USATSI
The Golden State Warriors took a shot at trading for LeBron James around this time last year, and he wasn’t interested. They pursued Paul George a few months later, and he would’ve welcomed a sign-and-trade, but they couldn’t work one out with the Los Angeles Clippers. They moved on to Lauri Markkanen after that, but the price tag was too steep.
On Wednesday, the Warriors once again made an unsuccessful bid for a star. They tried to bring Kevin Durant back to the Bay Area, but, when he made it clear he didn’t want to return, they stood down.
And then they finally got what they wanted.
Without “mortgaging their future,” they made a win-now move for a big wing, a future Hall of Famer, a proven two-way playoff performer, a creator who can relieve some of the pressure on Stephen Curry and a player with the requisite basketball IQ to thrive in Steve Kerr’s offensive system. All it took was Jimmy Butler aggravating the Miami Heat to the point that they were willing to agree to a deal on Golden State’s terms, and Butler being so motivated to get out of Miami that he was willing to agree to an extension he’d signaled he wouldn’t sign.
Warriors win staring contest to land Butler
Leading up to Thursday’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline, some reporting made the Warriors sound desperate. They were “legitimately calling about every All-Star player,” ESPN’s Shams Charania said Monday on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
In the Butler trade, though, they were definitively not the desperate team. It cost them Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters III and their (top-10-protected) pick in this year’s draft. It did not cost them 22-year-old Jonathan Kuminga or any other young players. It did not cost them any other first-round picks.
For a while, it was easy to believe that Miami would keep Butler past the deadline if suitors didn’t up their offers. After suspending him multiple times, though, that became a much harder sell. In the end, the Heat were both determined to make the playoffs and to simply move on from the whole mess, so a package headlined by a (likely) non-lottery pick and a starting-caliber wing didn’t sound so bad.
Golden State wasn’t Butler’s first choice, but it still managed to win a staring contest when it came to the extension. The Phoenix Suns never had a realistic path to a trade involving Bradley Beal, as evidenced by multiple reports indicating that they were considering sending Durant to the Warriors in order to get Butler. When Golden State’s Durant dream was dead, it meant that, in all likelihood, so was Butler’s Phoenix dream.
At that point, why not take the $111 million offer on the table and try to help Curry chase a fifth ring?
Warriors finally find co-star to pair with Curry
There was no guarantee that this would all play out so perfectly for the Warriors. I don’t know how close they came to pivoting to Nikola Vucevic, but I know I’d be writing a dramatically different column if they had. Fortunately for them, that is entirely moot. Now that they’ve pulled this off, they’ve also validated the moves they made when they missed out on other stars.
Wiggins had much more value than he did last summer after returning to form this season. They acquired Anderson with an exception that they got in the Klay Thompson sign-and-trade. They acquired Schroder at the last possible date that would allow them to aggregate his salary in a consolidation trade like this one. They could only afford to entertain a four-for-one swap because they had a zillion rotation-caliber role players on the roster.
Butler is not a flawless player, and he will not necessarily transform Golden State into an inner-circle contender. In a perfect world, Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s front office surely would have preferred to trade for a younger star with more shooting gravity. As another prominent executive likes to say, though, you don’t get to go the superstar store and pick your favorite.
Given what the Warriors gave up, this is a superb, bordering on miraculous conclusion to their search for a co-star for Curry.
It’s better than overpaying for Markkanen, and it might be better than the trade they were willing to make for George. As frustrating as it has been for them to trudge through the season around the .500 mark, they should be thankful that they didn’t do anything shortsighted.
Sure, Kerr has smashed some clipboards and slammed his fist against the wall, but the franchise’s patience paid off.
