After being linked to big-name trade targets like Paul George and Lauri Markkanen during the offseason, the Warriors ended up not making a major deal and focused instead on bringing in a handful of role players at mid-level prices, including De’Anthony Melton, Buddy Hield, and Kyle Anderson. The team’s defensive anchor, Draymond Green, told reporters this week that he was on board with that decision, as Kendra Andrews of ESPN relays.
“One move in this league, it can pretty much set you up for how the next 10 years of your organization is going to go. Sometimes the best deal you can make is to not make a deal, and I think we did a great job in going out and getting pieces that are going to help this team grow,” Green said. “… Championships are won six through 10. Championships aren’t won one through five.”
Green compared the summer additions to the ones the Warriors made in 2021 when they brought in Otto Porter Jr., Gary Payton II, and Nemanja Bjelica to bolster their depth ahead of a championship season. That doesn’t mean that Golden State will be a title team in 2024/25, but Stephen Curry believes the newcomers can help the club move toward that goal.
“All three guys we brought in all are veterans,” Curry said, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “Established veterans that know how to play the game. Good pieces that you need to be a championship-type team. Does that mean we’re there? I don’t know.”
Here’s more on the Warriors:
- After a disappointing 2023/24 season that saw Golden State finish 10th in the West and bow out of the postseason in the first play-in game, Curry said he’s coming into training camp with an “open mind of how we’re supposed to play” and that he’s embracing the idea of “evolving and pivoting” to figure out what works best for the current group. “I know there’s a Warriors mentality and culture of how we do things, there’s a system that we ran for a decade plus that has worked,” Curry said, according to Andrews. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how this team needs to play. We have to have kind of antennas up and an openness to accept what this team’s strengths are, what our weaknesses are, and kind of lean into those.”
- Jonathan Kuminga, who is eligible for a rookie scale extension until October 21, said he will “hopefully” reach a deal with the Warriors but that he won’t be worried if it doesn’t get done this fall, Slater writes. Kuminga would be a restricted free agent in 2025 if he doesn’t sign a new deal before the season begins. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s not my concern,” he said. “I’m just happy to be here, happy to start a new season. Fourth year. I’d love to have it, but I’m not really concerned about it. If I get it, if I don’t, it’s cool. I’m still going to be me. I’ll just go out there and perform.”
- In a separate story for The Athletic, Slater evaluates the candidates for the starting shooting guard position, noting that the Warriors could go the defensive route with Melton, the floor-spacing route with Hield, or the long-term route with Brandin Podziemski.
- Warriors head coach Steve Kerr stressed on Tuesday that shooting guard isn’t the only opening in the Warriors’ starting lineup, telling reporters that there’s an open competition for basically every spot besides point guard, where Curry will start. “There is competition across the board,” Kerr said (story via Andrews at ESPN). “It’s not as simple as, ‘Who is going to be the two?’ It’s got to be — ‘Who is going to be the five? Who’s the four?’ We know that Steph is the one. But what’s the combination? … The starting lineup is going to have to be dependent not only on the first five fitting, but the second fitting as well. We’ve got a lot of work to do to figure out lineups. All the guys can do is compete, play their ass off.”
Dubs posters around here have been sleeping on Melton.
For the past 2 season, he started every game for Philly that he was available. He’s the perfect complement to a score-first PG like Steph, Maxey, or Harden. Defensively, only GP2 is in his class but he’s a much better shooter, and a starting-caliber PG.
We used our $12M exception on him. Only Steph, Dray, and Wiggins make more. We don’t make that move unless we plan to play him at least 20-24 mpg, which is why I believe GP2 and Moody aren’t here for long.
Yes on all that, but I’m also hoping he’s healthy. The back can be a tough one to deal with and I hope he’s recovered 100% at some point.
Melton always been a good defender which the warriors lacked defense last year. I see him and Payton competing for minutes. Both players main focus is staying healthy.
Melton also being on a playoff team last year brings good energy to a team trying to be the same. I dont agree when you say GP2 is in his class. In 2022 maybe, but not since then.
“Moody wont be here long” so you believe GSW will bring in a superstar via trade at some point before the trade deadline? That’s weird because when I say that on here I get angry replies!
Moody will be here unless a superstar trade happens, the depth is important and Melton is injury prone, Hield has no defense and Podz is too much of an unknown.
