Joe Lacob On Andrew Wiggins Trade: Maybe The Greatest Deal We've Ever Done

[RealGM Wiretap]

Joe Lacob recently took a victory lap over the Golden State Warriors' trade in 2020 of D'Angelo Russell for Andrew Wiggins and a lightly protected first round pick that became Jonathan Kuminga.

"I thought it was one of the greatest deals, certainly maybe the greatest deal we’ve ever done," Lacob started, presumably referring to his tenure with the team. "And one of the best I’ve seen in a long, long time. I thought it was a killer deal. I thought Bob [Myers] did an amazing job. I don’t even know how to put it strong enough."

Wiggins has developed into an invaluable role player for the Warriors while Russell's fit with the team was clearly clunky. 

Via Tim Kawakami/The Athletic (via Alex Shultz/San Francisco Chronicle)

[Revived]

Wiggins is still seen as a negative contract so it can’t be the greatest deal. Certainly not better than trading away Monta Ellis.

[Michael Jackson]

Yeah he is really selling something that isn't there. Is Wiggins better on this team than DeAngelo is? Yeah, but really Russell was brought in just so that they had an asset for losing Durant. So in the sense that Wiggins is better than being capped out still and not having space to sign a player like Wiggins, I guess that makes sense?

[Fade_awayJ]

Warriors threads always have the most negative responses...

[SFrush]

Wiggins is still seen as a negative contract so it can’t be the greatest deal. Certainly not better than trading away Monta Ellis.

Kuminga plays a large part in it. Depending on how he develops it could very well be the greatest trade they have made.

[dougthonus]

In general, they traded similar caliber players/contracts to get a pick you would project to be in the lottery and ended up at #7.

The guy they got now probably looks like a better player, so on that note it's a win.

If you look a this as a string of transactions though starting with deciding to take DeAngelo Russell vs letting Durant walk and drafting Kuminga, then that string of deals looks pretty awful. They effectively will end up paying something 500M for those two guys over the course of their contract vs if they just didn't do this trade at all.

Really hard to argue that Wiggins + Kuminga was worth half a billion dollars.

[TimRobbins]

In general, they traded similar caliber players/contracts to get a pick you would project to be in the lottery and ended up at #7.

The guy they got now probably looks like a better player, so on that note it's a win.

If you look a this as a string of transactions though starting with deciding to take DeAngelo Russell vs letting Durant walk and drafting Kuminga, then that string of deals looks pretty awful. They effectively will end up paying something 500M for those two guys over the course of their contract vs if they just didn't do this trade at all.

Really hard to argue that Wiggins + Kuminga was worth half a billion dollars.

I'm not sure money is the right way to judge a trade. In basketball terms, the current Warriors team would be far worse without the trade.

[hyberx]

In general, they traded similar caliber players/contracts to get a pick you would project to be in the lottery and ended up at #7.

The guy they got now probably looks like a better player, so on that note it's a win.

If you look a this as a string of transactions though starting with deciding to take DeAngelo Russell vs letting Durant walk and drafting Kuminga, then that string of deals looks pretty awful. They effectively will end up paying something 500M for those two guys over the course of their contract vs if they just didn't do this trade at all.

Really hard to argue that Wiggins + Kuminga was worth half a billion dollars.

Except you can't look at the trade as a simple dollar figure vs Wiggins + Kuminga. Ws would be capped out even if we got nobody and just let Kurant walk, so the cap hit is not part of this equation at all. Nobody can argue Wiggins + Kuminga are not great addition to the team. Any team would die to have Wiggins as their 3rd scoring option if money is not part of the equation and Kuminga is the 7th pick in a historically strong draft for a good reason. The only "drawback" would be the team have to pay that extra salary, yet deep-pocket Lacob does not mind paying and we fans certainly don't mind either, so what's the loss? Nothing. Myer basically turned nothing into two valuable assets, while pulling off trading away DLo who obviously doesn't fit the team, that's what Lacob meant.

