Right now, the noise surrounding the Golden State Warriors is deafening. It’s all about Giannis Antetokounmpo. It’s about the massive swing. It’s about the “Light Years” bravado that suggests this franchise can simply snap its fingers and conjure another MVP to pair with the one they already have.
But if you strip away the fantasy and look at the roster as it currently stands, a terrifying reality sets in:
The Warriors appear well-positioned to do absolutely nothing at Thursday’s NBA trade deadline.
And that is the one thing this team cannot afford to do.
The Warriors have become a tough watch. They are disjointed. They are inconsistent. They are, in the harshest terms available to a professional sports franchise, an easy out.
This isn’t a team one piece away from a dynasty reboot. This is a team locking in a spot in the play-in tournament, a roundball purgatory where they might scrape together a win or two, or they might not.
This team’s ceiling is visible, and it is low. A first-round exit feels like the optimistic scenario.
And their only chance to change that is to do something. Frankly, almost anything will do.
Jonathan Kuminga’s situation — toxic as it is — remains painfully unresolved. He still has a trade demand on the table, and Warriors coach Steve Kerr hasn’t exactly changed his opinion on the young man’s style of play.
The problem, of course, is that while there is a demand from Kuminga, there doesn’t appear to be much of a demand for Kuminga. It is a perfect encapsulation of where this front office finds itself: stuck between the value they think their assets hold and the reality of the market.
For years, we’ve heard the ballyhoo about “owing” Stephen Curry a competitive roster. It’s a nice sentiment. It’s also unquestionably true.
To waste a season of prime Curry is a sin. To waste it because you were too busy chasing a dream to acquire a functional basketball player that can help your team, in lieu of one that doesn’t, is roster malpractice.
The Warriors cannot simply stand pat and hope the chemistry magically coalesces, that Kuminga finally figures out — after five years — how to maximize his talents in Kerr’s system alongside Curry.
Hope is not a strategy. If the Giannis trade doesn’t happen — and the way I see it, there isn’t much reason to think it will — Golden State needs to be able to quickly execute a Plan B and perhaps even a Plan C.
This team simply must fire off a move before the deadline. It doesn’t have to be the move that reorganizes the league. It just has to be a move that fixes this busted rotation.
Reinforcement is needed. Low level, medium level, high level — it doesn’t matter. They need competence. They need size. They need something that changes the math, because right now the equation sums up to mediocrity.
Will it be easy? Hardly. The trade market is a minefield. But that is the burden of employing greatness. When you have Curry, the expectations are unfair. The pressure is immense. The window is always closing, even if Curry tries to prop it open with one hand while shooting 30-footers with the other.
There is an old saying: Shoot for the stars, and you’ll land on a cloud. It’s meant to be inspirational.
But in the NBA, if you only shoot for the stars — if you ignore the ground-level improvements because you are thinking of only the marginally attainable — you don’t land in the clouds. No, you fall thousands of feet to your demise.
You end up in the lottery, but without your own pick.
Something has to be done. The bigger the better, sure. We all love a blockbuster. Giannis in the Bay would be incredible.
But something, one way or another, needs to go down.
The Warriors are currently playing a game of chicken with the deadline. If they blink, and Thursday passes with this roster intact, they aren’t just punting on the season. They are failing the only player who matters.
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