WOJ: D'Lo to Minnesota for Andrew Wiggins and picks

[Jedzz]

Btw, I’ve found some of the Warriors fans on the Trade Board simply appalling.

It isn’t because they have different opinions (that’s what makes the board fun), but because they have been dishonest. They tout Russell as a “superstar,” when he wears a Warriors jersey, but the second he is traded they completely change their tune.

To me, that’s simply dishonest. Why are we here using up our valuable free time at RealGM if people aren’t posting what they honestly think? And what benefit is there to lying on RealGM anyway? Even if they were able to fool somebody here, it’s not like we have any influence over what happens with our real teams anyway!

Even in the Eat Crow thread, they don’t accept responsibility for vastly over-valuing what Russell would bring back in trade. They say things like, “I was mistaken that my GM would make such a horrible trade for a valuable player.”

Thanks. I just wanted to get that off my chest. A couple of the GSW posters are very good - two of my favorites, but they let some of their pals say outrageous stuff uncorrected. One benefit to me for this trade is that I won’t have to listen to any more “Russell is an untradable superstar in GSW player - the only way to get him is to trade us Towns”-crap any more.

I had a hard time reading some of their high opinions of self/team and players since this summer as well. To me, it just came off as people trying to sell themselves on their own team more more than dishonesty. If they throw themselves into belief and never waver from that overbearing belief in their discussions it's kind of like hypnotising themselves into being OK with what is. Nobody can break that wall down they are building. We have some here that kind of do the same at times, defending the defenseless moves. They don't give an inch sometimes. I ask why they do it too. Are they getting paid to massage the masses from an internet forum? Are they trying to help the team maintain the value of a player with their words alone? A lying dysfunction? I think it's more about hypnotizing themselves into liking what is, and stopping others from bringing them back to earth.

[jscott]

Btw, I’ve found some of the Warriors fans on the Trade Board simply appalling.

It isn’t because they have different opinions (that’s what makes the board fun), but because they have been dishonest. They tout Russell as a “superstar,” when he wears a Warriors jersey, but the second he is traded they completely change their tune.

To me, that’s simply dishonest. Why are we here using up our valuable free time at RealGM if people aren’t posting what they honestly think? And what benefit is there to lying on RealGM anyway? Even if they were able to fool somebody here, it’s not like we have any influence over what happens with our real teams anyway!

Even in the Eat Crow thread, they don’t accept responsibility for vastly over-valuing what Russell would bring back in trade. They say things like, “I was mistaken that my GM would make such a horrible trade for a valuable player.”

Thanks. I just wanted to get that off my chest. A couple of the GSW posters are very good - two of my favorites, but they let some of their pals say outrageous stuff uncorrected. One benefit to me for this trade is that I won’t have to listen to any more “Russell is an untradable superstar in GSW player - the only way to get him is to trade us Towns”-crap any more.

Yeah, Coxy sure can’t admit he’s wrong.

He touts then getting “market value” for him. Well, no ****. You were always going to get market value. By definition it’s whatever the market will pay.

That dude is super frustrating to talk to.

[Jedzz]

GSW never traded for Russell as a player, or as some GSW fans put it -“ a superstar that could work just fine with Curry.”

Durant was signing with the Nets and they could either lose Durant for nothing, or receive someone .. anyone .. from the Nets in a sign-and-trade that they could use to maintain that amount of salary over the cap. Russell was on his way out anyway (BRK needed the cap space to sign KD, Kyrie and DeAndre Jordan), and BRK didn’t care where he wound up.

For the Warriors, Wiggins maintains the Russell salary so they can continue to operate as an over the cap team, and later an over the lux team, as they try for championships in the final years of Steph (32), Klay and Draymon (30).

I would appreciate if you could explain why they would want to simply maintain that amount of salary over the cap, and maintain themselves seemingly at the very edge of the hard cap. What kind of positives does that bring for them and what is the negative for them if they would have dropped below had they not brought in Dlo?

[jscott]

GSW never traded for Russell as a player, or as some GSW fans put it -“ a superstar that could work just fine with Curry.”

