At some point, Klay Thompson will be back on a basketball court.
“He will be back and 100 percent,” his agent, Greg Lawrence of Wasserman, texted Thursday, after official word came that Thompson had torn his Achilles’ Wednesday.
The problem is that the Warriors have a season to play between now and then, and they pretty quickly have another after that. And there is the little matter of Steph Curry being 32 years old, and two seasons away from free agency. Despite his agent’s assurances, Thompson will be 31 when he comes back and carrying surgery scars on both legs. Much as we saw this train coming with James Harden in Houston recently, the Warriors now are at a critical juncture as well. If this ship starts taking on water, is it crazy to think Curry could look for greener pastures too?
We’ll get to that big, crazy stuff in a moment. Let’s go back to the present tense for a minute. In the short term, the Warriors have two primary tools at their disposal to bring in replacements without necessarily having to include their players in trades: that $17.1 million traded player exception they received from the Andre Iguodala deal last year, which expires on Monday; Golden State will also have a $9.3 million Disabled Player Exception to sign or acquire a player on a contract that ends in 2021 – but that counts against the luxury tax. Additionally, the DPE can only be used on a one-year deal or an expiring contract.
With the Iggy TPE, they apparently will acquire Kelly Oubre from Oklahoma City. Oubre makes $14.4 million, meaning only $2.7 million remains on the exception for other moves — likely not enough to do anything remotely significant. More on that in a minute.
On the asset side, Golden State also has that 2021 first-round pick from Minnesota it got in the D’Angelo Russell-Andrew Wiggins deal. The pick is protected next year for picks 1-3, meaning if it winds up being the first, second or third pick overall, the Wolves keep it. If it’s four or lower, it conveys to the Warriors in 2021. If it isn’t, the pick becomes unprotected in 2022, making it an extremely valuable chip, unless you think Minny is ready to roar to the top of the West in the next year or two.
(NARRATOR: You do not believe that.)
Finally, the Warriors have James Wiseman, the big man they just selected with the second pick in the draft. He isn’t going anywhere unless it’s a massive blockbuster, but we’ll get to that part later too.
Now, back to Thompson. Apparently, we don’t do rankings anymore; we do “tiers.” As in, “This is the top tier of guys my wife would leave me for.” So, let’s do some tiers here, depending on the severity of Thompson’s injury and the likely impact on the remainder of both his current contract and his career, both of which are directly wired into the Dubs’ immediate future in a $2 billion arena they’d really like to sell suites and courtside seats in sometime in Calendar ’21 and beyond. And tiers that might directly impact Curry’s willingness to stick around for longer than the next two seasons.
Tier 1: Thompson has a serious injury, but will make a complete recovery
In this scenario, while Thompson misses all of ’20-’21, he’s back for ’21-’22. So Golden State wouldn’t need or seek a long-term replacement; they’d need a fill-in, a substitute teacher. Getting Oubre is a good start, but he doesn’t provide the kind of long-range shooting and off-ball activity that Thompson did to make the Warriors’ screening and cutting game buzz.
At a lower level, a couple of good shooters that the Warriors could target with their DPE include Indiana’s Doug McDermott (expiring $7.3 million, and a 41.2 percent career 3-point shooter), who would probably cost a second-round pick or two. Among free agents, his former Pacer teammate and ex-Warrior Justin Holiday, who might command the full midlevel exception on a one-year deal, and former Detroit sharpshooter Langston Galloway (39.9 percent last year, with some surprisingly feisty D thrown in). Another trade option that would fit, albeit less cleanly, is Sacramento’s stretch 4, Nemanja Bjelica ($7 million).
Moves like that don’t burn through any of the high-value capital and hold down the fort for the coming season. It wouldn’t be the Warriors awesomeness of 2015-2020, but Curry and Draymond Green could get a group like that to the playoffs and maybe win a round in the cutthroat West.
Tier 2: Thompson’s injury is serious and career-limiting/threatening
If Thompson can return but won’t approach the player he was before these injuries, the Warriors would have to be a little more willing to take a little bit more contract, and possibly put other assets into play in order to bring a higher level piece who could be part of the framework long-term.
Enter Oubre. Still just 24, he has the springy kind of game and long-term defensive chops that Golden State desperately missed after the Iguodala trade and Shaun Livingston’s retirement.
