WHAT Are The Warriors Doing?!?

WHAT Are The Warriors Doing?!?

The Golden State Warriors seem to have zero plan. After adding Jimmy Butler during the season to try and make a few more title runs with Steph Curry still around, they seem to be content with doing absolutely nothing this off seasonason. And I’m not exaggerating, by the way. They’ve done literally nothing. No first round pick, no free agency signings. As of the recording of this video, they’ve basically acted like the offseason just does not exist. Now, there are a couple reasons for that. And first and foremost, of course, is the Jonathan Kaminga situation. restricted free agency in general this offseason has been basically non-existent and Jonathan Kaminga is a perfect example. He is a guy that in theory if there was an average amount of cap space around the league would probably sign a new deal worth between 20 and $30 million per season this off seasonason and then the Warriors would have a decision on whether or not they’d want to match that to bring him back in restricted free agency. But there is not cap space out there. The Brooklyn Nets are the only team that had significant cap space coming into the season. Now, after making some other moves, they don’t have enough to offer Jonathan Kaminga $25 million a year. And so, the Warriors aren’t negotiating against anyone when it comes to signing a contract to bring back Jonathan Kaminga next season. There are other options here where Kaminga can sign the qualifying offer or they can try and find a middle ground, but right now there’s no real hurry for either side to get this sorted out other than just having a resolution to it. In general, one of the things that has seemed likely over the last couple of weeks is some kind of a sign and trade situation because things have gotten so tenuous between Kaminga and the Warriors and really have been that way for the last couple of seasons because Steve Kerr just is not a fan clearly of Jonathan Kaminga in general. And so them not being together next year makes a lot of sense. The problem is it’s very difficult to figure out a sign and trade scenario for Jonathan Kaminga or really just in general for restricted free agents. There’s a lot of rules in terms of the way you have to match money that make things very difficult. In addition to the fact that the Warriors are looking to get like a decent player and a pick in exchange for Kaminga and he probably just doesn’t hold that much value to a bunch of teams around the league in addition to having to pay him what is probably going to be 20 25 maybe $30 million a season moving forward for a player that is talented but hasn’t necessarily proven a lot at the NBA level. And there have been rumors out there about a team like the Sacramento Kings possibly being involved for Jonathan Kaminga. They maybe try and go a little bit younger. You could do Malik Monk in some stuff. You could do Keon Ellis in some stuff. Maybe the Warriors would be interested in that. But if I’m the Kings, I’m not overly interested in giving up future draft compensation in exchange for Jonathan Kaminga for a team that I’m not really sure where they’re going anyway in the first place. The Phoenix Suns have come up as a possibility as well where they could flip Dylan Brooks in exchange for whatever contract Kaminga would then be on where Phoenix goes younger. They get an upside piece in Kaminga to build alongside Jaylen Green and Deon Booker whereas the Warriors get a more proven player and someone like Dylan Brooks. But the money doesn’t really work there. There’s a lot of complicated things they’d have to do to get that sorted out. And the bottom line is if the Warriors can’t come to an agreement on a contract with Kaminga and they can’t find a team to take him on a signing trade, this is holding up the entirety of their offseason, they can’t really do anything else because the numbers are so complicated with restricted free agency and possible restricted free agency signing trades that even moves that have been rumored like it’s rumored that maybe they added Big Al from the Celtics. It’s been rumored that maybe they added DeAnthony Melton. That stuff can’t actually go through because they don’t want to mess up their books. They don’t want to change around their money on a team that’s already pretty expensive because they can’t resolve the Jonathan Kaminga situation. That’s another reason why reportedly at least they only offered Bradley Bule a minimum contract before he signed with the Clippers. Even though that would be a pretty good situation for him and for them moneywise, they just weren’t willing to commit really anything significant to him or any other free agent right now until they resolve the Jonathan Gaming situation. And as of the recording of this video, it does not seem like we are even remotely close to a resolution on a situation that really could last for months longer throughout the rest of the offseason. This is the number one reason why the Warriors haven’t done anything is because they got to figure out Kaminga first. But that’s not the only issue of course because they made their big move. Like if they didn’t trade for Jimmy Butler during the year and then made that move in the offseason, people would probably be like, “Oh wow, great offseason for the Warriors.” They just did it ahead of time. They just did it at the trade deadline. They traded Wiggins, which was one of their only movable contracts. They traded a pick of which they don’t really have a ton moving forward. They just don’t really have other assets on the roster. They don’t have contracts that really work that