Former Dubs guard Quinn Cook shared the story of his departure from Golden State.
Former Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers guard Quinn Cook discussed his NBA career earlier this week on the Jefe Island Podcast. Cook, who last played with the Taiwan Mustangs, opened up about leaving the Dubs following the 2018-19 season. According to him, he had agreed to accept a qualifying offer from Golden State to return to the team for another season when the front office rescinded the offer and prevented it from being finalized.
“I was a restricted free agent, they gave me a qualifying offer, but I had a good season, so my agent, he advised me let’s wait and see if we get another offer,” Cook recalled. “My agent calls me like three times, he’s like, “Yo, everything is kind of slow. I think we just sign the offer and just kill this s**t. You gonna play, you know the ins and outs of the offense, Klay is not gonna be there.’” Thompson had torn his ACL during the 2019 NBA Finals.
“So, he sends the contract over. I don’t think I’ve shared this story publicly yet,” Cook continued. “They send the offer over, I literally signed my qualifying offer for the Warriors, as I was doing it, they send me a withdrawal. I’ve got the screenshots and everything. Everything is docusigned… I literally completed it and got the withdrawal back from the Warriors.”
After a productive career at Duke, Cook had traveled throughout professional basketball before inking a two-way contract with Golden State prior to the 2017-18 season. Cook emerged as a solid secondary contributor, scoring nearly 10 points per game in 22.5 minutes per game during his appearances. While he lacked size and standout playmaking ability, Cook was an excellent shooter, making 44.2% of his threes.
Cook’s performance led the Warriors to promote him to their active roster, where he remained through the 2018-19 season. Cook remained an effective shooter off the bench, but his defensive limitations left head coach Steve Kerr hesitant to give him a larger role, even after Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson suffered serious injuries during the playoffs.
The Warriors decision to rescind their qualifying offer to Cook was perhaps motivated by a desire to bring in more veteran depth to compliment young guards that had been added to the organizations depth (Jordan Poole, Jacob Evans, and Ky Bowman). The Dubs ultimately brought in Glenn Robinson III and Alec Burks. However, their 2019-20 campaign would be doomed by an injury to Steph Curry. Cook, on the other hand, would join the Los Angeles Lakers en route to his second-career NBA title.