The last few days, I have been discussing potential trade scenarios for the Warriors, especially as Jonathan Kuminga has racked up DNPs. Thinking about roster tweaks via trade is a good diversion from losing, obviously.
Although it covered more than just trade stuff, the video below put Giannis Antetokuonmpo as a huge blip on the radar screen, the No. 1 target. It is an edited version of a livestream I did after the Chicago win and before the Minnesota loss:
And then this one, a livestream from Sunday morning that doesn’t have a shorter, edited version yet, considered Myles Turner. Turner has a salary in the range of Kuminga’s, plus there have been rumors about Giannis’ future in Milwaukee and, if there are question marks about Giannis with the Bucks, it follows that Turner could be deemed expendable, too.
Moreover, Quinten Post has been proving that the “Space-5” position is turning into a bit of a dyad (see embedded article below) with the ecosystem that has since evolved to sort of only orbit around one Wardell Stephen Curry — even in his absence as the Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago road trip seemed to prove, also notwithstanding non-Steph minutes where the ball goes to Jimmy Butler:
Note: I say “only orbit around Steph” because the ecosystem was originally built for both Curry and Klay Thompson. Obviously, Draymond Green now plays a huge role in that. In any case, “Space-5” is a big deal to Kerr and the modern NBA.
With Post not hitting the shots that mattered in crunch time or “can’t-buy-a-bucket” time during the 17-0 run by the Timberwolves, the idea was this: Why not upgrade that position into a more athletic, as-reliable-shooting, more big-shot-making and more dependable rim protecting player with the proven and playoff-tested Turner?
Along those lines, the Dubs only barely lost to the Wolves, which despite the many wing handoffs and picks Golden State was embarrassed by, made me think that perhaps point-of-attack wasn’t as important as just hitting big shots.
Of course, as I said on the livestream, Turner should only be a target if all efforts to get Giannis fail.
Think “top down”.
We always get seemingly random names tossed at us: Herb Jones is a good example. I’ve advised fans to fry the bigger fish first because his salary is so far down the chart ($14 million). By the way, his contract is also too lengthy, ascending to $15M, $21M, $23M through 2028-29. That doesn’t really fit well with the ongoing strategy of nearly clearing the cap sheet the Summer of 2027.
Why worry about Jones when you can focus your hopes on, well, pretty much the top of the food chain with Giannis? And, after that, Turner?
Incidentally, I’m not sure there’s any team that wants Jimmy and his fat contract right now, even in a multi-team deal, so I’m thinking you’d have to put Dray in the deal for Giannis alongside JK.
There isn’t anyone else making around $50 million that I would include Draymond in, other than Giannis. That’s the main reason why I say the Turner idea is the one that comes after Giannis. This is a drop of about $25 million in salary. No one who is obtainable who is also making between $50 million on down to $25 million jumps off the page, at least no one who we can count on being healthy most of the time.
When you sink further down the NBA salary list, there’s just too many bogeys, too many names being tossed.
The worst one we’ve gotten — not surprisingly by a rando in the Comments rather than a familiar regular — is a package of Day’Ron Sharpe, Ziaire Williams and Jalen Wilson, for JK and Brandin Podziemski.
No.
In the NBA, winners look to build up big pieces, not break them up into littler ones, if not simply due to prudent asset management. It’s a lot harder to get future trade value for little pieces than bigger pieces. The key word for GMs is “optionality”.
Once you acquire Sharpe, Williams and Wilson, you have effectively rendered a $22.5 million, let’s say, Lexus (that would be Kuminga, of course) into three Honda CRVs — sorry, couldn’t resist the Pat Spencer reference:
You’re basically stuck with three future non-movable “Steady Eddies” (Pat voice), even though they are steady in their own specific, albeit limited way.
The caveat is if one of the lower-salaried players is actually a future gem. But if you are getting fair market value contracts, you should try to avoid breaking up a bigger one into smaller pieces.