[dougthonus]

Except you can't look at the trade as a simple dollar figure vs Wiggins + Kuminga. Ws would be capped out even if we got nobody and just let Kurant walk, so the cap hit is not part of this equation at all. Nobody can argue Wiggins + Kuminga are not great addition to the team. Any team would die to have Wiggins as their 3rd scoring option if money is not part of the equation and Kuminga is the 7th pick in a historically strong draft for a good reason. The only "drawback" would be the team have to pay that extra salary, yet deep-pocket Lacob does not mind paying and we fans certainly don't mind either, so what's the loss? Nothing. Myer basically turned nothing into two valuable assets, while pulling off trading away DLo who obviously doesn't fit the team, that's what Lacob meant.

They are two assets that are valuable to the Warriors ignoring salary.

Wiggins isn't valuable around the league for his salary. Kuminga is a draft prospect that may or may not pan out (and certainly hasn't done anything at all to date, but this early in his career, so no judgments yet).

The Warriors also had to move Iguodala and give up a draft pick in order to complete this trade, so they also lose their 2024 pick and who knows how valuable that may or may not be. To be determined later.

At any rate, if you want to say the Warriors are better off doing this than not if you ignore money, I agree probably this move helps them more than not doing it at all. That doesn't mean if they were going to spend 500 million that this was the best way they could allocate those funds even knowing they were going to have difficult tax restrictions later. A creative GM may have found a better path forward.

Beyond that, if you are going to brag about how brilliant it is, then show the whole context. Yeah, it was a decent move if you ignore finances which maybe the Warriors and Lakers are the only two teams in the league that have that luxury. That doesn't make it brilliant, it just shows they are flexing an advantage no one else has, and quite honestly, to pretty pedestrian results really.

You spent 500M to get Kuminga and Wiggins for your 2024 pick and Iguodala. Congrats I guess. Fair chance you could have flipped Iguodala and your 2024 pick for something more valuable than this package and also spent less than half the money.

[SFrush]

Except you can't look at the trade as a simple dollar figure vs Wiggins + Kuminga. Ws would be capped out even if we got nobody and just let Kurant walk, so the cap hit is not part of this equation at all. Nobody can argue Wiggins + Kuminga are not great addition to the team. Any team would die to have Wiggins as their 3rd scoring option if money is not part of the equation and Kuminga is the 7th pick in a historically strong draft for a good reason. The only "drawback" would be the team have to pay that extra salary, yet deep-pocket Lacob does not mind paying and we fans certainly don't mind either, so what's the loss? Nothing. Myer basically turned nothing into two valuable assets, while pulling off trading away DLo who obviously doesn't fit the team, that's what Lacob meant.

They are two assets that are valuable to the Warriors ignoring salary.

Wiggins isn't valuable around the league for his salary. Kuminga is a draft prospect that may or may not pan out (and certainly hasn't done anything at all to date, but this early in his career, so no judgments yet).

The Warriors also had to move Iguodala and give up a draft pick in order to complete this trade, so they also lose their 2024 pick and who knows how valuable that may or may not be. To be determined later.

At any rate, if you want to say the Warriors are better off doing this than not if you ignore money, I agree probably this move helps them more than not doing it at all. That doesn't mean if they were going to spend 500 million that this was the best way they could allocate those funds even knowing they were going to have difficult tax restrictions later. A creative GM may have found a better path forward.

Beyond that, if you are going to brag about how brilliant it is, then show the whole context. Yeah, it was a decent move if you ignore finances which maybe the Warriors and Lakers are the only two teams in the league that have that luxury. That doesn't make it brilliant, it just shows they are flexing an advantage no one else has, and quite honestly, to pretty pedestrian results really.

You spent 500M to get Kuminga and Wiggins for your 2024 pick and Iguodala. Congrats I guess. Fair chance you could have flipped Iguodala and your 2024 pick for something more valuable than this package and also spent less than half the money.

Where are you getting 500 mil from? That figure is not accurate at all.

[dougthonus]

Where are you getting 500 mil from? That figure is not accurate at all.

