The credit for the success of the Golden State Warriors can be attributed to a lot of places. Young players and off-season signings stepping up big-time, Steve Kerr’s defense-oriented coaching, the locker room culture cultivated by the vets, and of course, Steph “The System” Curry. What goes underrated, however, is the front office’s role in all this.

General manager Bob Myers hit a few home runs in free agency. The decision to not have a fire sale on the young guys in order to get more experienced players to get Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green towards another championship ended up being quite worth the faith, as now the Warriors have a young core who is already competing at a high level. They’ll be able to compete for years like that.

Myers should also be credited with the off-season signings of Nemanja Bjelica and Otto Porter Jr., as well as the decision to go with his own ideas instead of deferring to the locker room leaders when picking up Gary Payton II as the 15th man on the roster. Those three moves, all three of which have been crucial to the Warriors’ success, can be attributed to the front office.

Otto Porter Jr. getting a minimum contract was a bit shocking at first, but his injury history made it harder for teams to trust that he’d be rotation-ready the whole season. So far, he’s looked very healthy, and he’s overplaying his contract by a wide margin. Bjelica, while not quite having the season Porter Jr. is, has given the Warriors a new dimension as a playmaking big in some lineups. Both players shoot well and are high-IQ veterans that make up for the mistakes that players like Kuminga, Poole and Wiseman make as a result of their lacking experience.

The players themselves should get a lot of due credit for how well they’ve stepped up recently, but it shouldn’t be lost on Warriors fans how good of a general manager Myers has been. After taking over as the GM in 2012, it was a lot his decision-making that put the Warriors in such a good spot to succeed. They acquired Andre Iguodala, extended Klay Thompson’s contract while not trading him away for Kevin Love, and hired Steve Kerr in place of Mark Jackson which led to a 67-win season and an NBA title.

While there are valid critiques of how the front office operates from time to time, fans mistakenly rip on Myers as the reason the team fails. In a dry free agency market, however, he managed to turn the tide of the team around from disappointment last season to the best in the league this season. Turning Bazemore, Oubre, and Wanamaker into Porter, Bjelica, and Payton is some pretty all-time flipping in terms of roster development.

Nobody is saying that front office should not be criticized. They don’t always make the right decisions. But more often than not, Myers and company have been right in how they’ve guided the direction of this franchise. They should be getting more credit for how they’ve been able to build a championship team with recent draft capital and minimum contracts. Culture starts in the locker room, but winning really starts at the desk.

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