Golden State Warriors Have an Impossible Task at the NBA Trade Deadline
The NBA trade deadline is exposing the Golden State Warriors to the same feeling they gave the rest of the league for a dynastic decade. At their record-setting, trophy-hoisting, game-revolutionizing best, the Dubs left opponents without any good options.
Now, the Warriors themselves are in a position where almost no choice in front of them seems likely to produce success.
It's important to define that term up front, because there probably is a small trade or two that could put Golden State in a slightly better position for the rest of this season and beyond. Chris Paul's $30.8 million salary is non-guaranteed for next year and could fetch a useful player in return. Moses Moody, currently injured but buried on the bench when healthy, is the type of young three-and-D wing every team likes.
But for a franchise that traffics in titles, "success" has to mean a return to glory, a spot among the top echelon of contenders. Marginal moves that mean the difference between 12th and eighth in a crowded West won't cut it.
Nothing the Warriors could realistically do at the deadline can get them to the level they once occupied.
No Good Options
Though Andrew Wiggins has shown flashes of late, the 28-year-old wing has had one of the worst seasons of any player in the league. With a career-low scoring average of 12.5 points per game, a 44.2/31.3/71.2 shooting split and the fourth-lowest Box Plus/Minus among the 165 players who've logged at least 1,000 minutes on the season, Wiggins' spot in the rotation is the one crying out loudest for an upgrade.
But guess what type of player the Warriors would pursue in a Wiggins trade: someone a lot like the 2021-22 version of...Andrew Wiggins! And because no right-thinking trade partner would simply give Golden State a better version of the player it is taking back in return, the only way the Warriors could swing a Wiggins deal would be to sweeten the pot with one of their precious few draft picks or young players.
It'd be smarter for Golden State to stand pat in this particular hypothetical, hoping instead that Wiggins' recent return to form sticks.
Other poor performers who played key roles in the last great version of this team, chiefly Klay Thompson and Kevon Looney, are similarly tricky trade candidates. Thompson's expiring $43.2 million salary makes matching money almost impossible, and that's to say nothing of the sentiment that should stand in the way of trading someone who'll a) have a statue outside Chase Center someday and b) seems likely to re-sign for a diminished dollar figure this offseason that reflects his reduced role.
Looney is losing rotation minutes, looks a step or two slower (and he didn't have speed to lose) and has corporate knowledge and locker room clout that make him far more valuable to Golden State than anyone else. He's not bringing back an upgrade either.
The more drastic the move, the less plausible it is. Stephen Curry will be a Warrior until he demands not to be. Draymond Green has done more than enough to get his team to give up on him, yet he's still in Golden State. That suggests he's not going anywhere either.
The Worst Option of All
It's worth distinguishing between a lack of valuable assets and a lack of smart ways to use them in a trade. Jonathan Kuminga, scorching hot over his last several games and producing highlights in bunches, is certainly a tantalizing trade chip.
He's also the franchise's only projectable future star. Attaching him to Wiggins or Paul in a blockbuster makes no sense.
Kuminga is on pace to be just the sixth 21-year-old to average at least 21.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists per 36 minutes with a true shooting percentage north of 60.0 percent. That's admittedly a cherry-picked stat, but it's also worth noting that these are full-season numbers for Kuminga, who has actually been even more productive since establishing himself recently as a full-time starter. He could be in a category all his own by the time 2023-24 is over.
Ditch the numbers for a moment and understand that every team in the league covets a young player who can power his way to any spot on the floor, finish through contact and leverage his athleticism defensively.
A veteran-led, sub-.500 team should not be in the business of shipping out the one player on the roster who might prevent it from bottoming out for several years once the current core is gone. Kuminga is all that remains of the ill-fated "two timelines" plan, and he might be good enough to actually pay it off.
Paying the Debt
If any organization has ever "owed it" to a star, it's the Warriors. They're obligated to do right by Curry, to give him a chance to contend while he's still inexplicably near his prime at age 35. But trading Kuminga, Paul and a pick for Zach LaVine, Dejounte Murray or any of the other purportedly available players on the market would not only fail to lift the Warriors to the level Curry deserves. It might also compromise any shot he'd have at getting one last chance next season.
Thompson's deal comes off the books this summer. Paul's essentially expires as well. Trimming those salaries could keep Golden State out of the second tax apron that would severely limit its flexibility going forward. If the Warriors take on longer-term money, it could leave them in an even worse spot where they couldn't aggregate salary or take back more cash than they send out in a trade.
If there were a superstar out there the Warriors could actually win a bidding war to acquire, it would be far easier to justify a shortsighted move. If guys like Thompson, Wiggins, Looney and even Paul weren't near the nadirs of their value, a win-now trade might make some sense. And if Golden State weren't as close to the 10-38 San Antonio Spurs as it is to the 34-14 Minnesota Timberwolves in the standings, you could justify honoring Curry by going all in on the rest of this season.
No such star exists, the Warriors' supporting pieces are worth less today than ever and the gap between this team and the league's elite is too great to overcome.
So while the Warriors owe a debt to Curry, it's one they can't pay at the moment.
If Golden State can exercise patience and play its cards right in the offseason, maybe it'll get one last chance to deliver Curry the career-closing title run he deserves. For now, the Warriors need to understand that they, like so many teams they've faced over the years, don't have any easy ways out.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate entering games played Thursday, Feb. 1. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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