[Kawakami] One of the Warriors’ calls, I’m told, was to check with Toronto about a proposal centering on Jordan Poole for 25-year-old forward OG Anunoby. But the Raptors weren’t interested.
[Kawakami] One of the Warriors’ calls, I’m told, was to check with Toronto about a proposal centering on Jordan Poole for 25-year-old forward OG Anunoby. But the Raptors weren’t interested.
Masai would probably reject Steph Curry for OG Anunoby
confuddly
Maybe couldve pulled it off last year, Poole+Kuminga for OG, and all the warrior fans wouldve been furious. But its crazy how far in value all the Warriors young players dropped
dkong86
So irrational confidence is a Warriors cultural thing, I see where Poole gets it from
radiobirdman-69
Anunoby and Kuminga on the same team?
creepypaster
idk how interested OG would have been if he really wants a bigger role. Gonna have to take leftovers from Steph, Klay, and wiggins if that trade went through
pcwgussej
Kawakami: The Warriors’ Chris Paul-Jordan Poole trade, all the options it opened it up, and what led them to do it theathletic.com What came first for the Warriors: The idea about landing Chris Paul or the desire to unload Jordan Poole?
That’s not the only question surrounding last week’s big trade, which sent Poole, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Ryan Rollins to the Wizards and rerouted Paul to the Warriors on his way out of Phoenix. When a talented 24-year-old and two 20-year-olds get traded for a 38-year-old point guard on a team that is not lacking 30-somethings, actuarial-table questions absolutely should be raised.
But right now, I’m focused on the thought process and the priority order of this trade, because if you can figure those out, you can understand almost everything the Warriors are thinking about themselves right now as the Mike Dunleavy Jr. era begins. You can identify how the Warriors are preparing for the future. You can see what might come next.
What’s clear to me after a few days of checking around is that this all began when the Warriors decided that Poole was an extraneous and inefficient member of their roster. That was the precipitating issue. The Warriors wanted out of the $123 million deal they gave Poole only eight months earlier because his play last season didn’t meet that value, especially given their extreme luxury-tax pressures. They knew he wanted a bigger role and they knew that almost certainly wouldn’t happen as long as Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were on the team.
The Warriors weren’t going to give Poole away, but they were ready to move on if the right deal came along.
• One of the Warriors’ calls, I’m told, was to check with Toronto about a proposal centering on Poole for 25-year-old forward OG Anunoby. But the Raptors weren’t interested. According to Yahoo Sports’ Jake Fischer, the Warriors also had talks with the Celtics and had interest from the Spurs, though it’s hard to come up with good trade matches for Poole on either team.
But it was now obvious — the Warriors were shopping Poole. Soon, the Warriors got in touch with the Wizards, and just like that, Paul, on a short-term deal, was headed to the Warriors as a reliable alternative ballhandler behind and alongside Curry and a mature presence in the locker room.
The Warriors achieved their goal: They got rid of Poole’s long-term money without making themselves worse (and probably actually got better) in the short term.
• The Warriors are aiming to drop below the second payroll apron by next July, which is when the most punitive aspects of the new CBA start hitting. They want their taxpayer midlevel exception back (they used part of their MLE to sign Donte DiVincenzo last summer, but the new CBA has taken their MLE away, which is why they won’t be able to re-sign him now that DiVincenzo has declined his player option for the coming season). They don’t want to be banned from being able to aggregate salaries in trades, and they don’t want their future first-round picks frozen. They simply don’t want to get stuck in Second Apron Hell without many of the tools they’ve used in the past to add talent.
And now the Warriors have two ways out next July. They can let Paul go after this season (his $30 million contract for 2024-25 is non-guaranteed), they can let Klay go after this season or they can re-sign one or both for much less money. If they let both go, the Warriors could even get all the way out of the luxury tax and reset their repeater-tax count.
GO DEEPER
Steph Curry, Klay Thompson offer their first thoughts on Chris Paul trade
• All of this, of course, is presuming that Draymond signs a new multiyear deal with the Warriors in the next few days. But that’s seemed likely for weeks. And the Poole-Paul trade underlines the general understanding that all of the Warriors’ plans include Curry and Draymond together for several more years.
If they had acquired Anunoby, who theoretically could’ve taken Draymond’s spot in the starting lineup, maybe things would’ve penciled out differently for the lineup and the accounting. But Anunoby can become a free agent after this season, which would’ve thrown some uncertainty into the whole process. And Toronto wouldn’t do the deal, anyway.