They’ll take whatever they can get for Moody. Are you extending him for the money he probably wants? Will you lose him in restricted free agency when another team signs him based on potential.., even though he’s been around 4 years?
If the Warriors go over the cap building a championship contender then you can forget about sign and trade for Moses Moody. He will walk for nothing if you don’t trade him by the deadline.
The tougher decision is JK. Extend him? Match his restricted free agency next summer? Interesting to see what the Warriors decide.
If Kuminga plays up to his potential the warriors will match his contract. Moddy most likely gets traded at deadline unless he has a break out season.
Gary ,
I’ll put my stake in the ground on JK one last time. lol Whether it’s before the season or after, they aren’t letting him go.
There is little available money or PT for Moody. Best case: 2 years at $6M per
You know what Davey, I just looked at Moses Moody on basketball reference.
In 17.5 minutes per game last season, which is PLENTY OF TIME OVER 66 GAMES to show what you have or don’t have, he shot 46% from the field and 36% from 3. Not horrible for a part-timer but 18 minutes per game? Not good enough to earn a spot in the rotation.
Then you look at his other stats to see how he’s contributing on the floor. I found these to be ALARMING and didn’t realize what a crap player he was.
I was just giving him the eye test and considered him not worthy of a rotation spot. But looking at his stats and he needs to go and I mean yesterday !!! They’ve held him way too long and should have traded him last year. The potential element is fading. This is his fourth year and I don’t see anything changing.
Look at this garbage.
18 minutes a game.
1 made three PER GAME !!
3 TOTAL rebounds per game.
0.9 assists per game.
0.6 steals per game.
0.4 blocks per game.
0.7 turnovers per game, so almost 1 to 1 assist/turnover.
These are absolutely horrendous stats. I’m just shocked Moody has anyone in his corner.
link to basketball-reference.com
What about his character for 21 yr old??? He is highly regarded among coaches and FO. He’s a team player and he plays unselfishly … Moody is STILL the biggest upside potential guy on the team… we need him to play
Michol Moody’s intangibles are off the charts. He works hard, he doesn’t complain, he does what’s asked, and he’s a great kid. All that probably has given him his fourth year.
There’s other guys who don’t perform and get cut. Who’s that guy Bouknight from the Hornets? Other guys as well, first round picks, get let loose after a year or two because they don’t have it. Moody is definitely an asset as a good citizen.
He’s definitely earned another nba contract and it will be a decent size. There’s no doubt about that. Hopefully, he wont be too unreasonable.
Michol, I’m somewhere between you and Gary, but I believe my take is same as Warriors’ FO:
1. Moody has a higher floor than Gary believes. He projects as a 3+D rotation player on a good team by the time he’s 24 years old — 37 3pt%, 12 pts per game. Coaches like Carlisle, Snyder, Spoelstra, and Popovic will take Moody.
2. Unlike you, I don’t believe Moody has earned a contract for much more than the minimum. That’s because he’s proven little yet, largely because he hasn’t been given the chance.
I believe Dubs are offering Moody 3 years at ~$5M/yr, and the pitch to him is that “next season” Melton and Payton will be gone, so he’ll have a chance to start building his value then. Warriors view Moody like Kevon Looney: great kid, let him grow in a back-up role on a light contract.
If Moody doesn’t see it this way, more, Warriors will try harder to move him.
Omg, 3 yrs at $5m per??? Are you sayin that is his market value??? In that he wont sign. There’s no need to and he needs to demand trade asap.
Michol , Moody is a restricted free agent, so the Dubs have the right to match any offer. RFA’s at the low-end have very little leverage.
$5M/season at this point is generous. If you plug his career numbers into a statistical model with all league data, he’s worth 1/2 that (basically the minimum).
Like you, I believe Moody’s career numbers don’t tell the whole story. But to make more than $5M, a young player has to project as a starter, and there is no team in the NBA that Moody starts for in 2025.
Moody wants to go somewhere he can play. Signing a contract makes him more tradeable, and sooner. That’s why I believe he’ll sign soon.
Earned? How? Good citizen? Hale no, you’re either a player or you’re not.
If he wasnt a player, he would not be playing, period. But he did play last year especially before he got hurt. He will have a trade value at the deadline, we need to let him play.
