Welts pours longtime love of NBA, experience into new arena

Standing in the rain seven stories above concrete, construction workers, steel and mud, Rick Welts is beaming at an arena project that is absolutely his baby. "It's real," Welts says, wearing a bright yellow jacket and hard hat for the work site tour. The chief operating officer of the Golden State Warriors has been entrusted by team owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber to be the unofficial foreman as Chase Center goes up in the Mission Bay district of San Francisco for a scheduled opening of late summer 2019.