Monta Ellis Trade: Did the Warriors Surrender Season with Ellis Trade?

Before Bay Area basketball fans lose their marbles and ask for the head of GM Larry Riley after dealing team MVP Monta Ellis and the budding talent of Ekpe Udoh (no one’s complaining about shedding the injured Kwame Brown) for a player who won’t be able to play for a month in Andrew Bogut and a worn-out, overpriced shell of a former fan-favorite in Stephen Jackson, let’s examine what might have crossed Riley and the Warriors' minds when they agreed on the deal.

The team is barely on the bubble of playoff contention, sitting at 18-21 before the deadline. As it stands, Golden State would be fortunate to snag the eight seed in the West. The Warriors organization wants to compete for a championship, and even with a healthy Ellis, Stephen Curry and David Lee, the Warriors were floundering.

While the team was beginning to gain some momentum of late in the midst of a win streak, Golden State's playoff margins were still inherently slim. The roster’s infrastructure was indefinitely flawed, and the Warriors found a golden opportunity to patch the leak for the team’s long-term success.

By dealing for Bogut, the Warriors filled a gaping hole at center. The team now has a world-class defender to build around going forward, but will likely have to wait until next season to utilize him. Which puts the Dubs in a bit of a hole in the short term.

However, this sabotage might have been intentional. Golden State traded their 2012 first-round pick away in 2009 to New Jersey in the now-infamous Marcus Williams deal.

The pick, however, is top-seven protected, meaning if Golden State finishes better than the seventh-worst record in the league, they surrender the pick to Utah (New Jersey included it in the Deron Williams trade).

Currently, the Warriors are on the bubble of keeping the pick at 11th worst. It’s likely now that Golden State will go into free-fall, plummeting down the NBA ranks and in turn keeping their first-round selection.

While the Dubs do certainly benefit from losing, the team will not simply just be throwing away games. Head Coach Mark Jackson has a slew of young talent to develop on the roster still, and with Ellis and Udoh gone, there are a lot of minutes free for the taking.

Rookies Klay Thompson, Charles Jenkins and Jeremy Tyler should start to see increased court time during the second half of the season, and Thompson is likely to inherit the starting role from Ellis.

So there is some reasoning to this deal. While the team almost certainly will struggle in the short run, losing actually has some long-term benefits. While Bogut’s health remains a concern, and the Jackson contract does eat a good portion of the team’s cap, Golden State might actually come out on top of this one.

We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, spare Larry Riley’s life.