Durant was signing with the Nets and they could either lose Durant for nothing, or receive someone .. anyone .. from the Nets in a sign-and-trade that they could use to maintain that amount of salary over the cap. Russell was on his way out anyway (BRK needed the cap space to sign KD, Kyrie and DeAndre Jordan), and BRK didn’t care where he wound up.

For the Warriors, Wiggins maintains the Russell salary so they can continue to operate as an over the cap team, and later an over the lux team, as they try for championships in the final years of Steph (32), Klay and Draymon (30).

I would appreciate if you could explain why they would want to simply maintain that amount of salary over the cap, and maintain themselves seemingly at the very edge of the hard cap. What kind of positives does that bring for them and what is the negative for them if they would have dropped below had they not brought in Dlo?

Say for instance the difference between the Salary Cap and the Hard Cap is 30 million dollars.

It’s difficult to fill that 30 mil with the MLE and min contracts. The idea is either that you should be way under the salary cap to sign FAs or at the max allowed (hard cap) to utilize as much salary for your roster as possible.

You need cap to trade to take cap back, essentially.

[younggunsmn]

I think more than anything, something big had to happen because things were getting to a dangerous point of toxicity with KAT as well as with the fanbase. These trades, especially the D-Lo trade, will buy Rosas at least one full season of time with both.

It also clears a lot of pieces off the board and replaces them with question marks.
We have 32 games to evaluate whether Beasley is a long term fit, and to see if vanderbilt and hernangomez are worth bringing back.
To see if Spellman is a rotation piece. The one negative we picked up is that we are stuck with Evans contract next year and that does eat up a small bit of capspace. But give trader Rosas some time and he may be able to move those deals.

I am not a fan of James Johnson, I hope he proves me wrong that he has something left in the tank. Maybe as a veteran he will be able to be a leader on the defensive side of the ball. Honestly I'd rather see what Spellman can do in the role.

[KGdaBom]

Me too. At least he changes the mood around here.

I think most of the people here are happy with the trade. I sure hope he doesn't prove most of the people here wrong.

A lot of people hate it tho from what ive read on the board. One poster even gave up being a wolves fan lmao.


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Some certainly didn't like it, however the easy majority are in favor of it. At least 2-1 maybe more. So my comment that I don't want him to prove most of the people wrong stands.

[Jedzz]

GSW never traded for Russell as a player, or as some GSW fans put it -“ a superstar that could work just fine with Curry.”

Durant was signing with the Nets and they could either lose Durant for nothing, or receive someone .. anyone .. from the Nets in a sign-and-trade that they could use to maintain that amount of salary over the cap. Russell was on his way out anyway (BRK needed the cap space to sign KD, Kyrie and DeAndre Jordan), and BRK didn’t care where he wound up.

For the Warriors, Wiggins maintains the Russell salary so they can continue to operate as an over the cap team, and later an over the lux team, as they try for championships in the final years of Steph (32), Klay and Draymon (30).

I would appreciate if you could explain why they would want to simply maintain that amount of salary over the cap, and maintain themselves seemingly at the very edge of the hard cap. What kind of positives does that bring for them and what is the negative for them if they would have dropped below had they not brought in Dlo?

Say for instance the difference between the Salary Cap and the Hard Cap is 30 million dollars.

It’s difficult to fill that 30 mil with the MLE and min contracts. The idea is either that you should be way under the salary cap to sign FAs or at the max allowed (hard cap) to utilize as much salary for your roster as possible.

You need cap to trade to take cap back, essentially.

Ah now better understood. Thank you.

[younggunsmn]

GSW never traded for Russell as a player, or as some GSW fans put it -“ a superstar that could work just fine with Curry.”

Durant was signing with the Nets and they could either lose Durant for nothing, or receive someone .. anyone .. from the Nets in a sign-and-trade that they could use to maintain that amount of salary over the cap. Russell was on his way out anyway (BRK needed the cap space to sign KD, Kyrie and DeAndre Jordan), and BRK didn’t care where he wound up.