Reports say the Warriors acquired him with their own top-20 protected 2021 first-round pick (not the Minnesota pick!) on Thursday night, and slotted him into the exception. He’s not a natural fit at Thompson’s guard spot, but he could play it and either forward position in different lineups, with Oubre and Andrew Wiggins essentially being tandem wings.
The nice part of an Oubre deal is that he’s only 24 and would come with full Bird Rights. The Warriors could re-sign him in 2021 and keep him as a long-term piece with Wiseman and Wiggins, regardless of what happens with the Steph-Klay-Draymond core.
Still, you’re not bringing back the glory days of yore by replacing Thompson with Oubre. Which takes us to the final stage.
Tier 3: Global Thermonuclear War
Look, let’s be real about where things stand now. Thompson’s contract was already looking like
one of the worst in the league even before he tore his Achilles; odds are he won’t be a two-way stud when he comes back, and meanwhile Draymond Green is showing signs of slipping noticeably and Steph is creeping deeper into his 30s. Even if the Warriors use both exceptions relatively wisely, there’s a real chance they might be paying 800 gazillion dollars in luxury tax for a team that goes 38-34 this season.
That’s where you go back to the old mantra: Go big or go home.
Oubre is a nice player, and so is whomever they might get with the DPE, but those aren’t the guys who move the needle. In order to get back to Splash Brothers heights, the Warriors need to get themselves another Splash Brother.
Fortunately, the Warriors have the assets to make a move like this. Between Wiseman, the 2021 Minnesota first, and the Warriors’ own firsts in 2021 (reverse protected 21-30, since the Thunder already own that real estate) and 2027, the Warriors can trump almost any package any other team can put together for an All-Star like James Harden or Bradley Beal.
There’s only one little problem: Trades like this need a matching salary. And the matching salary is Klay Thompson. Kind of awkward just days after he tore his Achilles, right? That’s the business some times. (John here: Trust me. We once had to cut Mario Chalmers two days after he tore his Achilles. Not fun.)
But this is how the Warriors get themselves out of their current hole: Trade Thompson, Wiseman, the Minnesota first, the Warriors’ own first in 2026, and pick swaps in other seasons. Throw in Eric Paschall and second-round picks and anything else you have lying around.
And then call Houston about Harden. Call Washington about a deal for Beal (likely with Ish Smith thrown in for money purposes). And while you’re at it, put in a call to Portland on Damian Lillard.
Stop
throwing shoes at us! This could help everyone!
Harden’s
desire to be traded to Brooklyn is out in the open now, the Rockets’ dysfunction this season a matter of record. As a source with direct knowledge of what was going on in Houston this season put it Thursday, “things were getting outta control.” Houston’s new front office is holding firm for marquee offers for its marquee superstar; a foundational piece in Wiseman, a potential high Lottery pick in what should be a loaded draft next year or in 2022 and a returning Thompson hits a Houston rebuild at multiple levels.
Washington continues to insist it’s moving forward with the 27-year-old Beal as its cornerstone. Beal continues to say he wants to stay. Beal is also a star NBA player in the prime of his career. The Wizards are on step six of their latest 10,000-step rebuild, and stars in the primes of their careers don’t tend to remain sanguine as their franchise improves in fits and starts. Maybe Deni Avdija becomes an NBA star, too. But it’s not likely to be this year, which would leave Washington with one more summer to either make a team-changing trade not involving Beal, or striking to trade him when the Wizards could still get a Jrue Holiday-like haul from suitors.
Lillard? OK, Probably not. But if anything is going to lure him out of Portlandia, it’s a return to the Bay Area.
And why do all this, you ask?
Because the alternative is that the Warriors will be the team on the other side of this. Within a year, if not much sooner, teams will be making these exact calls to them regarding Curry, and Curry himself may begin wondering what the point is of playing out his dwindling prime years on a team that can’t quite contend, and we’ll all be speculating about draft picks they could get for Curry to help rebuild around Wiseman and Oubre.
It turns quickly. That’s the new reality in the Player Empowerment Era. It’s why teams are throwing multiple unprotected firsts on the table to secure players who might only have a three-year window together to win a championship.
Kelly Oubre and a Disabled Player Exception are a nice start, but they aren’t changing that reality. The future of the Curry Era hinges on creating another star out of the assets produced by last season’s failure, and Thompson’s injury is just the exclamation point. It’s time to go big, and if the Warriors can’t, Curry might well reconsider his alternatives.
It’s what superstars do.
If we get him our defense will be really good
