Joe Lacob sides with the Suns’ Matt Ishbia on tanking

Phoenix Suns the owner Mat Ishbia recently left about teams allegedly falling in the NBA, calling it “losing behavior.” With tanks emerging as a hot topic in the league, it sounds like Ishbia has at least one supporter in the Golden State Warriors the owner Joe Lacob.

While discussing the situation with the Warriors this season, Lacob made that clear his team is not trying to tank whatever, according to Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard. He accepted Ishbia’s comments and firmly stated that Golden State is not an organization that will ever come under his ownership.

“I saw where the other owner came out today and talked about (tanking), Matt Ishbia,” Lacob said. “I mean, you know, it’s not in my DNA, or the DNA of this organization, to do that. … It’s not a good look. This is sports. We’re supposed to play to win. And that’s just not a way I’d be comfortable, ever, trying to improve our team.”

Joe Lacob believes in the idea that his team, along with others in the league, should compete as hard as they can for ticket-paying fans to come watch their games and buy their merchandise. Overall, he wants to put the best product on the field, even if the club has some problems, like Jimmy Butler’s injury, for example.

“Look, this season matters to the fans who bought tickets this year,” Lacob said. “Hopefully they’ll be our fans next year, obviously. I think you’ve always got to try to win and do your best. We’ve been dealt some tough cards here now. And our expectations probably shouldn’t be as high as they were. I thought, with Jimmy, since we got him, we’ve had the fourth best record in the league, I think.”

Butler is out until the end of the 2025-26 season with an ACL injury. Once he was shut down, the Warriors had every excuse to go all-in on tanks this season. Instead, the front office traded for Kristaps Porzingis, giving the roster a huge first-court boost that could ultimately lead to massive success if it pays off.

We’ll see how it plays out, though The Warriors are without Stephen Curry for now due to his own knee injury. Curry is expected to return eventually, but will miss at least the next four games after already missing Thursday’s 121-110 loss to the Boston Celtics.