, bub.
Is it too late to fix? Probably so. But that doesn’t mean you just bleed out.
The road to the Hamptons is still open, albeit congested.
With the Nuggets still potent and new blood (Thunder, Grizzlies, and Rockets) trampling over the West’s other existences (Suns, Lakers, and Clippers), there’s no guarantee that acquiring LeBron James for Wiggins, Kuminga, and a first-round pick would pave even a path to the conference finals.
And if that’s the best a LeBron/Curry pairing can do, it’s easy to imagine what the addition of Nikola Vucevic or Jimmy Butler would accomplish.
The obvious path is north, and somehow Dunleavy has shown interest in going in that direction with Thompson and Chris Paul being jettisoned last offseason.
Unfortunately, he took on a Thompson wannabe (Buddy Hield), a Paul who never was (De’Anthony Melton) and Father Expired Time (Kyle Anderson).
Throw in the astonishing addition of Dennis Schroder during the offseason and — as hard as it may seem — the Warriors have actually gotten older. And certainly not better.
Actually a little worse.
Getting younger at this point might be even harder than getting LeBron. And of course it would be much more risky.
That would require putting “for sale” sandwich boards on Green, Wiggins, Schroder, Hield, Anderson, Schroder, Kevon Looney and Gary Payton II and hoping that either the new contenders think they’re a veteran away from a championship run, or have they -have panicked and stubbornly insist that their second life begins now.
Take a look at the eight names. Is it any wonder there are phone lines open at Golden State HQ?
Assuming neither plan pans out—and there’s no reason to believe the overmatched Dunleavy even has a snorkel long enough to breathe life into either—perhaps there’s a more realistic third option that could work:
Get serious about winning the Cooper Flag sweepstakes.
As it stands, the Warriors have the 12th-worst record in the NBA, meaning they would have close to the highest odds against them to win the jackpot among lottery teams.
But given their current form (10-19 since a 12-3 start), the benefits of springing Curry’s sore knees and aching thumb after a long summer, and the ever-important desire to see what Quinten Post, Pat Spencer and Jackson Rowe can do, a further drop in the standings is imminently possible.
Then there is Kuminga, a highly regarded prospect. If he was in the draft next year, he might go second.
So give him around to teams like the Trail Blazers, Raptors and Hornets, hoping they see him as a better prospect than they’re likely to get in the draft. Get one to bite on a first-round pick, and now you can at least dream of getting lucky in Flagg.
And finally, the Warriors also have their first round in 2026, when they could be REALLY bad. Laws would line up to acquire that asset.
But there is no Flag in 2026, so awarding it to the highest bidder for their spot in 2025 at the Flag draws would be beneficial. Heck, throw in 2024 all-rookie Brandin Podziemski to get their attention.
The Bulls, who could seriously head south after a sell-off at the trade deadline, might just go for it.
Imagine that: Three shots at a generational talent like Flagg. And a very realistic plan for storing ping pong balls.
It might not have the appeal of The Hamptons or Greenport, but Sag Harbor is pretty nice.
It sure beats cozying up to Titanic.