Gary, you are cherry picking stats here and there’s plenty of highlight reels on youtube proving your take wrong. Moody is clearly another Luka to you, you are wrong and being too stuck up about it for reasons not many can comprehend. Also please consider Kerr kept playing Moody with bad 2-way players and other garbage time types who are no longer here. You are the only one online who hates Moody this much, and many other commenters in here are calling you out on this in this thread.
“In 17.5 minutes per game last season, which is PLENTY OF TIME OVER 66 GAMES” I dont agree for a young player coming into this league on a champ team like GSW who also have Curry to figure out how to play with, its not enough. Plus those mins were in garbage time losses. You are cherry picking and moving goalposts to make Moses Moody look bad.
At the end of day Moody had .101 WS/48 and Podz had .100. Basically the same level of player, Podz getting every chance to succeed and Moody getting nothing until late in the season, which co-incided with their biggest winning streak. Your hatred of Moody borders on bizarre. Podz is not a star in this league but Moody might be – this is still fact no matter what the 7 weirdos in this this comments section thinks. Instagram and twitter have 1000s of posts disagreeing with your analysis. Oh well!!!
Yes Davey as I mentioned, my opinion is not worth much. Just writing it out here and using the opportunity. Thank you for your opinion, I really appreciate it. I love talking basketball with you.
arc89 , Melton will get a lot of minutes at PG this year. He’s either are #2 or #3 PG. And Kerr has been saying he’s going to rest Steph much more this year.
i don’t know anything about his ball handling but if he is a good ball handler he will get a lot of minutes.
@aristotle – its wild how you keep telling us about GSW’s depth chart when nothing has been announced on that front from the team itself. You are making up stuff and passing it off as fact. Gross.
GPII was quite like theyre 3rd best player in the regular season of the title run. He is awesome at making good things happen on the court….
He has barely been on the court since. Got hurt last year screwing around on a layup after a whistle and missed 5 weeks…
Yes Chap it’s too bad about Gary Payton but that run where he was extremely valuable for the Warriors helped him receive that nice contract from portland. We got him back hoping for the same Magic and he was still nicked up.
I’m hoping he’s back at full strength because in the playoffs you need guys like him for lockdown defense, the extra lift when guys are down, and his overall athleticism from the wing.
The cruel facts…
GP2 is still an ELITE defender, but he wouldn’t be on an NBA roster right now if his contract were up.
He played 44 games last year, 21 the year before. He’ll be 32 yrs old when this season starts.
Also, GP2 overcame a lot of injuries before joining the Dubs 2021-22, and never played more than 21 games in a season. Along the way, he’s failed a few physicals.
I’m feeling like this is GP2’s farewell season.
GP2 would be on a team is his contract was up but he would be getting more like $4 million not 9 million ayear.
arc89 , we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I think we agree on this:
GP2 is worth more than $9M/yr if he plays like 2022
You disagree with me on this:
Teams won’t sign players in their 30’s expected to miss more than 25 games. Role players have to be available above all else.
In other words, I don’t believe there is an NBA team that would voluntarily put Payton their roster this year.
GP2 was a terrible defender in 2023-24. I dont know what you were looking at. If he was so good, GSW would have been a top 6 team. GP failed at playing the 3 and 4 when Kerr made him be “the big” in his idiotic smallball lineups.
GSW is toast unless Wiggins plays at a high level. We shall see l
you can say that about every team. Celtics are toast unless Tatum plays at a high level.
Bad example.
Take a all star off any team and they don’t get out of the playoffs. Celtics doesn’t have the offense without Tatum to be a top team.
Arc89 , interesting point, it made me think…
I’d make 1 change: take a team’s BEST player away, and they can’t make it past the 2nd round.
There has never been a ln NBA team that made it to the Finals without their best player … except GSW in 2019 without KD.
just thinking about the teams in the west not one of them would make it to the finals with a injured best player.
arc , for fun, I looked at the last 50 years of NBA Finals… the two finalists always had their best player, with just that one exception: KD was missing in 2019.
It makes you realize how special those Steph+KD teams were.
Not even the Lakers, with Magic and Kareem, could get to the Finals unless both were healthy.
His father who just died in the beginning of sept was in poor health the last 2 years leading to his missed games.
