The Warriors bet on themselves and against the Timberwolves by trading D’Angelo Russell
By Ethan Strauss 32m ago
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Well, the D’Angelo Russell experiment was certainly short-lived. Despite the Warriors’ protestations and tendency to insist that Russell was part of their future core, they changed course on Thursday, sending the 23-year-old point guard to the Timberwolves in exchange for Andrew Wiggins, a 2021 top-3 protected first-round pick and a 2022 second-round pick.
Few Warriors fans are celebrating this move, as it appeared the Wolves were in desperation mode, attempting to placate an increasingly despondent Karl-Anthony Towns by adding Russell, his close friend. While the Warriors did earn a first-round pick from the deal, it’s a little surprising that they didn’t do better, given the obvious angst in Minnesota. Still, this swap has its potential upside for the once-dynastic champions.
The Warriors will say a lot about this trade in the coming days, but there’s an aspect they cannot mention: This is a bet against the Minnesota Timberwolves and the guy they just traded for over the summer. By doing this, the Warriors dare the Wolves to get more out of Russell than the Warriors just got. If the Wolves get less from Russell than what the Warriors just got, they will be sending a high draft pick to San Francisco.
That’s because, even though Russell put up good counting stats with the Warriors, the impact wasn’t quite there. Allow me to pull a Bob Fitzgerald and heap some critical commentary upon the local player on his way out. Here’s a highly illustrative clip of what Russell’s defense looked like, night after night.
So that was a feature of his defense, as was his tendency to consistently avoid guarding the ball handler in transition. Like so, from his last Warriors game.
Russell was one of the worst defensive starters in basketball this season, full stop. He currently ranks at 126th (out of 128) at his position in
ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus-Minus and honestly, the eye test was worse. We can acknowledge that defense is half the game, but we collectively rarely act like we believe it. Russell played defense at a level that flew under the radar in this gap year, but would have been glaringly, obviously bad in a season with stakes. While point guard defense perhaps matters less than defense at other positions, there are degrees. There’s a vast chasm between Steph Curry having some physical limitations on defense versus Russell’s complete aversion to contact. And yes, the Warriors noticed. The coaching staff was not endeared to these habits.
Now, there are possible mitigating explanations for why Russell’s defense was so bad this season, such as how the Warriors were going nowhere and there was only so much incentive to try. Maybe Russell will be motivated at the next stop, flanked by his friend. The Warriors probably could not take that risk, though.
There were other considerations of course. The upcoming NBA Draft is not well regarded, but it does have its share of point guards. If the Warriors want a guy to spell Curry, a Goran Dragić to Steph’s Steve Nash, they can find that guy. The 2020 draft is also relatively wingless, as is 2020 free agency. Getting Wiggins fills a position of extreme need.
The Warriors are partially to blame for why wings are at such a premium these days. The switch-heavy defense of their title runs revealed the wisdom of a certain roster construction. Back in 2014, bigs were the most coveted defensive players. That was before the Death Lineup ran a lot of those guys off the floor. Now, wings are in, and not just the generational superstars. The 3-and-D role players can get paid like stars.
And so, in need of a wing, the Warriors rolled the dice, betting on themselves as much as they bet against the Wolves. “Light-years” might be more of a mentality than a strategy. Here’s what I mean: To create the space that allowed them to get Andre Iguodala back in July 2013, the Warriors had to give the Jazz unprotected first-round picks in the 2014 and 2017 drafts (to take on the contracts of Andris Biedrinš and Richard Jefferson). This was a highly unusual move, especially at a time when picks were perhaps more valuable than they are today. (It wasn’t assumed in the recent past that so many lottery picks would eventually agitate to move elsewhere.) The Warriors understood that an unprotected pick carries a certain allure, and they believed in themselves. They believed that their lottery days were over for some time, whatever the rest of the league’s doubts. They were right in the end.
Fast-forward roughly seven years. The Warriors are finally back in the lottery and Iguodala is with the Miami Heat. Despite all that’s changed, despite the humbling gap-year woes, the Warriors still believe in themselves. Yes, Wiggins has been a huge disappointment of a first-round pick in Minnesota, but the Warriors think they can access possibilities that the Wolves could not. Wiggins was playing for one of the sport’s worst franchises, often without a high-level point guard. Next season, he should be receiving passes from Curry. Can the Warriors flip Wiggins from “one of the league’s worst contracts” to realizing his potential? They’re more sold on that possibility than objective observers, perhaps.
It all reminds of another Warriors exchange with the Timberwolves, one they never officially consummated. In the 2014 offseason, the Wolves were famously in hot pursuit of Klay Thompson, seeking to obtain him for the then-unhappy Kevin Love. The Warriors ultimately declined, in part because they believed they’d yet to unlock Thompson’s talents. Back then, Jerry West noted that the Warriors were last in passes per possession. Klay needed ball movement to thrive and new coach Steve Kerr promised to provide it. The rest is history.
Wiggins will start the 2020-2021 season roughly a year older than Thompson was when he started his breakout 2014-15 season, albeit with a longer track record of lower efficiency scoring. The same principles could apply, though. In the end, Wiggins will either be further validation of the light-years mindset, or its Waterloo. The Warriors will either live by their confidence or die by their arrogance.
(Photo: David Berding / USA TODAY Sports)