they can trade other than, of course, Kamingo, which we’ve already covered. And other than like getting really crazy and trading away someone like Draymond Green, when you look at their payroll sheet, there’s just not numbers out there that make sense for them to move a bunch of guys to try and add pieces. That’s why the Jimmy Butler thing was I I I wouldn’t say a risk, but it was so significant because it did use up all of the pieces they could possibly use. Namely, someone like Andrew Wiggins and Kyle Anderson’s contract. Those were the pieces they had to make a big move. And now without them, their options are just really, really limited. I personally would just keep Draymond at this point. I wouldn’t look to trade him for someone else because even at the number that he’s making, he’s still incredibly valuable to Golden State. And I don’t think you’re going to get equivalent value for your own basketball team trading away Draymond. And if you’re not trading away Draymond, you just don’t have the contracts to make really any other kind of big name or big trade work. And beyond that, if you go in next year, let’s just say, for example, they do the Malik Monk thing. Let’s say they have Malik Monk in place of Jonathan Kaminga. This Warriors roster in general fits in a very interesting situation. Let’s say that some of the rumored guys, like they lost Cavan Looney, but they’re bringing in some of those other guys like Melton and Big Al like I talked about earlier. Let’s say they bring those guys in. It’s an interesting team and it’s a team that in a singular postseason series I think would have a really good chance against most teams in the Western Conference with the exception of like the Oklahoma City Thunder of the world that are just a tier above Golden State. In a singular series, this is a roster with Jimmy Butler with Steph when healthy that’s well set up to punch above their weight in a postseason series, maybe make a run to the conference finals, and if something goes their way, maybe even the finals like they did a few years ago when they won the title. The problem is, and the problem that the Warriors have yet to address this off seasonason is what do you do with the other 82 games? It’s really cool that you only need to win 16 games to win a title once you get to the playoffs and you’ve got a bunch of, as people call them, 16 game players, but they don’t really have a lot of 82 game players on this team. How are they going to get through the season when Steph pulls his hamstring and misses two weeks? When Jimmy Butler sprains his wrist and misses a week and a half? when Draymond needs a week off because he’s getting older and he has so much responsibility defensively. And to me, that’s the number one need that they still have to address, whether it’s with the Kaminga situation, whether it’s with some creativity on the back end of the roster, they need bodies. They need guys that they can throw out there and rest Jimmy Butler 10 to 15 games and rest Draymond Green 10 to 15 games and still not be a playin team because this is an incredibly loaded Western Conference. teams like Denver, Houston, the Clippers that are getting better this year while the Warriors are kind of stagnating and if they find themselves in a situation like they did last year late in the year where they are hovering around the bottom of the playin standings and they basically have to have like a 30game playoff run where they have to really go all in towards the end of the year for seating and playin purposes just to give them a chance at that 16game run. That to me is a dangerous situation for the Warriors to be in and largely would look similar to what we saw last year with injuries and things like that derailing the end of their season. And that to me, apart from resolving the Kaminga situation, is the number one issue I have right now with the Warriors. I respect the fact that they made the Jimmy trade and when those three guys played together, Draymond Steft and Jimmy Butler, they were fantastic, especially in the regular season towards the end of last year. And I think there’s proof of concept that all those guys can work together and all the playoff success that they’ve had certainly holds a lot of weight in the postseason, but you have to get there first. And you have to wonder what kind of chance you actually have to do something significant in the postseason. I respect the fact that they’re going for it. It’s much better than Steph just winning 40 to 45 games every single season, but this is really their chance. They’ve got this year, maybe the following year. They’ve committed money to it, but at this point, they’ve got to get very creative and and frankly get lucky with a lot of their other roster moves to be a significant part of the upcoming NBA season. Without tremendous injury luck, it’s going to be difficult as currently constructed for the Warriors to really do anything until we get to the postseason and then maybe then it’s still questionable. And that is really the main reason why I’m still so confused that they have done absolutely nothing this offseason.

The Golden State Warriors seem to have zero plan… after adding Jimmy Butler during the season to try and make a few more title runs with Steph Curry still around… they seem to be content with doing absolutely nothing this offseason other than taking forever with the Jonathan Kuminga situation.

I am not exaggerating by the way, they’ve done nothing. No 1st round pick, haven’t signed anybody in free agency… they’re acting like the offseason just doesn’t exist.

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