He also broke his rib in the second to last playoff game against LA a year ago and couldnt have a normal offseason training. His injury was the same one Loony got in the end of the 19 finals that caused all his core muscle problems the next season causing his neuropathy and lost season. He hasnt missed a game for anything but DNPCDs since so…
Hopefully being fully removed from the injury, and fully healthy this offseason he can rebound to the player he was from when he got to GSW till last season. Since he missed time the year before but was mostly decent before going to deal with his dads illness for months.
@Spike I actually agree. If Wiggins is the 5+ WS player he was in 2021-22, GSW is a beastly team, likely top 4.
Davey , re Moody, I love him, but the writing’s on the wall. You don’t spend big on Hield and Melton if you plan on playing Moody. If Warriors appreciated Moody, they would play him, and we know they don’t.
Yes, I strongly believe Dubs are trying to land a difference maker, offering Moody, Wiggins, GP2, Looney and FRP’s. That was what they offered for Paul George and Lauri Markkanen.
I agree with Gary. Moody will be gone before the trade deadline, possibly before the start of the season.
Moody will play if he earns it, but he needs to take playing time from others with his performance.
The team would rather play Moody than Heild who is just a role player and not in the teams future plans really and Melton who is a UFA next summer, but Moody has to Wally Pipp those dudes.
ChapmansVaccuum said:
> The team would rather play Moody than Heild
> who is just a role player and not in the teams
> future plans
Respectfully, the opposite is true: Buddy Hield signed a 4 yr , $40M contract with the Warriors in June. That’s a longer-term commitment than for any other player on the team, including Steph,
Moody is the 5th option at SG. Podz, Hield, Melton, and GP2, and Melton are ahead of him. Moody is our 3rd option at SF, behind Wiggins and Kuminga.
Best case for Moody is a 2 yr extension at $5M per year.
Again, you are making up all these depth chart alignments. Maybe GSW dont see Hield and Melton as being as important as you think they are. Moody has the higher ceiling. If Moody is gone, then Lebron, Giannis or KD are coming back. If not? Then he is staying and playing SG next to Steph for 30+ MPG.
Look, Im sorry you despise Moses Moody so much – is it strictly because I have defended him on here? Twitter and Instagram really love my takes saying the same thing. Weird how its only on here that a couple of you seem to REALLY hate my normal Warriors-fan takes. It seems like you are just debating for fun here, but I am a GSW fan who wants to win, and Moody can be a chip that helps us win, and Podz only makes us lose.
We haven’t touched on the high tension caused by the shortage of playing time for all these guys in their contract years. They have a lot of $ at stake:
Melton
Moody
GP2
Kuminga
Draymond saying championships aren’t won 1-5 is absolutely hilarious. Such a hard cope. Trying to turn whiffing on PG and Lauri into “actually its good we didn’t add top end talent because historically this team has built championship rosters with the 6-10th guys” reeks of bs and delusion.
I didn’t realize Kevin Durant was the 6th man of those title teams.
They won their last championship with Poole and a injured Thompson so Green is correct.
Please tell me the top 5 of that title team
Did I embarrassed you that I proved you wrong? Next time stay off warrior comments so you can pretend you know the NBA.
Answer the question. Who were the top 5 players on that title squad. The reason you didn’t answer is because you have Poole or Klay or both in that list. You made the point I was making for me.
Curry, Poole, Green. Wiggins, Klay Otto, and Payton would be tied for 5th
Why do you sound surprised?
Have you not been paying attention?
The Warriors won in 2022 using the following core 7:
Curry, Green, Thompson, Wiggins, Poole, Porter and Looney
That is “Curry and Dray leading role players” no matter what way you chop it. It’s the title everyone said Curry needed to win to prove himself and he did. Klay off 2 career-enders was a role player, not elite. Poole stinks.
Or wait, does your argument suddenly fall back to “Green and Thompson are HOF” but then you change that statement depending on your argument? Cool.
Dave’s , regarding your complaint of my ranking Moody’s rank at SG or SF 9n the team, it’s based on historical minutes played and salary. This doesn’t necessarily predict the future, but it’s the only non-subjective information we have. And, yes, I agree that Moody has great potential.
It’s a fact that Moody gets less minutes than GP2, Podz, Kuminga, and Wiggins.
And, I don’t see how it makes sense to give Hield a 4 year contract if he’s not going to play. Same with Melton.
Typo:
“9n the team” -> “on the team”
So glad Klay is gone. Wished we would have traded Kuminga…no idea what to expect this year