The Most Investment-Savvy Team in NBA History? The Warriors Eight Years Ago Had Half Their Locker Room as 'Investors'

Author: Zen, PANews

In the over seventy years of NBA history, the most dominant player is undoubtedly Michael Jordan. However, when it comes to the strongest team, people often have different answers—whether it's the six-time champion Bulls led by Jordan, the three-peat Lakers with the Shaq-Kobe duo, or the "Super Warriors" led by Curry and Durant, each team is a reasonable choice.

However, in the venture capital realm, the title of the strongest NBA team is undisputed. The Golden State Warriors of the 2017-18 season had an extraordinarily luxurious resume on the basketball court. But looking back at this team's roster eight years later reveals something even more special: it was also the most investment-savvy locker room in NBA history.

Among the 17 regular season players that year, nearly 10 had investment experience, with the most notable being Durant, who bet on hundreds of companies including Robinhood and Coinbase, and Iguodala, who made hundreds of millions from a single investment in Zoom.

Even Omri Casspi, who averaged only 5.7 points and did not make it to the playoffs, had just completed a $250 million fundraising for his venture capital firm Swish Ventures, becoming the head of a VC managing over $800 million in assets.

If we rewind to 2017, they were still teammates in the same locker room. Fast forward eight or nine years, and this locker room seems to have gathered a group of Silicon Valley investors ahead of time. The one who perhaps first turned investment into a "second career" is Andre Iguodala.

Iguodala, the 'Investment Mentor' in the Warriors' Locker Room

If the Warriors' locker room were to vote for the player closest to the role of "investment mentor," Andre Iguodala would be the clear choice.

Before the Warriors dynasty truly took shape, Iguodala had already begun studying investments. He recalled that he first bought Zynga stock through E-Trade and, after achieving good returns in a short time, began to ponder a further question: if buying stocks after a company goes public can make money, why not get in before it goes public or even when it is just established?

It was during this process that Iguodala first truly encountered early-stage investing. Later, Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, became one of his most important investment mentors, not only introducing him to entrepreneurs and investors but also helping him establish a judgment method closer to that of a professional investor: rather than investing in everything, it is better to seek out companies that one truly understands and can help with personal resources.

By around 2018, Iguodala had invested in over 40 companies through investment vehicles like F9 Strategies, including Zoom, PagerDuty, Allbirds, Casper, Carta, Lime, and Jumia, and joined the board of Jumia. In the following years, these investments began to pay off. In 2019, with Zoom, PagerDuty, and Jumia going public, Iguodala experienced his "IPO harvest season."

Zoom is the most typical of Iguodala's investments. He met Zoom founder Eric Yuan largely because of basketball. Yuan is a Warriors fan, and they established a connection after discussing basketball and entrepreneurship at an event, ultimately leading to Iguodala becoming an investor before Zoom went public.

In 2019, Zoom went public on NASDAQ and quickly became one of the standout tech IPOs of the year. The exact returns on Iguodala's investment have not been publicly disclosed, but judging by Zoom's valuation and market cap growth, this is undoubtedly one of his most successful early investments in his career. Iguodala later publicly lamented, wondering why he didn't invest more at the time.

However, what truly made Iguodala special in that Warriors team was not just his investment portfolio. As his network in the investment circle expanded, he began actively introducing VCs and entrepreneurs he knew to other athletes and organizing some investment opportunities for his fellow players to participate in.

In 2017, he co-founded the Players Technology Summit with business partner Rudy Cline-Thomas, bringing athletes, VCs, and tech executives together in the same venue. Later, "helping professional athletes enter the tech investment circle" gradually developed into a relatively mature business model.

After retiring, Iguodala did not stop at personal angel investing but fully transitioned into the professional venture capital industry. He is now a member of the investment team at Mosaic General Partnership.

From initially buying Zynga on E-Trade to later investing in Zoom and bringing teammates into the Silicon Valley investment network, Iguodala's journey was not just a transition from athlete to investor. In a sense, he was also the first person in that Warriors locker room to start "passing the ball"—only this time, he was passing investment opportunities.

Off the Court, Durant Turned Joining the Warriors into a 'Silicon Valley Education'

For Kevin Durant, the most glorious period of his career was undoubtedly the three years spent with the Golden State Warriors. In 2016, Durant joined the Warriors, forming a nearly unstoppable "Super Warriors" with Curry, Thompson, and Green. In those three years, he won two NBA championships and was named Finals MVP twice.