• Now the Warriors can operate as if Paul is on a one-year, $30.8 million prove-it deal. If he plays tremendously and there’s a parade in June, they can think about guaranteeing next season’s contract. Obviously, the Warriors would love to have to make that decision. Or they can talk about signing Paul for less money. Or they can sign-and-trade him. Or they can guarantee ’24-25 and put him on the trade market as an expiring contract.
Back in July 2019, Bob Myers convinced Kevin Durant to let the Warriors turn his departure to the Nets into a sign-and-trade that sent D’Angelo Russell back to the Warriors — not because Myers loved Russell as a player, but because that was the only way to add a tradeable asset at that kind of salary range. This deal isn’t the same as that one, but Dunleavy was in the room when the Durant-Russell negotiations happened, I’ll put it that way.
• The Paul-Poole trade also clears up a few other things for the Warriors heading into Friday’s start of the free-agent period. First, I don’t think Dunleavy and Joe Lacob ever really considered trading Klay this offseason, but now that door seems all but closed. The Warriors still want to compete for a title this season, and there’s just no Klay trade out there that would make them better. There’s no way they could sell this to Curry. There’s no way they could sell it to themselves, frankly.
And with Poole gone, there’s more future money available once and when the Warriors and Klay start talking about an extension.
• The Warriors have three or four available roster spots (depending on whether they use their 15th roster spot, which seems unlikely), only minimum salary slots to offer and a need to add at least one big man, preferably who can shoot 3s, and at least one guard. But this is a pretty bleak free-agent market.
I was going to put Memphis’ Xavier Tillman at the top of a potential Warriors’ minimum-salary shopping list, but unsurprisingly, Memphis picked up his contract for next season. Beyond that … maybe Oklahoma City’s Dario Šarić is the most interesting potential candidate, though I can see another team offering him more than the minimum. How about the Nets’ Yuta Watanabe? He isn’t a center, but he made 44.4 percent of his 3s last season. and I can picture Steve Kerr putting him in the corner as a second-unit outlet for the CP3-Jonathan Kuminga pick-and-roll game and then faking it on the defensive post.
Other big-man options: Denver’s Thomas Bryant, Miami’s Kevin Love or Milwaukee’s Thanasis Antetokounmpo (and yes, I just put that last one in to see if you were paying attention to conspiracy-theory signings).
GO DEEPER
Steve Kerr on the Warriors’ big moves — ‘We sensed we needed a shift’
• In other positional categories, if the Warriors are looking for good chemistry and veteran savvy, what about the return of Juan Toscano-Anderson (last with Utah) or Damion Lee (Phoenix)? Or familiar foe and friend Rudy Gay (now with Atlanta)?
• Let’s finish this off with a quick thought on Dunleavy’s first week as general manager. So far he’s traded Poole a few days after declaring that he hoped Poole would be a Warrior for many years, he’s added a future Hall of Famer/former fierce Warriors rival, he’s traded away last year’s first- and second-round picks, he’s drafted Brandin Podziemski in the first round, maneuvered to land Trayce Jackson-Davis in the second and he’s trimmed about $100 million in future salaries.
Dunleavy, like Myers before him, isn’t going to get everything right. But Dunleavy, like Myers, just seems to be in every deal conversation and eager to start new ones. He’s acting like he’s been waiting a few years to do this and had about 400 pent-up ideas ready to go. And Joe Lacob wouldn’t want his GM to do it any other way.
The TK Show: Go to Tim Kawakami’s podcast page on Apple, Spotify and The Athletic app.
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
I_Set_3_Alarms
Warriors tried for Marcus Smart, tried for OG. Settled on dumping Poole for CP38
DW_Jitters
Poole for OG is absurd.
ihateeuge
I feel sorry for the suckers that actually give Masai what he wants. OG is NOT that dude
amino110
How many Warriors beat writers work for the Athlethic ?
Fluix
I love how everyone wants OG for scraps, and when they don’t get him they’re like “Raptors are waiting for a godfather trade”. These are also the same fans who will say “OG is not worth 3 FRP” even though that offer was from a 2nd seed team meaning it’s 3 SRP.
FlimsyAd2609
don’t get why people are overreacting so much about this. i don’t get what’s wrong with looking at options
isthisgood80
OG Anunoby has to be the most overrated player in the league.
_s1lace_
Anyone else think Poole is a tad overrated? kinda seems like old Shaun Livingston type except on a less loaded team
PewpyDewpdyPantz
We already have Jordan Poole. His name is Gary Trent Jr.
jamiecballer
Haha nice try warriors
XxThreepwoodxX
Why get Poole when you can get Anfernee instead.