Rough guess on combined payments in salary + luxury tax owed due to those additional salaries. They're projected to pay 160M in tax this year and would be under without those two guys so add in their 37M and this year is about 200M for them. Last year, they paid 145M or so and again, would have only paid about 5M without Wiggins, so he cost them something around 170M or so last year. They were under the tax the other year, so they're at almost 400M for those two years.

Next year' they're set to pay over 100M again that they wouldn't pay if they didn't have these two guys which gets them over 500M.

Granted, they may find other moves that change these numbers some, but it's in the ballpark.

And again, not saying you should care about Joe's money. I don't and Joe clearly doesn't. However, it's not like this was their only opportunity to go into the tax or they only option they could do. It's fine and the one move of Russell for this package was objectively a very good move, but the overall context is nothing meaningfully special.

If you want to throw in, our GM let Kevin Durant get away and couldn't convince him to stay into the mix as part of this whole thing, then it really goes awry, but I won't stretch the context that far.

[hyberx]

At any rate, if you want to say the Warriors are better off doing this than not if you ignore money, I agree probably this move helps them more than not doing it at all. That doesn't mean if they were going to spend 500 million that this was the best way they could allocate those funds even knowing they were going to have difficult tax restrictions later. A creative GM may have found a better path forward.

Beyond that, if you are going to brag about how brilliant it is, then show the whole context. Yeah, it was a decent move if you ignore finances which maybe the Warriors and Lakers are the only two teams in the league that have that luxury. That doesn't make it brilliant, it just shows they are flexing an advantage no one else has, and quite honestly, to pretty pedestrian results really.

You spent 500M to get Kuminga and Wiggins for your 2024 pick and Iguodala. Congrats I guess. Fair chance you could have flipped Iguodala and your 2024 pick for something more valuable than this package and also spent less than half the money.

2024 pick is top 4 protected and if either Kuminga/Wiseman become a star, the Ws would still be a contender even with older Curry and Klay, resulting in a low pick. The 2024 pick doesn't help the W's timeline for another title with Curry and Klay's prime right now at all, but Wiggins does. Saying the 2024 pick + Iggy would land something is guesswork that has zero backing of reality. Nobody else would trade for Iggy at his age and salary without that pick. Myer had to pull that off for cap space, so I guess you are a better GM than Myer, always easy on paper lol.

[Sofia]

Lacob might blow his own horn more than just about anyone in the league

[Soca]

Yeah he is really selling something that isn't there. Is Wiggins better on this team than DeAngelo is? Yeah, but really Russell was brought in just so that they had an asset for losing Durant. So in the sense that Wiggins is better than being capped out still and not having space to sign a player like Wiggins, I guess that makes sense?

They nearly lost Durant for nothing. Considering the circumstances turning a lost asset into Wiggins/Kuminga was pretty good roster management.

[Michael Jackson]

Yeah he is really selling something that isn't there. Is Wiggins better on this team than DeAngelo is? Yeah, but really Russell was brought in just so that they had an asset for losing Durant. So in the sense that Wiggins is better than being capped out still and not having space to sign a player like Wiggins, I guess that makes sense?

They nearly lost Durant for nothing. Considering the circumstances turning a lost asset into Wiggins/Kuminga was pretty good roster management.

Not arguing that but calling it the best move ever is a reach. Lemonade out of lemons it is for sure though.

[Soca]

Yeah he is really selling something that isn't there. Is Wiggins better on this team than DeAngelo is? Yeah, but really Russell was brought in just so that they had an asset for losing Durant. So in the sense that Wiggins is better than being capped out still and not having space to sign a player like Wiggins, I guess that makes sense?

They nearly lost Durant for nothing. Considering the circumstances turning a lost asset into Wiggins/Kuminga was pretty good roster management.

Not arguing that but calling it the best move ever is a reach. Lemonade out of lemons it is for sure though.

Too soon to say either way. We don't know what Kuminga will become down the line.

[floppymoose]

It's not too soon. Even if Wiggins and Kuminga flame out after this season it was already worth it.