Sunday Reads: Get to Know Joe Lacob, Owner of the Golden State Warriors

An NBA Championship and a threesome within a few hours of one another? Life truly couldn’t get any better for Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob on that momentous June evening when his team finished its record-breaking season in grand style with its first league title in 40 years. Ah, but this ménage à trois was hardly what you’re thinking.

“I had made a promise to myself [that] I would sleep with the trophy that night,” reveals Lacob, which rhymes with Jacob. “Nicole [Curran, his longtime fiancée] and I did sleep with it.”

On one hand, we want to ask more questions; on the other, we don’t really want to know any more than he’s already shared. (Not that this animated hoops nut is going to tell us anyway.)

“I’ll leave it to the imagination,” he says, grinning. “We had a lot of fun with it.”

We bet they did. The youthful exuberance the former managing partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers displays during breakfast—let’s be honest here, at all times— makes him appear much younger than his 59 years. We’re sitting at Café Bellagio inside the Bellagio Las Vegas, 27 days after the Warriors knocked off the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 6 of the NBA Finals for the coveted title. Lacob managed to pull himself away from his gorgeous girl and his relaxing vacation home in Montana to come to sweltering Sin City, one of the sites of the NBA’s summer league locations, for league meetings.

Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the Denver Nuggets and other sports teams, and head honcho at Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards, walks over to our table, because he’s heard that the Golden State boss is in the house.

“Congratulations,” Kroenke says to Lacob. “I love to watch the way you play; that’s good for the game.”

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