For the Warriors, Wiggins maintains the Russell salary so they can continue to operate as an over the cap team, and later an over the lux team, as they try for championships in the final years of Steph (32), Klay and Draymon (30).

This is a fair point. They are capped out for at least 3 more years with Steph, Klay, and Draymond (who quietly has one of the worst contracts in the league with 4/100 left after this year). It's part of the reason they went after Russell so hard.

They were looking at 4 years with just the MLE, late draft picks, and no significant tradeable assets to improve the team with.

They technically traded 2 future first round picks to acquire Russell.
The 2020 top 20 protected 1st to get the Nets to S/T Durant, which will instead turn into a 2025 2nd
(which with a full season of a healthy Steph, there was a chance it would have gone to the Nets)
And a 2024 top 4 protected 1st (top 1 2025, unprot 2026) to send Iguodala to Memphis (which was necessary regardless of a Durant S/T, since they needed to move Iguodala to do a S/T because otherwise the hard cap would have prevented it).

So Essentially, the Warriors traded:
Iguodala
2024 GSW 1st (top 4)
2025 GSW 2nd
Spellman
Evans

for
Wiggins
2021 MN 1st (top 3)
2021 MN 2nd


That 2024 pick, with a 36 year old Curry and 34 year old Draymond and Klay, all with injury histories, could be better than the pick that we eventually give them.

[younggunsmn]

I hate trading away picks, and having top 3 (and not top 4) protection on our pick going out is a bit puzzling,

New Orleans and Memphis are rapidly improving, the Warriors will be healthy next year, and while I think it will be hard for us to make the playoffs next year, I don't think it will be hard to crack the 11-14 range with our draft pick, with so many bad teams tanking.
If all we end up giving up is another Austin Rivers, totally worth it. Look what a crapshoot the 2019 draft is already looking like.
Culver and Hunter look like busts at picks 4 and 6 already, and outside of Ja and Zion it is hard to find a real impact player.

[shrink]

GSW never traded for Russell as a player, or as some GSW fans put it -“ a superstar that could work just fine with Curry.”

Durant was signing with the Nets and they could either lose Durant for nothing, or receive someone .. anyone .. from the Nets in a sign-and-trade that they could use to maintain that amount of salary over the cap. Russell was on his way out anyway (BRK needed the cap space to sign KD, Kyrie and DeAndre Jordan), and BRK didn’t care where he wound up.

For the Warriors, Wiggins maintains the Russell salary so they can continue to operate as an over the cap team, and later an over the lux team, as they try for championships in the final years of Steph (32), Klay and Draymon (30).

I would appreciate if you could explain why they would want to simply maintain that amount of salary over the cap, and maintain themselves seemingly at the very edge of the hard cap. What kind of positives does that bring for them and what is the negative for them if they would have dropped below had they not brought in Dlo?

Say for instance the difference between the Salary Cap and the Hard Cap is 30 million dollars.

It’s difficult to fill that 30 mil with the MLE and min contracts. The idea is either that you should be way under the salary cap to sign FAs or at the max allowed (hard cap) to utilize as much salary for your roster as possible.

You need cap to trade to take cap back, essentially.

Good explanation. Let me add a couple things to make it clearer, because I can’t skip a soapbox.

To win a championship, you clearly need as much talent on the team as possible, and that talent costs money. Few teams have won championships lately without being in the lux. To help smaller markets compete, the CBA enacted lux taxes, which everyone is familiar with. These big markets also have another advantage that they can draw stars in free agency. To limit them from being like the Yankees, and buying rings, the CBA says you can only offer a free agent your cap space, and for those teams that try to sidestep that with a sign-and-trade. If you do that you can’t go over the lux apron.

The lux penalties help the Players Association avoid a true hard cap, so if a team wants a player bad enough, they can spend a fortune to get him. But the other rules are in place so that if a team cuts all their money, and grabs stars for cap space, it should take them a few seasons to raise their payroll far into the lux to grab all the rest of the talent they would want. The CBA has exceptions (.. when you can add salary when you are over the salary cap), so if you duck under, you can only add say, a $10 mil player ... when your team may want to spend $50 mil more in salary. Outside of free agency, the only way to increase your team’s payroll when you are over the lux is with bird rights, with vet min exceptions, bi-annual exception, and in trades. They limit trades to by matching salary, like it is illegal to take back over 125% of what you give out. However, it takes time.

