The Warriors are in a tough spot: handcuffed by the hard salary cap, with a 14-man roster and no healthy centers.

In sticky situations, the Warriors often call David Kelly.

“David Kelly’s expertise in many different areas of our business cannot be understated, nor can his value,” club president Rick Welts said. “As an organization, we have made it a priority for our business and basketball staffs to work together as a collaborative group, and David has been instrumental in the success we’ve had with this model.”

As Golden State’s chief legal officer of business and basketball, Kelly handles all of the franchise’s legal matters, oversees the human resources department and manages the salary cap while advising on the the league’s less-than-intuitive collective bargaining agreement. Last year, he added heading player development and public and government affairs to his myriad responsibilities.

After a career as a hip-hop front man, Kelly seems happy to be the “person behind the person, behind the person” these days. Truth be told, though, he’s helped the Warriors navigate many of their biggest quagmires since Joe Lacob and Peter Guber bought the team in 2010.

Back then, Kelly was working for Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, a Chicago-based law powerhouse. Rising in a firm that represented the Reinsdorf family — and thus the Chicago Bulls and White Sox — Kelly started doing more and more in the sports world, including working for the A’s, Boston Celtics and representing Lacob and Guber in purchasing the Warriors from Chris Cohan.

He was outside counsel for the Warriors in reaching agreements with Welts, general manager Bob Myers and executive board member Jerry West. Kelly was familiar with the Bay Area because his sister lived in Sausalito, and he began to picture the idea of living in a place such as Berkeley, partly because he sensed the Warriors had solidified their operation.

Kelly, eyes open to the possibilities for a long irrelevant franchise, heard the Warriors were seeking general counsel through a friend at Wasserman Media Group. He applied and was hired in 2012.

“Timing is everything,” Kelly said between bites of crab at Mission Rock Resort last week. “It was the perfect time to be involved in things, and ride the wave of things I didn’t have any influence over.”

Born on the south side of Chicago, Kelly lived at 79th and Ridgeland until he was 7. His father was a CPA and attorney, and his mom was the rock of the house.

His father became the first African American partner at Arthur Andersen LLP, and as he broke that glass ceiling, the family moved to suburban Flossmoor. Kelly said it was a place where he could ride his bike anywhere, get excellent schooling and compete with his three older sisters in everything.

Every year or so, Kelly and his father got away from it all and traveled to the NCAA Final Four. He was at Seattle’s Kingdome when Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas beat Houston’s “Phi Slama Jama,” with Hakeem Olajuwon, in 1984.

“That was it,” Kelly said. “I was in.”

Life is seldom that linear, of course. Kelly was talented in many areas and chose to study English at Morehouse College in 1988, thinking he could turn that degree into a career as a teacher, journalist or lawyer.

Three years into college, Kelly and his childhood crony, Tony Fields, got a deal with Wild Pitch Records. With “Capital D” on the mike, “Tone B. Nimble” on the turntables and a respected independent label backing it all, it seemed like he had found his path.

Kelly dropped out of school and toured for years, unveiling thoughtful lyrics such as this: “Step through the South Side, talk with me. Stop staring with your mouth wide, chill with me. Can’t hide from your own kind, build with me. Strong body, with a strong mind; stroll with me. Through the unfriendly confines, roll with me. Spread a little bit of sunshine; speak with me. Reach the youth; break the silence; teach with me.”

But then it all fell apart. And Kelly soon found himself begging his dad to pay for him to finish his bachelor of arts degree.

“Probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” Kelly said. “I was kind of like: ‘What do I do?’ ... It was the first time I understood consequences in life.”

Kelly completed his undergraduate work, with his father’s financial help, in 1996. He spent the next several years working for Third World Press, the largest independent African American-owned publishing company in the country. He worked at a bookstore as he lived paycheck to paycheck.

He continued that grind until 2001, when he met his future wife, Zeenat. Working odd jobs and simply surviving worked for him, but it wouldn’t support a family, and that’s what he wanted.

That same year, Kelly started law school at the University of Illinois and got married. Zeenat is now an emergency room doctor at Kaiser, and when she and their three children go to bed, Kelly gets into the lab.

He has a little recording studio at his Montclair home in Oakland and plans to release more lyrics when he “stops talking about it and just does it.”

But music might not be the pressing issue right now. Kelly and the Warriors’ legal team just completed all of the work pertaining to the franchise’s move to Chase Center in San Francisco, and he’s in the middle of the ancillary projects.

He handled entitlement efforts, the land purchase, construction issues, and contracts and governmental relations and litigation. And he turned many opponents into neighborhood partners for the arena.

Kelly is a sequence thinker. He sees several steps ahead — that and his keen understanding of the collective bargaining agreement allowed Kelly to help the Warriors on several tricky transactions.

Myers and then-agent Rob Pelinka orchestrated the 2013 trade for Andre Iguodala, which included three teams and the Warriors somehow shedding $24 million in essentially dead cap money in Andris Biedrins, Richard Jefferson and an injured Brandon Rush.

Three years later, one of the greatest teams in NBA history added Kevin Durant in free agency by renouncing the rights to Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli and trading Andrew Bogut.

This summer, when Durant told Myers that he was leaving for Brooklyn, the franchise put together a complex sign-and-trade deal for All-Star D’Angelo Russell.

The Warriors had to convince Durant to sign. They had to trade Iguodala to Memphis. They had to trade Durant to Brooklyn for Russell, Treveon Graham and Shabazz Napier. They had to move Graham and Napier onto Minnesota. They had to trade Damian Jones to Atlanta.

All of this, just to arrive in the current situation.

“Joe has proven he will spend, but we have to say: ‘No, this is it,’” Kelly said. “In a lot of ways, I think (the hard cap) forces us to be more creative. It forces us to examine all options.”

There aren’t many options now. The Warriors are about $400,000 under the league’s $139 million salary cap and cannot exceed the cap at any point during the season, stirring media conjecture about moves the franchise could make to find a center.

Alfonzo McKinnie is the only non-guaranteed deal among the 14 players on the expected roster, and it’s uncertain if the Warriors would waive him. So if they want to add a center — such as training-camp invitee Marquese Chriss — to help cover for injuries to Willie Cauley-Stein (sprained foot) and Kevon Looney (hamstring strain), they have limited options.

Golden State could deal first-round choice Jordan Poole or Jacob Evans, last year’s top pick. Another option is unloading Ky Bowman or Damion Lee, who have two-way contracts (which don’t count against the salary cap). The Warriors could then give Chriss one of those spots and hope he doesn’t land a guaranteed deal elsewhere.

That seems unlikely after the Warriors started Chriss on Thursday night, and he played impressively with eight points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots in 25 minutes.

So what will the Warriors do if Lacob shows up with an open checkbook and says, “Get me a center?”

“He already knows. It doesn’t change the facts,” Kelly said. “When we’ve talked about this year being about player development, that wasn’t a line. It’s true. We’re in a different state now, with a lot of young guys. Let’s develop some guys and see what we have.

“It’s going to take a different level of patience and understanding that development takes time. At the same time, we want to win. We’ve got to balance the two.”

Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron