Golden State Warriors Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Warriors Owner Dismisses Idea Of Tanking

October 31st, 2019 at 9:58am CST by Luke Adams

Even with two-time MVP Stephen Curry in the lineup, the Warriors were off to a worrisome start this season. Now that Curry is set to miss time due to a broken left hand, the club’s short-term outlook looks even less promising. However, team owner Joe Lacob “scoffed” at the notion that it might be time for Golden State to consider tanking the season, as ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne writes.

“It is against every single thing I and we stand for,” Lacob said. “We will fight like hell. Develop our young guys. Learn to win. You don’t get better by trying to lose. Our entire organization is about winning. And we will win. Some bumps in the road, perhaps. But we will never accept losing.”

Klay Thompson has already been ruled out until at least the All-Star break due to his torn ACL. Curry’s recovery timeline hasn’t been set, but Shelburne says team officials are preparing for him to miss a month or two. Anthony Slater of The Athletic notes that an injury like Curry’s often sidelines an NBA player for about six to eight weeks. Even Draymond Green is banged up, though he may not miss any time as he nurses a back injury.

Given the Warriors’ lack of quality depth, the team probably won’t have to deliberately “tank” in order to land in the lottery, as those injuries to their stars could be enough to derail their season. While Lacob isn’t willing to concede that it’s time to start looking ahead to 2020/21, he admitted in comments to Tim Kawakami and Ethan Strauss of The Athletic that the club will certainly keep its long-term outlook in mind.

“I’m just telling you that the bottom line is I’m not negative and I’m not going to get negative,” Lacob said in the wake of Curry’s injury. “I’m an optimist and we’re building something. You’re always looking short term and you’re looking intermediate term and you’re looking long term.

“And I think we’ve got a lot of good young players in place,” he continued. “Potentially, there’s a silver lining in all of this, who knows? And I’m very optimistic about our future. Very optimistic about our future. I think we’re going to be there at some point. Can’t say when. We’ve obviously got a lot of injuries now, but we’re going to be there.”

As we wait for an update on Curry’s diagnosis and the Warriors’ next moves, one “silver lining” worth considering if that the club will only send its 2020 first-round pick to Brooklyn if it falls outside of the top 20. That scenario looks increasingly unlikely, so the Dubs can probably count on keeping that first-round pick. And unlike most traded first-rounders, its protections won’t just carry over to the next draft — if the Nets don’t get that first-round selection in 2020, they’ll instead receive Golden State’s 2025 second-rounder.

Stephen Curry Suffers Broken Left Hand

October 30th, 2019 at 11:39pm CST by Luke Adams

Things have gone from bad to worse this season for the Warriors, as Stephen Curry suffered a broken left hand during the team’s game against Phoenix on Wednesday night, reports Marcus Thompson of The Athletic (Twitter link). The club has confirmed Thompson’s report.

According to Kerith Burke of NBC Sports California (Twitter link), Warriors president of basketball operations Bob Myers said Curry will undergo a CT scan on his hand to see if surgery is required. The club doesn’t yet have an estimate on a potential recovery timetable, but it’s safe to assume the two-time MVP will miss some time.

Although the Warriors picked up their first win of the season on Monday against New Orleans, it has otherwise been a disastrous start to the season for the franchise that has won the Western Conference for five consecutive years. The Dubs were blown out in their home opener by the Clippers last Thursday, then run off the court in Oklahoma City on Sunday.

In Wednesday’s contest, Golden State’s third loss, the Suns built a 43-14 lead by the end of the first quarter, fueled by a shocking 30-1 run. Curry’s injury occurred later in the game when he drove to the net and landed awkwardly, bracing his fall with his left hand just before Baynes fell on that hand (video link).

Golden State entered this season expecting to lean heavily on Curry, Draymond Green, and D’Angelo Russell, with Klay Thompson recovering from an ACL tear and without a ton of quality depth surrounding those stars. Now that both Splash Brothers project to be on the injured list for the foreseeable future, the Warriors’ playoff chances look much slimmer.