So let’s look at GSW. They have money, but they don’t have time. Kevin Durant was a UFA, and he was about to lower their payroll $35 mil by signing with BRK. If that happens, GSW’s total payroll is much lower, and it will take some time and several trades to even get back to where they were right now .. and they want to spend much more, to give an aging Curry, Draymon and Klay every chance to win more rings, while their new arena makes them a fortune. So by trading Durant for DLo (and now Wiggins), they keep $27 mil on the books, so next season they start off as high as possible to use the methods listed above to add more talent to their lux payroll.

[younggunsmn]

I see a lot of knocks on D-Lo's athleticism, but he does have 2 things:
1. Short area quickness
2. Agility with the ball in his hands.

James Harden isn't a super athlete either, but he is one of if not maybe the best in the league currently in the 2 above areas.
And Wiggins is considered an athletic freak, but he is considered below average to outright poor in the above areas.
I'm not saying Russell is Harden, or even close to Harden, but don't underrate his physical skills with the ball in his hands.
On the defensive end, he will have more problems. But if he can use that short-area agility and learn to use his hands to be more of a pest, I think he can be better.

Defensively, he does have enough size to hide him on a non-primary ballhandler. This would allow us to put Culver or another more defensive minded wing on the other team's primary ballhandling threat.

Offensively, the 2 areas he needs to improve most are Turnovers and FT shooting, those both are dragging down his efficiency.

[_AIJ_]

I think most of the people here are happy with the trade. I sure hope he doesn't prove most of the people here wrong.

A lot of people hate it tho from what ive read on the board. One poster even gave up being a wolves fan lmao.


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Some certainly didn't like it, however the easy majority are in favor of it. At least 2-1 maybe more. So my comment that I don't want him to prove most of the people wrong stands.

I hear ya. But my point though is he’ll prove the doubters wrong. But you already know about that. Cheers


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[Calinks]

I don't care if they wanted to get rid of him. We wanted to get rid of Wiggins. Even if Russell doesn't play a lick of defense, I don't care, we can move him if we have to, Wiggins was nearly untradable.

The first keeps the second from happening.

After NYK and DET use a lottery pick on the PG situation, who do you think we could trade DLo too?

I think as long as he is one of the better scorers in the NBA, teams will be willing to talk themselves into getting him. In two-three seasons he will still be young, he will have a couple of years left on his deal, and he will likely be an improved player in some area.

Wiggins has been inefficient and bad all over. Russell at least can be sold on the fact that he has a big time scoring punch. We were able to move Wiggins in part because he went on a scoring tear earlier this year.

As for who will trade for him? The NBA landscape is changing rapidly. Teams that are content with their PG today may not be teams that are content tomorrow. End of the day I think Russell is far more tradable than Wiggins and I don't see that changing in the near future.

Maybe we don't get great assets in return for him, but I think we can get off that money if there comes a time when we want to.

[Jedzz]

GSW never traded for Russell as a player, or as some GSW fans put it -“ a superstar that could work just fine with Curry.”

Durant was signing with the Nets and they could either lose Durant for nothing, or receive someone .. anyone .. from the Nets in a sign-and-trade that they could use to maintain that amount of salary over the cap. Russell was on his way out anyway (BRK needed the cap space to sign KD, Kyrie and DeAndre Jordan), and BRK didn’t care where he wound up.

For the Warriors, Wiggins maintains the Russell salary so they can continue to operate as an over the cap team, and later an over the lux team, as they try for championships in the final years of Steph (32), Klay and Draymon (30).

This is a fair point. They are capped out for at least 3 more years with Steph, Klay, and Draymond (who quietly has one of the worst contracts in the league with 4/100 left after this year). It's part of the reason they went after Russell so hard.

They were looking at 4 years with just the MLE, late draft picks, and no significant tradeable assets to improve the team with.