Off the court, a change that was not so noticeable at the time was also taking place: Durant began to truly enter the world of venture capital. The latest attention on Durant's investment portfolio came after NVIDIA acquired Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, with multiple media outlets reporting that as one of Hugging Face's early investors, Durant could earn up to $60 million from this deal.

In that "Super Warriors" team, Durant was also one of the first professional athletes to systematize investing. As early as 2016, he co-founded Thirty Five Ventures with long-time business partner Rich Kleiman, which is now known as 35V. Strictly speaking, his investment career did not start with joining the Warriors; during his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the two had already begun building their business and investment system.

However, the three years spent in the Bay Area truly changed the trajectory of Durant's investment career. During his time with the Warriors from 2016 to 2019, Durant and Kleiman deeply engaged with the Silicon Valley startup and venture capital scene, frequently interacting with entrepreneurs, investment firms, and tech companies, and quickly building their network. Companies that later gained fame, such as Postmates, Acorns, Whoop, Overtime, Robinhood, and Coinbase, gradually appeared on his investment list.

In an ESPN interview in 2018, Durant's investment portfolio had expanded to about 30 companies, with early investments typically ranging from $250,000 to $1 million, including Coinbase, Acorns, Rubrik, LimeBike, and Postmates. Meanwhile, the people discussing investments around him had transformed into influential figures in the Silicon Valley VC circle, such as Ron Conway and Ben Horowitz.

It was also during this time that Durant first truly understood how venture capital operates. He later recalled that his previous understanding of VCs was quite simple: find a good company, invest in it, and then wait for it to explode. But after entering the Bay Area, he realized that a venture capital firm might receive hundreds of projects daily, with only a few making it to the next round of research. Investors need to continuously filter projects, study companies, and communicate with CEOs, engineers, and teams before deciding which companies are worth betting on.

This gradually made Durant aware that venture capital is not about finding a "stroke of genius" but rather a long-term process of continuous filtering, learning, and betting. This mindset was later brought into his investment field. Rather than trying to find the next world-changing super company from the start, it is better to continuously seek projects that he can understand and are worth betting on, allowing time and the investment portfolio to amplify the returns from a few winners.

Eight years later, this approach has already borne substantial fruit. The investment portfolio of Durant's investment firm 35V has exceeded 100 startups, covering fields such as fintech, AI, health, and media. Beyond startups, he has also extended his asset portfolio into professional sports, holding stakes in teams like Philadelphia Union and Gotham FC.

Although he only spent three seasons with the Warriors before parting ways with the team, these three years were likely the most impactful period of his career, both in basketball and investment: he won two championships and two Finals MVPs here, and it was also here that he transitioned from an "NBA star who invests" to a systematic tech investor.

Casspi, Who Averaged 5.7 Points, Later Managed an $800 Million Fund

Compared to Durant, who was already prepared to become an investor when he arrived in the Bay Area, Omri Casspi's story better illustrates the impact of the Warriors locker room on players' investment philosophies.

In the summer of 2017, Casspi joined the Warriors on a minimum contract. During the 2017-18 season, he played only 53 games, averaging 5.7 points, and was cut in April 2018 to make room for the playoffs. Although the Warriors ultimately awarded him a championship ring, his performance on the court was not significant in his ten-year NBA career.

However, for Casspi, who had played for seven teams, the year he spent with the Warriors during the 2017-18 season had the most significant impact on his post-retirement life planning.

Within the team, he observed Curry, Durant, and Iguodala discussing their investment portfolios and exchanging information about startups they were engaging with. On the sidelines, many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and VCs were present, and after games, he often interacted with these individuals. Casspi gradually realized that aside from playing basketball, "picking winners and investing in entrepreneurs" might be the second most interesting job in the world.

Influenced by this, Casspi, who was nearing the end of his career, began with angel investing, gradually investing in companies like DocuSign and DayTwo. After retiring in 2021, he began to systematically enter the Israeli tech scene, founding an early-stage fund called Sheva in 2022 and raising $50 million, primarily investing in pre-seed and seed projects.

In 2024, he launched a new fund under the name Swish Ventures, subsequently absorbing the previously established Sheva. In January of the same year, Caspi rented a suite at the Chase Center, the home of his former team, the Warriors, to host Cognition AI co-founders Scott Wu and Steven Hao.

The game between the Warriors and the Lakers was thrilling, going into two overtimes, with Curry scoring 46 points. However, Caspi's attention was more focused on another "roadshow" happening in the suite: Wu was introducing him to an AI programming agent that had not yet been officially launched. The next day, Caspi had a lengthy discussion with Wu in Palo Alto and quickly decided to participate in Cognition's seed round.

