Toronto - Golden State: A solution to the Warriors dillema

[MessiahUjiri]

The Warriors are stuck in a trifecta of bad situations: All time record payroll, aging roster, and sitting 12th in the West.


This is the plan:

• Compete this year by creatively upgrading the roster and shedding salaries
• Start rebuilding this offseason, by letting Klay walk and cashing out on the final 2 years of Steph

The Raptors are pretty good partners, as mentioned in this this proposal. Here's an expanded trade. This will need to be done via separate trades due to the CBA preventing Bruce Brown from being aggregated.


Wiggins, Podz, GPayton (injured), Moody, 2 ATL 2nds ('26 and 28)
for
BBrown, Schroder, TPE



Steph / CP3
BBrown / Schroder
Klay / Kuminga
Draymond / Trayce
Looney / Saric


^Per my rough math, the Warriors shed about ~$10M in salary+taxes this season, and also clear Wiggins and Payton off the books after this season. They simultaneously upgrade their roster for playoff readiness with a solid 10 man rotation.

After this season, let Klay walk. Renounce CP3. Cash out Steph.

Steph's $56M contract will be difficult to match for most teams, but Houston has the perfect match, in an overpaid Fred Van Vleet ($43M), along with a plethora of picks and youth. Rockets are also itching to make the playoffs, so Steph would be a perfect match. It's likely they can get a chefs platter of assets.

Next season, GSW will be able to trade the expiring contracts of Bruce Brown and Schroder. Their '24 pick would have conveyed to Portland, which means they have their '25 and '26 picks to do a quick 2-3 year tank and rebuild.


----

The Raps do this to embrace their current rebuild, and accumulate assets. Hopefully Wiggins regains his mental strength after coming home. Give him the year off and embrace the tank.

[Coxy]

I'd rather the Warriors just don't do this and keep what we have for now. Brown and Schroeder do nothing for us.

[Skybox]

I don't think Moody's too far off of Brown. Podz is better than Dennis...and both have a long way to go.

Then, if Wiggins wakes up, GSW has a real chance to do damage. He's too high-upside to just bail for okay players, IMO. Okay isn't getting them anywhere - even if it's better than bum Wiggins...I still hold out for a Wiggins revival before I settle so low.

[Bentley1225]

I think the more likely piece the trade is CP3 is using his larger expiring deal to get back further depth along with some salary relief/tax savings. I think the want to revive Wiggins and give him another 12 months.

[Mr Swagtastic]

I think GSW shouldn't move Podziemski in this deal he's looking like he's the best option to take over Klays spot next year. Wiggins is a bad/questionable deal but Brown and Schröder don't help GSW separate themselves from the pack in it already crowded Western Conference. Maybe they secure the 7th or 8th seed but it's more likely they are a play in team

[Duffman100]

This feels like a massive overpay for Brown and Schroeder.

[wegotthabeet]

Wiggins and Draymond's contracts look bad, but they can easily get under the tax next year without dropping either or CP3 even.

Klay probably re-signs for less than half his cap hold as well ($45,850,000).

it doesn't seem like they'd be desperate to shed salary next year.

[Warriors Analyst]

I like Brown, but this trade manages to make the Warriors smaller and does so without trading Chris Paul. I have 0 interest in watching Seve Kerr figure out how to get minutes distributed between Paul, Curry, Schroeder, and Brown.

[BK_2020]

If the Warriors' plan is to blow the team up anyway what is the point of giving up value to unload Wiggins at the deadline

[Lenneth]

First, there is no scenario where Warriors 'cash out' Curry. Other teams didn't cash out Magic, Bird, Duncan, Kobe, Dirk, and other franchise players, and Warriors would do the same. Cant' even imagine the magnitude of the marking armageddon if that happens... If Curry leaves, that means he wants to leave.

I found the original scenario in a realm of possibility. While it's uncharismatic for Warriors to dump a young talent to save money, Warriors can save like 50-80 mils by shedding 10 mils of the current payroll, and I saw other owners jumping on that deal. This current deal is less likely, because Schroder and his two years contract is added and Moody is also added. For a rebuilding team, I don't see a reason to have Schroder's contract.

Aside from this year's payroll, Warriors don't need to do the salary dump. Assuming Warriors dump CP3's contract, their salary would be 144 mils without Klay's extension. This year's cap is 136 mils, luxury tax threshold is 165 mils, and 2nd apron is 182 mils. They are in a pretty good situation to reset the 2nd apron and even luxury tax, if they can do something about Klay's extension. So, they are not in a hurry to dump salaries for the next year.

And Wiggins started to play better. In his last five games, he averaged 18 pts / 61.1% FG / 44% 3pts / 4.8 rebs / 2.6 asts / 1.2 blk. Not sure if this trend will continue or not, but Warriors will give him time now. At this point, I don't expect Warriors to make a major deal.

[Parataxis]

This feels like a massive overpay for Brown and Schroeder.

I assumed that a lot of that was paying to get off of Wiggins.

[gswhoops]

This feels like a massive overpay for Brown and Schroeder.

I assumed that a lot of that was paying to get off of Wiggins.

Yeah, because otherwise GS is paying a LOT for some guys who are, at best, a marginal upgrade.

Warriors can likely get out of the tax entirely next year without dumping Wiggins, so I doubt they'll pay a premium to do so. We might run into problems down the line depending on what Kuminga's extension looks like but that's not a problem that needs to be addressed this urgently.

[Chris Porter's Hair]

This makes little sense for us. I am not at all convinced this makes us better this year. Your plan seems to be to help us start over with a youth movement, but doing so by dumping Podz, Moody, and some picks.

If we decided we didn't want to spend a ton on a rebuild around the youth, we'd let go of CP3 and Klay, and that would drop costs for the owner by a boatload. I don't see us "cashing out" Curry any time soon, but if that somehow seemed like a good idea, I expect we could find takers for him at any time.