BillsBillsBils
Poole and what? Kuminga and three firsts? If it’s one for one, it’s an utterly laughable, hang up the phone conversation.
paranoideo
Mmm, Kawakami. Doubt (X)
Double-Hat9849
More Warriors beat writers than championships, apparently!
dumbhousequestions
Really excited for Masai to waffle for months before declining to trade OG for the heat death of the universe.
shoutsoutstomywrist
What does Toronto want I genuinely do not know anymore
24 Comments
Shoot your shot
OG gonna be the new John Collins
Masai would probably reject Steph Curry for OG Anunoby
Maybe couldve pulled it off last year, Poole+Kuminga for OG, and all the warrior fans wouldve been furious. But its crazy how far in value all the Warriors young players dropped
So irrational confidence is a Warriors cultural thing, I see where Poole gets it from
Anunoby and Kuminga on the same team?
idk how interested OG would have been if he really wants a bigger role. Gonna have to take leftovers from Steph, Klay, and wiggins if that trade went through
Kawakami: The Warriors’ Chris Paul-Jordan Poole trade, all the options it opened it up, and what led them to do it
theathletic.com
What came first for the Warriors: The idea about landing Chris Paul or the desire to unload Jordan Poole?
That’s not the only question surrounding last week’s big trade, which sent Poole, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Ryan Rollins to the Wizards and rerouted Paul to the Warriors on his way out of Phoenix. When a talented 24-year-old and two 20-year-olds get traded for a 38-year-old point guard on a team that is not lacking 30-somethings, actuarial-table questions absolutely should be raised.
But right now, I’m focused on the thought process and the priority order of this trade, because if you can figure those out, you can understand almost everything the Warriors are thinking about themselves right now as the Mike Dunleavy Jr. era begins. You can identify how the Warriors are preparing for the future. You can see what might come next.
What’s clear to me after a few days of checking around is that this all began when the Warriors decided that Poole was an extraneous and inefficient member of their roster. That was the precipitating issue. The Warriors wanted out of the $123 million deal they gave Poole only eight months earlier because his play last season didn’t meet that value, especially given their extreme luxury-tax pressures. They knew he wanted a bigger role and they knew that almost certainly wouldn’t happen as long as Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were on the team.
The Warriors weren’t going to give Poole away, but they were ready to move on if the right deal came along.
• One of the Warriors’ calls, I’m told, was to check with Toronto about a proposal centering on Poole for 25-year-old forward OG Anunoby. But the Raptors weren’t interested. According to Yahoo Sports’ Jake Fischer, the Warriors also had talks with the Celtics and had interest from the Spurs, though it’s hard to come up with good trade matches for Poole on either team.
But it was now obvious — the Warriors were shopping Poole. Soon, the Warriors got in touch with the Wizards, and just like that, Paul, on a short-term deal, was headed to the Warriors as a reliable alternative ballhandler behind and alongside Curry and a mature presence in the locker room.
The Warriors achieved their goal: They got rid of Poole’s long-term money without making themselves worse (and probably actually got better) in the short term.
• The Warriors are aiming to drop below the second payroll apron by next July, which is when the most punitive aspects of the new CBA start hitting. They want their taxpayer midlevel exception back (they used part of their MLE to sign Donte DiVincenzo last summer, but the new CBA has taken their MLE away, which is why they won’t be able to re-sign him now that DiVincenzo has declined his player option for the coming season). They don’t want to be banned from being able to aggregate salaries in trades, and they don’t want their future first-round picks frozen. They simply don’t want to get stuck in Second Apron Hell without many of the tools they’ve used in the past to add talent.
And now the Warriors have two ways out next July. They can let Paul go after this season (his $30 million contract for 2024-25 is non-guaranteed), they can let Klay go after this season or they can re-sign one or both for much less money. If they let both go, the Warriors could even get all the way out of the luxury tax and reset their repeater-tax count.
GO DEEPER
Steph Curry, Klay Thompson offer their first thoughts on Chris Paul trade
• All of this, of course, is presuming that Draymond signs a new multiyear deal with the Warriors in the next few days. But that’s seemed likely for weeks. And the Poole-Paul trade underlines the general understanding that all of the Warriors’ plans include Curry and Draymond together for several more years.
If they had acquired Anunoby, who theoretically could’ve taken Draymond’s spot in the starting lineup, maybe things would’ve penciled out differently for the lineup and the accounting. But Anunoby can become a free agent after this season, which would’ve thrown some uncertainty into the whole process. And Toronto wouldn’t do the deal, anyway.
