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The conversation took place early in the 2008-09 season, but nearly two decades later, the exact dates get fuzzy for 82-year-old Larry Riley. He chatted with Don Nelson, one of his dearest friends and his boss at the time, late into the evening. Nelson, the Warriors head coach, told his top assistant that Riley’s temperament was a better fit for the front office than the front of the bench. “I’ll never forget it,” Riley said with his Southern twang. “What he was telling me was something I kind of knew inside anyway, but it solidified what I needed to do, and it solidified the direction that I needed to take in my career.”
Riley expects his arrival at Chase Center to be far more sweet than bitter. Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, and Chris Mullin will be among the former players and staffers in attendance to honor Nelson, who coached the Warriors from 1988 to 1995 and from 2006 to 2010. Golden State players will wear a “Nellie” memorial jersey patch on their jerseys this season. Riley, who holds no ill will toward his former franchise, anticipates a beautiful night. “The sadness part of losing Nellie has begun to dwindle, which is typical,” Riley said. “That’s what normally happens. So I think more upbeat than sadness. The way Nellie lived, he would want it that way. He wouldn’t want people moping around full of sadness. Nellie knew how to celebrate. And this is going to be a celebration. I see it more as a celebration than anything else.”
It’s curious that someone with Riley’s draft track record — he also had a hand in picking Draymond Green in 2012 — never had another crack at running a team. Riley left the Warriors in 2018 and has since served as a senior adviser to the Atlanta Hawks. He never received another GM offer, though he said he turned down other front-office opportunities around the league. “I just always felt like my age was working against me,” said Riley, who was 68 when Myers replaced him. “I understand there are times where people want to look at someone with some experience and someone who’s older, and times when people want someone younger. It seems like we were approaching an age where everybody wanted new blood, and analytics were becoming a bigger thing. I don’t want that to be an excuse, but that’s one of the things that I look at.”
NBA draft night mostly was a blur for Warriors superstar Steph Curry. But he does remember the first thing he did when Golden State selected him with the No. 7 overall pick in 2009. "Getting that call from Larry Riley, the GM at the time, Don Nelson, who was the coach at the time, getting that call and being like, 'Hey, we're looking forward to having you, we're excited.' And then me quickly looking at my phone trying to figure out exactly where Golden State was," Curry recalled on WNBA star Azzi Fudd's "Fudd Around And Find Out" podcast.
Ethan Strauss: I reported in my book that the Warriors were looking to trade Steph and Klay for Chris Paul, but Chris Paul nixed it and said, "I don't want to go out there because the Warriors at that point were associated with failure." I think the Warriors argued against my reporting on that. Larry Riley, the GM at the time, went on radio and said it was untrue and I was getting killed for it. But then Chris Paul went on a podcast, was asked about it, and went, "Yep, that happened." Completely true.
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Two people who have played important roles behind the scenes for the Hawks are Larry Riley and Mike McNeive. Riley, once an assistant coach and scout for the Bucks, is a senior advisor to Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk. Before joining the Hawks, Riley played a major role in the enormous success of the Golden State Warriors as be drafted Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson while being the team’s general manager. McNeive, who worked as an advance scout and assistant coach for the Bucks during the George Karl regime, is the Hawks director of basketball operations.
Larry Riley was a guest on 95.7 The Game's "Bonta, Steiny & Guru" show Thursday morning, and was asked if it's true that Steph named his daugther after him. He answered by telling a story that, to our knowledge, has not been shared publicly. "Steph came into my office one day, and he sat down in front of me and he said, 'Hey coach, we're getting ready to have a child and it's a girl. We're looking at names. What would you think if we named our baby girl Riley?' I was blown away," Riley said. "I was just absolutely blown away.
Larry Riley: "Those are fond memories of course. And everybody knows she captured the world a few years ago when she ended up on TV a few different times. But yeah, there's some substance to that. If I had said, 'No you can't do that,' I'd have been stupid. He might have done it anyway."
Now, to his credit, Riley was always talking about Curry. He was the type of GM who would chat with you. I remember on many occasions we were talking about prospects and he brought up Steph. ... So I know this for a fact—Larry Riley was all over Steph waaaaay before the 2009 draft.
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According to former Warriors GM Larry Riley, though, that trade was never discussed. In a radio interview, Riley denied ever having a discussion about a package deal for Curry and Thompson, but admitted that there was a “discussion about the possibilities” of trading Curry at some point. Via 95.7 The Game: “First off, that’s false. That never took place. And therefore, I think everyone learned something. When you — I had to tell my mother this because she grew up in the days of Walter Cronkite — when you see something on TV or you read it in the newspaper, it’s not necessarily true. And I never had a conversation with anybody about packaging our two guards to do something else. Steph Curry came to the Warriors and he won himself over as a Warrior for life — if he wanted to be — at the second half of his rookie season. He established the fact — this is our point guard for the next 10 years.”
“I can tell you right now, that never happened.” Former #Warriors GM Larry Riley shoots down the Curry/Klay for CP3 trade report
“I can tell you right now, that never happened.”
— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) April 17, 2020
Former #Warriors GM Larry Riley shoots down the Curry/Klay for CP3 trade report pic.twitter.com/E3KVrPrhL4
In 2011, did the Warriors try to trade Steph Curry and Klay Thompson to the New Orleans Hornets in exchange for Chris Paul? On Friday morning, Larry Riley -- who was Golden State's general manager at that time -- strongly refuted that report. “First off, that’s false. That never took place,” Riley said on 95.7 The Game. “And therefore, I think everyone learned something. When you -- I had to tell my mother this because she grew up in the days of Walter Cronkite -- when you see something on TV or you read it in the newspaper, it’s not necessarily true.”
Larry Riley: “While there was a lot of discussion about the possibilities of trading him, it was never a reality. And we never had a discussion about trading Klay Thompson and Steph Curry for anybody else. And it would be very interesting because the author of this piece, without doubt, talked to somebody who gave him some information. So, it would be a little bit interesting to track that, but I can tell you right now, that never happened.”