They technically traded 2 future first round picks to acquire Russell.
The 2020 top 20 protected 1st to get the Nets to S/T Durant, which will instead turn into a 2025 2nd
(which with a full season of a healthy Steph, there was a chance it would have gone to the Nets)
And a 2024 top 4 protected 1st (top 1 2025, unprot 2026) to send Iguodala to Memphis (which was necessary regardless of a Durant S/T, since they needed to move Iguodala to do a S/T because otherwise the hard cap would have prevented it).

So Essentially, the Warriors traded:
Iguodala
2024 GSW 1st (top 4)
2025 GSW 2nd
Spellman
Evans

for
Wiggins
2021 MN 1st (top 3)
2021 MN 2nd


That 2024 pick, with a 36 year old Curry and 34 year old Draymond and Klay, all with injury histories, could be better than the pick that we eventually give them.

I've already read a few Warriors fans trying to combine the Iggy move in to massage the idea of how much they "actually" paid for Dlo while listening to them defend the Warriors when I claimed they are just deviously good at working every angle and loophole of this system and more or less treating other teams as farm systems and a wall to bounce a ball off of to get the ball to come back. Brooklyn needed the space for Durant+ signings, Warriors needed to maintain capload and paid a 2nd round pick for it. Warriors paying the Iggy cost was just a dead process cost that was forced by the Klay injury season and how the Warriors choose to operate in cap insanity land. It doesn't have any bearing on Dlo's cost/value to attain or what he can/should have been traded for.

There is no getting around it. The Warriors very competently traded a 2025 2nd round pick for the rights to have Dlo run their tank, (and maintain their capload as I've been getting taught about today), while Klay was out. And they did so with a "fake" appearance of trading a FRP that appeases others watching it all happen. There was a very real fit problem with Dlo/Steph and no, I don't think there was ever any chance of that FRP conveying. That's exactly why it wasn't just a Lotto protected pick, it was stretched out to 1-20 protected for a reason. They knew there was a risk had Steph played that they would outplay the lotto range. But that's it.

[Calinks]

I'm not super high on Russell either. I think he's a pretty good PG, just not really a max guy but he's good. ON the other hand I think Wiggins is mediocre to bad. He has spurts where he is elite (better than Russell IMO) but he can't maintain that. I will take good over up and down mediocre any day.

[Crazy-Canuck]

I'm not super high on Russell either. I think he's a pretty good PG, just not really a max guy but he's good. ON the other hand I think Wiggins is mediocre to bad. He has spurts where he is elite (better than Russell IMO) but he can't maintain that. I will take good over up and down mediocre any day.

I think gsw really wanted dlo off the team and tried to start a bidding war with that rumor of a couple unprotected picks. But apparently there were no suitors for dlo, no one else wanted him. I think the dlo love on this board was alot like the okogie love last season; anyone but wiggins.

So as bad as wiggins was for us, the scarcity of his position is what helped sell gsw on him according to kerr. Wings are really hard to find compared to other positions, especially pgs.

But, i do agree thst Russell's offensive and lack of defensr will be constant, so it will be much easier to watch because you know what you will get game in and game out. You really had no idea which wiggs was going to show up until after the 5 minute mark.

[younggunsmn]

I've already read a few Warriors fans trying to combine the Iggy move in to massage the idea of how much they "actually" paid for Dlo while listening to them defend the Warriors when I claimed they are just deviously good at working every angle and loophole of this system and more or less treating other teams as farm systems and a wall to bounce a ball off of to get the ball to come back. Brooklyn needed the space for Durant+ signings, Warriors needed to maintain capload and paid a 2nd round pick for it. Warriors paying the Iggy cost was just a dead process cost that was forced by the Klay injury season and how the Warriors choose to operate in cap insanity land. It doesn't have any bearing on Dlo's cost/value to attain or what he can/should have been traded for.

