Joe Lacob defended the Golden State Warriors' trade for Andrew Wiggins and also believes they will contend for a title again next season.

“Anybody who can’t see that this is a great deal for us, I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Lacob said. “You can sit and talk about what his salary is, but (Wiggins) had the same salary as D-Lo. They’re both good players. They’re different players. You can question whether this is a better fit; we think it is, as much as I liked D-Lo. He’s a really good player. And I think it’s good for him, too. So it’s a fair, good thing for both teams.”

Lacob reflected back to the Warriors trying to roll over the salary despite losing Durant to stay in a deal flow. The Warriors also acquired a $17 million traded player exception. 

“What people don’t understand is that if we lost Kevin Durant (straight up in free agency), we would’ve got nothing,” Lacob said. “We just got somewhat fortunate that he went to Brooklyn and we were able to get a sign-and-trade for a guy that is a good player. Questionable whether he was going to be a fit. You’ve heard (Steve) Kerr’s comments. I mean, everyone knew that.

“But we were hopeful. And you want to have a positive attitude. And we didn’t have Steph and Klay to play with him this year, so I don’t think that we had a fair test. But I think … there was a chance that we were going to make a move at some point that maybe made more sense. There was a chance.

“And it just turned out that we did it now. We got what we wanted. I think if I would’ve bet before the trade deadline, I probably would’ve said we would’ve re-evaluated in the summer, gone through the whole year. But we were fortunate. We got what we wanted, and we did it.”

Lacob was then asked whether a core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Wiggins and whomever else the Warriors add can win a title next season.

“I think we’re going to be really good,” Lacob said. “We almost beat — well, we stayed competitive with the Lakers tonight. They played all their guys and we lost by what, five points. And we didn’t have arguably our three best players (Curry, Thompson and Green). So you tell me.

“The reason we didn’t win the game tonight is we didn’t have enough perimeter scoring. It’s not football, one player can make a huge difference. We’ve got two great ones coming back. Arguably the two greatest shooters of all time. So I feel pretty damn good, and our fan base should feel great about our future.”