The Warriors Next Move Isn’t What We Thought…

The Warriors Next Move Isn’t What We Thought…

A Warriors season that once had so much hope is now over. And although they made some massive steps forward after the mid-season Jimmy Butler trade, how exactly they navigate the next few seasons to try and get Steph Curry a few more chances at a title is a difficult question to answer. But the good thing for the Warriors is the Jimmy Butler trade absolutely worked. When you think about where this team, where this franchise was in terms of title contention just a few months ago, we were realistically looking at this off season potentially being the end of the Steph era. not necessarily that he was going to request a trade or anything, but it was just going to be abundantly clear that whatever years he had left on the Warriors, they were not going to be even close to championship contention. And obviously, the Warriors didn’t make the conference finals. They didn’t go on a great run in the postseason, but a lot of that had to do with injuries. And once they added Jimmy Butler, it was clear that they at least had an outside chance. They had a much better chance than they did pre-trade. And they were a threatening team in the postseason. And I think they would have given Minnesota a much better series had they been healthy and potentially even won that series, had a chance in the conference finals to maybe even get to the finals. They were that good once they added Jimmy Butler. And obviously Butler wasn’t great in the postseason once Curry went down, but he also was hurt. So first things first to establish for the Warriors, the Butler trade was an absolute win. It was a great move for them, but it also dictates a lot about what they can do this off season. So, what can they do to try and build off the momentum of the Jimmy Butler trade? Well, when you look at their contracts and their roster, it is a little bit weird. They of course have the core of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green. All of which are under contract for two more seasons, and all of which are 35 years old or older. They’re going to build around those guys. That’s going to be their core. There’s going to be some conversations out there about should they trade Draymond? Should that be the piece that they move? maybe move some things around now that the Butler thing has worked so well, especially given that him and Butler both don’t space the floor. So, that can be a problem. But, I really think that Draymond and Steph are just like a package deal at this point. Like, I can’t see them actually moving on from Draymond, even though he is one of the only other sizable contracts on the roster outside of Steph and Jimmy. And really, that would be the only reason I could see them making that move and trading away Draymond is just if they really felt like they had a big chance to upgrade the roster and that was the only contract they had available. There’s also going to be some stuff out there about what if the Warriors added Kevin Durant? What if they added Giannis? Well, again, you look at their contracts, it’s not really possible. Like technically, they could trade Draymond and like literally every other contract on the roster and try and get Giannis and the salaries would match, but that’s just not going to happen. Not to mention, that’s not a good enough trade package for Giannis. And even in a scenario where they wanted to go out and get someone like Kevin Durant, one, I don’t think it would work cuz KD already said he didn’t want to go back there in the middle of the year. and two, they’d probably have to trade Jimmy Butler in that situation. And the contracts just don’t work out for the Warriors. So, any piece of improvement that they’re going to make this off seasonason is going to be either internal, it’s going to be young guys getting better, it’s going to be them having more chemistry and having more time to play together after what was a pretty difficult mid-season acquisition to adjust to, or it’s going to be along the margins around the core three guys of Steph, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond. their window for competing for a title is very clearly the next two seasons with those three guys still kind of in their primes or post-primes and then what they can do around those three. And I’m telling you, there’s going to be people out there making videos putting Giannis in a Warriors jersey, putting Kevin Durant in a Warriors jersey. It’s just unrealistic to expect that unless they’re trading Jimmy Butler or they’re trading Draymond and literally everybody else in the roster. And that’s just to make the money work, not even accounting for the fact they don’t really have the assets to make those kinds of trades either. And the reason those kinds of trades are off the table, not just from a salary perspective, is because they already made that level of deal. It was the Jimmy Butler trade in the middle of the season, not that Jimmy Butler is on the level of Giannis as a player, but salary-wise in terms of what they could do asset-wise, they already made that deal and it was Jimmy Butler. It’s these three guys. You got two seasons. Now, how can you improve? When you look at the rest of the roster, they’ve got a couple of nice pieces locked in over the next couple years. Moody is locked in. Pajk’s locked in. but healed as well who was a nice addition for them last off season. But then they’ve got some questions. So Kavon Looney is an unrestricted free agent. Gary Payton is a free agent and Jonathan Kaminga is the other big one. He is a restricted free agent and there’s a couple of different kind of avenues here for Golden State. They could look to sign and trade him. uh they could just lose him for nothing depending on what a team offers him in free agency and maybe a team offers him four years for 85 million and the the Warriors are just like no we we just can’t bring this guy back given the lack of development for him over the last couple of seasons or if there’s not that much of a market for him he could just sign the one-year deal that he has left I think it’s between like 7 and 9 million bucks and just sign that and then he would be an unrestricted free agent the following season if the Warriors want