Be a big fish guy, please. Talking about middling players who are specialists in one thing — or, as it were, do not strike an ounce of fear in opponents — is a waste of time.
This is, as far as I know, how Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and Joe Lacob like to operate. If I end up wrong about this, I promise to do a mea culpa, but I am quite confident of this assessment of this regime. In fact, I would say that most regimes in the NBA feel this way, unless they are rebuilding. With the car analogy, I hope it’s obvious. It’s just prudent asset management.
Plus, we already established in the first video above that in the vein of “Space-5s”, non-shooting centers are of no value to the Kerr-Steph ecosystem. In fact, fire Kerr all you want, but as long as Curry is a Warrior, I don’t see a non-shooting big man coming here. Quite simply, a non-shooting big results in one less dimension in the action with Steph. Defenses can lay off one of Warriors on the court, which takes the Curry gravity down a notch.
Curry himself has touted high IQ teammates only days ago. Usually, seven-foot athletes do not have that IQ, which they really, really need if they can’t shoot (think Kevon Looney-level IQ):
So, please remove the Daniel Gafford (IQ or not, just can’t shoot and, it follows, the Day’Ron Sharpe) types from your wish list. Not happening, so long as Steph is a Warrior and the NBA’s elite teams have a 5 who can shoot, if not already an All-Star-caliber center — which are too expensive for Golden State’s cap sheet anyways.
Like, if this were 2021 or earlier, sure, Gafford might have more value, but Steph said, “I play fast” — see the “organized chaos” article embedded above. Gafford also has an ascending salary that ends in 2029.
Aside from the usual contractual concerns, a seven-foot athlete who cannot shoot and who is a question mark when it comes to processing Steph running around him, please just expunge from your list.
Finally, I have to say: The loss in Portland last night bumped point-of-attack defense back up to the top of the major concerns.
Now, and because of what Michael Scotto of HoopsHype is about to tell you, I have Trey Murphy III back at the top as a target, therefore leap-frogging Giannis, Myles, and even Lauri Markkanen (again, because of what Scotto’s sources told him).
So, back to the lede I buried: The great Scotto jumped on YES Network — full video and transcript and captions below, behind the paywall — for a whole ten minutes and effectively crossed off Giannis (and therefore Myles) and Lauri from the list.
Danggggg!
One more thing: With Giannis still potentially available next summer with (not) signing the extension as a barometer, the Warriors probably need to keep all their future Draft picks.
Eric Guilleminault of NBADraft.net also tells me the 2026 Draft is epic, so probably keep this one in particular, especially with the fact that, right now, we are on track for a Play-in spot. You need to keep those Draft picks in case Giannis frees up.
That might make it hard to get a desirable guy like Murphy, although in the first video above, I wondered if the Dubs might be able to convince the Pelicans that JK as the face of their franchise is a better option than Murphy — Murphy becoming the face of the Pels was reported by Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints.
At least the choices have now been narrowed.
By the way, there are a few extra bonus trade rumors across the league in those ten minutes with Scotto, below.
Last thing: I have already posted the whole Scotto report on our Discord Server, but for the VIPs only.
Discord is not an intuitive platform, so I get it that people are hesitant, but that is where we have the best stuff and it’s all happening at near-real-time. News on our Discord server breaks in parallel with Twitter/X.
You can get a taste of our Discord with our free version, although the news does not break as fast on the free version.
So, get your feet wet with the free version (link below). It will take some time to get comfortable, but after a while you’ll start to understand what you’re missing from the VIP version, which is only $5/month as of this writing.
I haven’t done a good job of marketing it, but as soon as our LetsGoWarriors VIP Discord takes off, I am going to increase the price. So, yeah, the $5/mo is a limited-time offer.
Discord details (free version): https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-free
VIP details: https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-vip
FULL VIDEO + TRANSCRIPT BELOW 👇 (previous article paywall now removed)
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