• Now the Warriors can operate as if Paul is on a one-year, $30.8 million prove-it deal. If he plays tremendously and there’s a parade in June, they can think about guaranteeing next season’s contract. Obviously, the Warriors would love to have to make that decision. Or they can talk about signing Paul for less money. Or they can sign-and-trade him. Or they can guarantee ’24-25 and put him on the trade market as an expiring contract.
Back in July 2019, Bob Myers convinced Kevin Durant to let the Warriors turn his departure to the Nets into a sign-and-trade that sent D’Angelo Russell back to the Warriors — not because Myers loved Russell as a player, but because that was the only way to add a tradeable asset at that kind of salary range. This deal isn’t the same as that one, but Dunleavy was in the room when the Durant-Russell negotiations happened, I’ll put it that way.
• The Paul-Poole trade also clears up a few other things for the Warriors heading into Friday’s start of the free-agent period. First, I don’t think Dunleavy and Joe Lacob ever really considered trading Klay this offseason, but now that door seems all but closed. The Warriors still want to compete for a title this season, and there’s just no Klay trade out there that would make them better. There’s no way they could sell this to Curry. There’s no way they could sell it to themselves, frankly.
And with Poole gone, there’s more future money available once and when the Warriors and Klay start talking about an extension.
• The Warriors have three or four available roster spots (depending on whether they use their 15th roster spot, which seems unlikely), only minimum salary slots to offer and a need to add at least one big man, preferably who can shoot 3s, and at least one guard. But this is a pretty bleak free-agent market.
I was going to put Memphis’ Xavier Tillman at the top of a potential Warriors’ minimum-salary shopping list, but unsurprisingly, Memphis picked up his contract for next season. Beyond that … maybe Oklahoma City’s Dario Šarić is the most interesting potential candidate, though I can see another team offering him more than the minimum. How about the Nets’ Yuta Watanabe? He isn’t a center, but he made 44.4 percent of his 3s last season. and I can picture Steve Kerr putting him in the corner as a second-unit outlet for the CP3-Jonathan Kuminga pick-and-roll game and then faking it on the defensive post.
Other big-man options: Denver’s Thomas Bryant, Miami’s Kevin Love or Milwaukee’s Thanasis Antetokounmpo (and yes, I just put that last one in to see if you were paying attention to conspiracy-theory signings).
GO DEEPER
Steve Kerr on the Warriors’ big moves — ‘We sensed we needed a shift’
• In other positional categories, if the Warriors are looking for good chemistry and veteran savvy, what about the return of Juan Toscano-Anderson (last with Utah) or Damion Lee (Phoenix)? Or familiar foe and friend Rudy Gay (now with Atlanta)?
• Let’s finish this off with a quick thought on Dunleavy’s first week as general manager. So far he’s traded Poole a few days after declaring that he hoped Poole would be a Warrior for many years, he’s added a future Hall of Famer/former fierce Warriors rival, he’s traded away last year’s first- and second-round picks, he’s drafted Brandin Podziemski in the first round, maneuvered to land Trayce Jackson-Davis in the second and he’s trimmed about $100 million in future salaries.
Dunleavy, like Myers before him, isn’t going to get everything right. But Dunleavy, like Myers, just seems to be in every deal conversation and eager to start new ones. He’s acting like he’s been waiting a few years to do this and had about 400 pent-up ideas ready to go. And Joe Lacob wouldn’t want his GM to do it any other way.
The TK Show: Go to Tim Kawakami’s podcast page on Apple, Spotify and The Athletic app.
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
Warriors tried for Marcus Smart, tried for OG. Settled on dumping Poole for CP38
Poole for OG is absurd.
I feel sorry for the suckers that actually give Masai what he wants. OG is NOT that dude
How many Warriors beat writers work for the Athlethic ?
I love how everyone wants OG for scraps, and when they don’t get him they’re like “Raptors are waiting for a godfather trade”. These are also the same fans who will say “OG is not worth 3 FRP” even though that offer was from a 2nd seed team meaning it’s 3 SRP.
don’t get why people are overreacting so much about this. i don’t get what’s wrong with looking at options
OG Anunoby has to be the most overrated player in the league.
Anyone else think Poole is a tad overrated? kinda seems like old Shaun Livingston type except on a less loaded team
We already have Jordan Poole. His name is Gary Trent Jr.
Haha nice try warriors
Why get Poole when you can get Anfernee instead.
Poole and what? Kuminga and three firsts? If it’s one for one, it’s an utterly laughable, hang up the phone conversation.
Mmm, Kawakami. Doubt (X)
More Warriors beat writers than championships, apparently!
Really excited for Masai to waffle for months before declining to trade OG for the heat death of the universe.
What does Toronto want I genuinely do not know anymore