to keep Jonathan Kaminga the ball is in their court to do so it’s just whether or not they think he’s going to be a valuable asset for them. Realistically, they should try and keep him because they don’t have a lot of other depth. And if they can get him to sign the one-year deal or maybe just match a pretty limited contract for him, I think that’s what they’ll try and do, but it’s definitely a questionable situation unless they can get good value in a signin trade. He is by far the most interesting offseason piece that they have because he’s still just 22 years old and frankly they screwed up by not trading him before now. They had opportunities over the last couple years to put him in trades that could have significantly improved the roster, but they continued to potentially overvalue him, overvalue whatever his development was going to be. And at this point, his value is pretty low, whether it be in a trade or otherwise. And so, he’s the interesting piece in terms of what he could develop into. But more so, the point here is that they they missed an opportunity by potentially getting value out of Jonathan Kaminga over the prior few seasons. In terms of other trade options, if you’re looking at potentially sacrificing some depth to get another nice player on this roster, Moses Moody doesn’t really hold that much value cuz he can’t make threes consistently. Pajki is probably better for them than he is for anyone else just because of his his play style. He needs to be better at shooting threes as well. But a healed is is fine, but not necessarily someone that teams are going to want to actively look to trade for. And they only have one first round pick into the future to trade. So like theoretically they could talk to the Nets about maybe trading Moody in a first for Cam Johnson if they really wanted to maybe package together some second round picks in that deal as well. But that really would be all it would be. They would upgrade one of those spots whether it be Moses Moody Pajki or Buddy Heield with that first round pick that they have and then again they have the option of maybe sign and trading Kaminga for some value as well. Now I could be wrong. Maybe there’s a team out there that really likes Moses Moody and really likes Pajki or really likes Kaminga. Right now, things are pretty grim in terms of developing this roster outside of their core three guys. They could resign Payton and Looney, see whatever happens with Jonathan Kaminga, and essentially they’d be bringing back the same team as this year next year, which to me is a pretty good option because this is a really good team, I think, when they are fully healthy. We don’t know what the health situation is going to be like for Steph and Traymond and Jimmy Butler next year and next postseason because those are older guys and you’re just never really 100% sure how healthy they are going to be. But those core three guys work really well together. You put enough spacing around them. They’re a well coached team. I still think they can be in that semicontender range next year. Kind of like where they were when they won the title a couple years ago where the West broke really well for them. They played well. They won a title. That’s kind of the level they’ve put themselves at now with the Jimmy Butler edition mid-season and how well they played with Butler mid-season. They’re not top tier contenders. are not going to be one of the favorites in the West, but they’ve at least put themselves in a position to maybe try and get one more ring with this group next year or the following. And realistically, that is what we’re looking at here. They’re looking at running it back, maybe a couple of moves along the margins in free agency, like when they got Buddy Healed last year. Maybe they’re able to find some value there. And then they’ve got two years. And at that point, they’re going to have to make a choice, whether it be next offseason or the following on Jimmy Butler, on Draymond, even potentially on Steph Curry at some point. And honestly, all the Warriors have done here is they’ve given themselves a chance, a chance that they didn’t have before trading for Jimmy Butler, a chance to kind of be in the mix, maybe have a real chance at making a run to the conference finals or the finals. And they’ve generally been a good front office making moves along the margins. And I would be confident as a Warriors fan that you’re going to get to see competitive basketball next year if you’re healthy. And Steph is going to have a chance to still have some meaningful postseason moments if he and the rest of the team are healthy. And at this point in his career, given all the success they’ve had over the last handful of years, over the last decade or so, that’s really all you can hope for. If you’re Steph, if you’re the Warriors, if you’re their fans, everything that you’ve put into winning for so long. Superstars don’t get these kinds of extended windows the way that Steph has towards the end of his career. And it’s all because of the Butler trade. And maybe, just maybe, they can work a little bit more magic this off seasonason, continue to improve the roster, and continue to give themselves that chance at competing for a title next year, the year after. It’s certainly much better than the alternative. A realistic scenario for this off seasonason a couple of months ago was maybe we got to trade Steph, maybe we got to trade Draymond. All of a sudden, we’re looking at what are we doing with Andrew Wiggins. Like they could have been a position to maybe add Kevin Durant or somebody in the offseason, but I really think the Butler trade was perfect for them. It makes a lot of sense for the next two years as a playoff competitor. And now we’ll just see what small moves they can maybe make with Kaminga or Pajki or Moody or anybody else on the roster to give themselves just that extra little bit of chance of competing next year and the year

A Warriors season that once had so much hope is now over and although they made some MASSIVE steps forward after the midseason Jimmy Butler trade – how exactly they navigate the next few seasons to try and get Steph Curry a few more chances at a title – is a difficult question to answer.

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