At that time, Cognition was valued at only $150 million; now, the valuation for its new round of financing could rise to $47 billion.

Another example is Upwind, a cloud security company that Swish invested in early on, which had a seed round valuation of about $65 million in 2022, and by early 2026, its Series B valuation had reached $1.5 billion. Early investments in cloud backup company Eon and AI company Applied Compute have also entered unicorn territory.

As of September this year, Swish's portfolio consists of about 20 companies, with 8 of them reaching a billion-dollar valuation. The latest fund, which recently completed a $250 million fundraising round, includes investors such as Sequoia Capital and various U.S. pension and university endowment funds, pushing its assets under management to approximately $800 million.

Back when he joined the Warriors, Caspi was just a role player moving between multiple NBA teams. Nine years later, the scale of funds he manages has far exceeded his entire NBA career earnings of about $18 million. In a way, he is the best example of how this Warriors team has achieved long-term returns through an "investment culture."

'Platform Investor' Curry Integrates Investment into His Business Empire

Compared to Durant, Caspi, and Iguodala, Curry's investment path appears much more low-key.

However, this does not mean he entered the scene late. Curry actually began engaging with tech startups early on, co-founding the marketing tech company Slyce, and later gradually integrated his personal brand, media, philanthropy, and investment business into a unified commercial system through SC30. By December 2018, SC30 had participated in the financing of online travel platform SnapTravel; by 2019, his public investment portfolio had expanded to 8 companies, including esports club TSM and smartphone company Palm.

Compared to Durant, Curry's investment logic is also different. He seems less eager to rapidly expand the number of investments and is more inclined to seek out companies that can synergize with his brand, interests, and resources.

His investment in the educational platform Guild Education in 2019 is a typical case. Guild primarily helps large companies like Walmart, Disney, and Chipotle provide continuing education and vocational training for their employees. At that time, Curry had just established the Eat. Learn. Play foundation, and education was already a long-term focus for him. Therefore, SC30's participation in Guild was not just a simple financial investment but also a strategic partnership.

Three years later, Guild completed a $175 million financing round, with the company's valuation reaching $4.4 billion. Although it is unclear what Curry's specific shareholding cost was, and thus the actual investment return cannot be calculated, at least from the subsequent valuation changes, this appears to be a quite successful growth investment.

Subsequently, SC30's investment business further extended into Penny Jar Capital. Curry himself serves as a special advisor to this VC, while daily investments are handled by long-term business partner Bryant Barr and other professional teams. Penny Jar's current investment scope covers multiple fields, including enterprise software, healthcare, and AI.

From this perspective, Curry may be the closest to a "platform investor" among this group of Warriors players.

He has not completely transformed into a professional fund manager like Caspi, nor has he rapidly scaled up a personal investment institution like Durant. Instead, he has chosen to embed investment into his own business system: the brand provides influence, the business network provides resources, and the professional team is responsible for selecting and managing projects.

From Klay, Draymond to Zaza Pachulia, the 'Investor List' Keeps Growing

Aside from his endorsement with Anta, Klay Thompson, who forms the "Splash Brothers" duo with Curry, has maintained a lower profile off the court compared to Curry, Durant, and Iguodala. This is even more true in the venture capital space, but in reality, he has not distanced himself from the game.

Klay began to engage more intensively in venture capital after 2020. In 2020, he participated in the financing of mental health company Lyra Health through the athlete investment platform PLUS Capital, and subsequently appeared on the investor lists of companies like Dapper Labs, sports media company Overtime, healthcare tech company Carbon Health, sports social platform Sleepe, and AI voice company Wispr.

Another core member of the Warriors, Draymond Green, has a route that is closer to the traditional definition of an angel investor. He began entering startups in the mid-2010s, investing in projects like teeth straightening company SmileDirectClub, food tech platform Snackpass, and tequila brand Lobos 1707.

Unlike Durant, Green has never intended to establish his own VC firm. He believes that he already has professional investors like Bill Gurley around him, so he prefers to be an LP in funds or participate in specific projects alongside these familiar investors.

The Warriors' "investor list" does not end here.

Center JaVale McGee's investments carry a strong personal lifestyle flavor. After shifting to a plant-based diet, he has invested in Beyond Meat, plant snack brand Outstanding Foods, and restaurant brand Tocaya Organica. Beyond Meat went public in 2019, with its stock price rising 163% on the first day of trading. In 2020, McGee co-invested in Dapper Labs with other NBA players like Iguodala and continued to participate in its financing. In 2022, McGee also invested in the Web3 e-commerce infrastructure project Rye.