There is no getting around it. The Warriors very competently traded a 2025 2nd round pick for the rights to have Dlo run their tank, (and maintain their capload as I've been getting taught about today), while Klay was out. And they did so with a "fake" appearance of trading a FRP that appeases others watching it all happen. There was a very real fit problem with Dlo/Steph and no, I don't think there was ever any chance of that FRP conveying. That's exactly why it wasn't just a Lotto protected pick, it was stretched out to 1-20 protected for a reason. They knew there was a risk had Steph played that they would outplay the lotto range. But that's it.

The Warriors could not have acquired D-Lo without moving Iguodala's salary, because of CBA rules about sign and trades and the hard cap. There was no path to D-Lo for them without dumping Igoudala. It was not possible. The pick to the Nets was demanded by Durant because he got pissy about signing off on a sign and trade and thought the Nets should get something out of it.

[KGdaBom]

I hate trading away picks, and having top 3 (and not top 4) protection on our pick going out is a bit puzzling,

New Orleans and Memphis are rapidly improving, the Warriors will be healthy next year, and while I think it will be hard for us to make the playoffs next year, I don't think it will be hard to crack the 11-14 range with our draft pick, with so many bad teams tanking.
If all we end up giving up is another Austin Rivers, totally worth it. Look what a crapshoot the 2019 draft is already looking like.
Culver and Hunter look like busts at picks 4 and 6 already, and outside of Ja and Zion it is hard to find a real impact player.

I agree that it's strange being top 3 protected not top 4. As for Culver and Hunter being busts I don't see that. Just a little while ago Culver was looking like one of the best draft picks then inexplicably fell apart recently. Hunter has had some big games for Atlanta.

[KGdaBom]

I see a lot of knocks on D-Lo's athleticism, but he does have 2 things:
1. Short area quickness
2. Agility with the ball in his hands.

James Harden isn't a super athlete either, but he is one of if not maybe the best in the league currently in the 2 above areas.
And Wiggins is considered an athletic freak, but he is considered below average to outright poor in the above areas.
I'm not saying Russell is Harden, or even close to Harden, but don't underrate his physical skills with the ball in his hands.
On the defensive end, he will have more problems. But if he can use that short-area agility and learn to use his hands to be more of a pest, I think he can be better.

Defensively, he does have enough size to hide him on a non-primary ballhandler. This would allow us to put Culver or another more defensive minded wing on the other team's primary ballhandling threat.

Offensively, the 2 areas he needs to improve most are Turnovers and FT shooting, those both are dragging down his efficiency.

He's 6'4" which makes him a very tall PG. His FT% is 78.5. Could it be better sure, but I wouldn't call that dragging down his efficiency.

[Bruteque]

I see a lot of knocks on D-Lo's athleticism, but he does have 2 things:
1. Short area quickness
2. Agility with the ball in his hands.

James Harden isn't a super athlete either, but he is one of if not maybe the best in the league currently in the 2 above areas.
And Wiggins is considered an athletic freak, but he is considered below average to outright poor in the above areas.
I'm not saying Russell is Harden, or even close to Harden, but don't underrate his physical skills with the ball in his hands.
On the defensive end, he will have more problems. But if he can use that short-area agility and learn to use his hands to be more of a pest, I think he can be better.

Defensively, he does have enough size to hide him on a non-primary ballhandler. This would allow us to put Culver or another more defensive minded wing on the other team's primary ballhandling threat.

Offensively, the 2 areas he needs to improve most are Turnovers and FT shooting, those both are dragging down his efficiency.

Harden is actually a very apt comparison. They fall into the same bodily-kinesthetic intelligence type, characterized as deceptive. Both have elite deceleration (as HOU commentators like to call it) and an affinity for misleading passing motions (arms extending one way, but wrist flip makes the pass go another way). It's like Donovan Mitchell is to Westbrook, elite acceleration, telegraphed passing motion, the opposite end of the spectrum.

Right now what cuts into D-Lo's efficiency is that he still enjoys the start the drive stop on a dime and pop in the mid range a bit too much. That's not the most efficient use of his ability to create space with elite deceleration and deceptive body motion. No doubt that will be the first thing MIN coaching staff asks him to cut out, but one can see certainly why Rosas is so keen on getting this deal done. Gersson's probably seeing Harden Lite quite frankly.