golden state warriors thread

no idea how this plays out but im leaning he stays with the warriors. but a lot comes down to how this season plays out? hes made himself indispensable, the defense is hanging by a thread every night and he is that thread. also finding his offense more this season. i think hes playing games but could also see him bouncing as well. i think if he leaves cos the dubs lowball him then that would be the beginning of the end, curry would not be good with that.

i think we'll learn a lot about the direction of this franchise over the next few weeks up to the trade deadline. if they stay put i think this is the last ride. if they make a move and trade one or two of the young guys and picks then theyre locked in for 3-4 more years imo.

there would need to be a big contract for him somewhere else and does that even exist thinking probably not

I'm thinking dray is gone before the next season starts. he has his 4 rings and now he's hungry for that other kind of nba player prestige: the biggest contract he can command.

hes taken less than he could have gotten on every deal so far. im not sure money is the ultimate motivator for him, he's more of i demand respect type of guy i think.

i thought dray wanted to play with lebron and where is lebron exactly?

dray always hated bron until this contract situation came up

He signed w klutch and that was that.

I’m not so sure he wants to go to LA… his best position is lebrons position and Brows position and they need shooting.

Rumors he’s been recruiting bron to GSW tho…

he's more of i demand respect type of guy i think

I agree, but he's maxxed out on the respect that comes with NBA rings, olympic gold medals, all-star game appearances, and the all-nba defensive team. now he feels the the dubs front office disrespected him by not giving him a big guaranteed contract extension. I'm thinking the FO that gives him that big FA contract can lure him away, not so bcz of the money, but bcz of the respect it implies.

they havent disrespected him! he's up for free agency after this year if he opts out.

have they gone on his podcast tho

he's more of i demand respect type of guy i think

i agree & i think he takes the best offer. it's entirely possible the warriors end up valuing him more than any other team

they can offer him more too, as long as they dont mind paying another $100m or whatever in lux tax

i'm not fully aware of who has cap space this offseason but i could def see a team like the pistons putting a major offer on the table for him thinking that he could legitimize their defense, locker room etc. and i could see him taking a deal like that even if it takes further rings off the table. hard to picture any contending team blowing a bunch of cap space on him... most contending teams don't even have cap space

lakers could offer him a lot of money as long as they dont mind having a roster of mostly minimum players which if i were them i would mind

isn’t that kind of their thing though

looking at sportrac cap space estimates for next year and the top teams are...

1. San Antonio Spurs
2. Houston Rockets
3. Indiana Pacers
4. Orlando Magic
5. Detroit Pistons
6. Charlotte Hornets
7. Oklahoma City Thunder
8. Los Angeles Lakers
9. Utah Jazz
10. Sacramento Kings

feels like the warriors will have a lot of leverage if his options are re-signing or going to one of the worst teams in the NBA. the lakers are the only team that is a glamour market or has the facade of contention but also has cap space and enough desperation to look at draymond as a big money solution. so that speculation makes a lot of sense even beyond the klutch stuff

lakers are in a bird rights trap with so many contacts coming off the books this year, theyre spending ~170m this year but if they let all their expiring contracts go then then theyll be down to basically just bron and brow at ~90m and will be able to spend another ~40m to get to the estimated 2023 cap of ~130m + another ~10m for a mid level guy and thats ~30m less than this year, of course theyre not going to just let everyone walk but it is kind of a fucked up situation nevertheless, and of course russ represents almost 50m of those expiring salaries but does not deliver 50m worth of value but he does have some value

https://hoopshype.com/salaries/los_angeles_lakers/

feels like the warriors will have a lot of leverage if his options are re-signing or going to one of the worst teams in the NBA.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, January 17, 2023 3:23 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and the bad teams mostly being in the process of rebuilding prob dont even want him, cld see sacto making him an offer tho you never know what the kings are going to get up to, and theres always the chance of a capped out team engineering some cap space or a sign and trade

all things being equal i would like to see him on a lakers team comprised bron brow and a bunch of scrubs thats the best thing for the league

i feel like the pistons are the only other team to watch bcuz of the hometown (ish) aspect & they seem to want to be competitive i.e. trading for bojan. but they also traded a first in order to take jalen duren in the lottery & we’ve already seen what happens when you try and develop a young center on draymond’s team so idk

i think 'the punch' plus the fact he's openly said he doesnt try if there's nothing on the line means he wont be hunted by young teams in need of vet leadership. i think that hurts his chances of going to a contender even, not knowing what dray you're gonna get: could completely blow your team up from the inside or could raise your ceiling to champ status.... is it worth the risk?