Another Warriors center, Zaza Pachulia, has been consciously learning business knowledge since his playing days. During his early years with the Hawks, he took business courses at Emory University and later attended related courses at Harvard. After retiring in 2019, he joined the Warriors' management while continuing to engage with startups and investments.

His tech investments truly began to form a continuous record around 2023. That year, Zaza participated in the seed round of medical AI company Tennr, which had a valuation of about $22.8 million. A year later, when Tennr completed a new financing round, Zaza continued to follow up on the investment. By 2025, Tennr completed a $101 million financing round, with a valuation reaching $605 million, and prominent investors like a16z and Lightspeed appeared among the backers.

In addition to Tennr, Zaza is also an investor in AI chip company Cerebras. After completing a $1 billion financing round this year, Cerebras reached a valuation of about $23 billion and has signed a large-scale AI inference infrastructure collaboration with OpenAI. In July of this year, he also became an angel investor in AI security company Neo, which has raised a total of $100 million, with investors including a16z, Bessemer, and Craft Ventures.

From this perspective, Zaza has even gone further than many of his teammates in the locker room back in the day: he has not established his own VC but has gradually extended from familiar areas like hotels and basketball training to medical AI, AI chips, and AI security.

Power forward David West's investments are more industry-focused; in 2016, he invested $250,000 in clean energy company Zoetic Global. Afterward, he not only held shares but also became an advisor to the company and participated in energy projects for a long time. After retiring, he continued to engage in entrepreneurship and investment-related matters.

Backup guard Shaun Livingston's path differs from the above players. Before joining the Warriors, he had already tried film investments, but he truly began to systematically engage with VC after being influenced by teammates like Iguodala in the Bay Area. He attended investment meetings at Kleiner Perkins to see how startups pitched to funds. Later, he also became an LP in some projects of the venture capital firm Eonxi and continued to be active in the Bay Area startup investment network.

Looking back at the Warriors' family photo from the 2017-18 season, one interesting result emerges: among the 17 players, at least 10 later had clear experiences in entrepreneurship, angel investing, or VC. Saying that "half of the locker room are investors" is not an exaggeration.

Why the Warriors? The Silicon Valley Network Behind One Locker Room

Why did the Warriors of the 2017-18 season gather so many investors in the same locker room? Perhaps what truly makes this team special is that it provides an environment that is difficult for other NBA teams to replicate.

First is the geographical location. At that time, the Warriors were located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the players' training, living, and social radius were almost directly embedded in the world's most concentrated area of venture capital. VCs on Sand Hill Road, founders of startups in San Francisco, tech executives, and billionaires are not distant names in financial news; they could very well be sitting courtside watching the game and dining together afterward.

Secondly, there is the team owner. Joe Lacob is not a traditional sports owner. He joined Kleiner Perkins in 1987 and has worked in the venture capital industry for over twenty years, leading investments in more than 50 startups across life sciences, medical technology, internet, and energy. It was only after purchasing the Warriors that he gradually stepped back from daily fund management.

In other words, this team has been imbued with a strong Silicon Valley gene from the very top. The Warriors' later emphasis on data analysis, sports science, and team management technology also has some connection to this background.

However, more important than geographical location and ownership background is likely the network effect.

It is not unusual for an NBA player to know a few investors, but when Iguodala has already entered the networks of Silicon Valley VCs like a16z, Durant begins to frequently connect with Ron Conway and Ben Horowitz, and Curry has his own relationships with entrepreneurs and brands, and these people happen to sit in the same locker room every day, the originally personal connections start to intertwine, forming a whole interconnected network of athlete capital.

Caspi can rent a suite for Warriors games, arranging founders of startups, potential clients, corporate executives, and investors in the same space. Watching a basketball game itself becomes a scene for establishing business relationships and completing project matchmaking. To some extent, they possess another type of scarce asset: corporate executive relationships, media dissemination capabilities, and the ability to access social networks that are difficult for ordinary investors to enter.

For startups, these resources can sometimes be even more important than a check. The Warriors of the 2017-18 season happened to concentrate all these elements in one place.

Thus, the Warriors are not only seen by the outside world as a team that has almost pushed basketball resources to the limit, known as the "super team": four All-Stars, two MVPs, plus a group of highly compatible and experienced role players; off the court, they have also achieved a rare gathering of resources.

Team basketball is the most distinctive label of the Warriors: sharing the ball, creating space, and finding the best-positioned teammates. And off the court, they seem to have brought the same logic into the investment world. The "super team" shares not only basketball but, to some extent, they also share a ticket to enter Silicon Valley.

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