Bob Myers flops on first ESPN question about Warriors, Klay extension

After Myers left the Warriors on his own terms, he quickly landed a job on TV with ESPN as an NBA analyst, with the network hoping Myers can give viewers a fresh perspective of what the modern NBA looks like from the inside.

But when Myers made his first appearance on ESPN’s “NBA Countdown” on Sunday, ahead of a preseason doubleheader featuring the Bucks facing the Lakers and the Kings facing the Warriors, Myers was asked about his old team … and didn’t really say anything at all.

ESPN did a segment about the Warriors’ ongoing contract extension talks with impending free agent Klay Thompson. ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski said that there has been “no progress at all” and that the team and player are still far apart on both the amount of money and the contract length. Wojnarowski referred to this as the “first real test” of whether the Warriors’ core trio of Thompson, Stephen Curry and Draymond Green will continue to play together.

Host Malika Andrews then turned to Myers, asking the former Warriors executive, “What is the path forward for Klay Thompson and Golden State?” Myers quipped, “Well, this is why I left, first of all,” before fully answering.

“A lot of times, people will say, ‘It’s just business,’ but this is not a ‘just business’ situation,” Myers said. “There’s going to be a statue of this player outside of Chase Center. He was instrumental in bringing four championships. He’s beloved inside the organization [and by] the fan base. So it’s not so simple as, ‘It’s money and years.’

“This is why it was hard for me, Malika. You get relationships with these people, especially if you succeeded with them. And that core has been together for 12 years, and that’s just so rare now. That just doesn’t happen. And so this is a delicate negotiation.

“From what I know and see, he wants to stay. They want him to stay. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen. But it is a test, it’s certainly a test, like Woj said, and this is probably the first real test.”

Myers delivered this answer with humility and the personal touch that was seemingly beloved in Golden State. What’s lacking? The actual answer to Andrews’ question about a path forward.

Myers was asked the next day on a media conference call what his comfort level is when discussing his former team. Myers admitted that “talking about the Warriors is hard” because he wants the team and the people he used to work with to do well.

“It’s hard for me to have a ruthless opinion about things over there,” Myers said. “It’s tough. I tried my best to say, look, maybe I was saying it would be hard for me. But it would have been hard for me to do that negotiation.”

That level of insight was missing on television Sunday. Myers was asked on Monday’s call how critical he’s willing to be in his new role.

“You can be critical and honest at the same time and empathetic,” Myers said. “There’s a way to criticize someone, maybe for the game they played, but not for who they are, and I think that’s a line that gets blurred sometimes.”

He later added: “I wouldn’t be afraid to criticize someone that I thought was deserving, but I would try to be careful to also respect the effort part of it all.”

Myers has negotiated many difficult contracts over time, both as Warriors GM and as an agent prior to that. General managers from other sports, like the 49ers’ John Lynch, have even sought him out for his unique perspective.

“I went through enough with the Warriors where I’ve seen quite a bit,” Myers said Monday. “There’s the kind of weight of expectations. There’s dealing with that. There’s the weight of controversy. And so … maybe having some lens into that might be interesting for people to see.”

Television is a hard medium, with commentators having to fit major discussion points into very small windows of time (segments are often seven minutes or less). Most analysts have to learn how to talk even as producers off-screen are talking to them in their ear via earpieces. It could just have been first show jitters.

But if Myers wants to be a top analyst, he has to be willing to share more of that insight when the studio lights are on and the cameras are rolling.