to me it comes down to these chances

60% warriors
20% lakers
15% another contender via sign n trade
5% picks up his option and plays out one more year in GS and kicks it down the road one more year when more teams have money (presumably?)

given the second career he's already begun, i can't imagine he's gonna want to go to detroit or san antonio to close out his playing days instead of just being on television every night

i could def see detroit for his final contract days to play at home with the kids once theyve grown up a bit

really hoping the big three all retire as warriors but thats nearly impossible to pull off and this ownership group seems ok to move on if needs be

yeah that wld be crazy never even happens with one guy anymore

or shd say hardly ever with one guy

*big three + loon lol

+ bron

steph strikes me as possibly/probably a coach someday.

This team is frustrating this year

game last night was similar to the celtics one seemed like they were rolling with an eight point lead with five to go and just could not hold on

steph so lazy sometimes ha, just throws willy-nilly looping cross court passes for no reason, and spamming the three ball vs getting a good look when it matters. klay couldnt hit anything but kept forcing it. wiggins sickness/injury must have really messed him up cos he is like 60% himself atm.

the best news right now is that kuminga looks to be the missing rotation piece and is developing nicely. i imagine wiggins will come back around and curry will get engaged at some point again but time is ticking on turning it around this season.

yeah steph doesnt seem super dialed in idk whats up with that mb just midseason blues but damn theyve got to win some games someone shd tell him

he did this last season too, came out in mvp form then just kinda ho hummed for a couple months. dont blame him really but they dont have the luxury with how thin the depth is on the roster

In the time passes way too fast category, Klay's 37 pt quarter vs the Kings was 8 years ago. Just an insane record. Hope this season doesn't end with us reminiscing about the glory days because the 22-23 team never puts it together. There is still time but c'mon guys clock is ticking.

8 years!

heeeeeere we go

https://theathletic.com/4123595/2023/01/25/warriors-bob-myers-contract-extension/

when you see these words you know the end is nigh
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnVMwxtakAEy1I3?format=jpg&name=small

oh my god

oh no

oof. haven't read the full article yet, but at the end of that excerpt, pinning the Wiseman/Kuminga/et al. picks on Lacob. Could be true, could be some scrambling to reassign blame, either way nagl

i think its just that hes involved and hes as worried about the team post-curry as much as if not more than whats currently in front of him. curry has basically never said anything so this is a big deal that hes speaking out now, good on him finally chirping up tho.

kuminga looks like he could be the real deal. there really was no reason to hold on to their two draft picks from this year, also keeping a roster spot open. they dont need to do anything crazy just have a good balance like last season, the balance of the roster is tipped too far to the inexperienced side of things right now.

on another note, the small ball 5 isnt working that great and it seems like the best way for it to work is with kuminga at the 4 and then ride the hot hand of whatever combination of poole/klay/wiggins at the 2/3 spot.

oh yeah kuminga is not looking like he's going to be a bust per se, but when you're trying to do the vaunted Two Timelines better to go for those more polished, ready to contribute from the jump kind of picks. of course those guys are not exactly plentiful and just there for the taking anyway

so much of this comes down to completely whiffing on wiseman

what's happening with Moody? I thought he had a good opportunity with GPII leaving but Moody isn't getting that much playing time. Moody is only 20 so he could be important on the youngsters timeline. Instead Donte is getting more minutes.

didnt make any improvement on defense and is very turnover prone on offense. i still believe but they need to win games so gotta go with the guys that are the most consistent at the moment. kuminga they are putting on the best offensive players and hes holding up which is so valuable cos he offers an offensive skillset they need badly (drawing fouls, vertical rim threat, back door cutting threat, screen setting). kuminga is really actually the gp2 replacement with upside to be much much better.

kuminga as gp2 v2 would be very nice indeed. moody might need a different situation to build his game.

moody & payton are totally different players. payton is a small ball 5 who happens to be 6-2. moody is just a normal shooting guard

i don't think it's much of a coincidence that of their three picks, the one who plays a position where there is almost always playing time in the league (wing/4/small ball 5 hybrid), and who doesn't need the ball in his hands to make an impact, has shown multiple flashes of being a real player. whereas moody is stuck behind klay and poole and dante, and wiseman is stuck behind draymond and looney, while needing the ball a lot to provide value. those aren't really conducive environments to development, imo