The Warriors’ cap situation will make things even more difficult moving forward. The team is right up against a hard cap and can’t add a 15th man, let alone apply for a hardship exception for a 16th.

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks observes (via Twitter), Golden State still has more than eight healthy players on its roster, meeting the league’s minimum requirements, so the club is handcuffed for now. Even if that number dipped below eight, the Warriors’ hard cap means they’d have to petition the NBA to add a player, Marks adds (via Twitter).

It’s too early to call this a lost season for the Warriors, especially since we don’t yet know how much time Curry will miss. But that hasn’t stopped NBA writers from drawing comparisons to the 1996/97 Spurs, who bottomed out (a year after winning 59 games) due primarily to a season-ending David Robinson injury.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Cauley-Stein, Burks To Make Warriors Debuts

October 30th, 2019 at 4:44pm CST by Luke Adams

The Warriors will add some much-needed depth to their rotation on Wednesday night, with center Willie Cauley-Stein and swingman Alec Burks on track to make their season debuts vs. Phoenix, according to Nick Friedell of ESPN.com.

Cauley-Stein and Burks both signed with Golden State as free agents this summer, but haven’t been able to suit up for the team so far. Cauley-Stein missed all of training camp and the first three regular season games due to a left foot injury, while Burks was recovering from a right ankle sprain.

With Kevon Looney and Klay Thompson sidelined and a hard cap preventing them from adding a 15th player, the Warriors have had to play rookies like Eric Paschall and Jordan Poole big minutes in their first three games. Cauley-Stein and Burks figure to cut into those minutes, assuming they show they’re up to speed.

After getting blown out in their first two games, the Warriors got in the win column on Monday vs. the Pelicans. Cauley-Stein is hopeful that the team can continue to right the ship as more players get healthy and the new additions get acclimated.

“[Draymond Green] already said it, it’s going to take a few games for us to jell,” Cauley-Stein said, per Friedell. “Especially now that me and Alec, this is our first game to get minutes and stuff. For us to really jell, it’s going to take a few games for us to get that pace of how we’re playing. They’re playing extremely fast right now watching, so it’s like a lot of fast-paced learning.”

Rookie Scale Option Decisions Still To Come

October 30th, 2019 at 1:05pm CST by Luke Adams

Thursday, October 31 is the deadline for teams to exercise rookie scale options for the 2020/21 season. These options apply to either the third or fourth year of a rookie scale contract for players who were drafted in the first round. If they’re not exercised, the player becomes an unrestricted free agent the following summer.

These decisions must be made a year in advance, so even though Lonzo Ball has just started his third season, the Pelicans are already required to exercise his fourth-year option for $11MM+.

Most clubs facing these options decisions have already made them. As our tracker shows, of the 58 rookie scale options for 2020/21, 48 have been exercised so far. That leaves just 10 outstanding rookie scale options to be picked up or turned down by the end of the day on Thursday.

Here are the 2020/21 rookie scale options that have yet to be exercised:

Marvin Bagley III, Kings (third year, $8,963,640)
Josh Jackson, Grizzlies (fourth year, $8,930,242)
- Note: Memphis won’t exercise Jackson’s option.
De’Aaron Fox, Kings (fourth year, $8,099,627)
Harry Giles, Kings (fourth year, $3,976,510)
Ante Zizic, Cavaliers (fourth year, $3,872,215)
Caleb Swanigan, Kings (fourth year, $3,665,787)
Josh Okogie, Timberwolves (third year, $2,651,040)
Robert Williams, Celtics (third year, $2,029,920)
Jacob Evans, Warriors (third year, $2,017,320)
Omari Spellman, Warriors (third year, $1,988,280)

Teams only have to take action if they intend to pick up these options. Otherwise, they can simply let the deadline pass without exercising them. That’s reportedly what the Grizzlies intend to do with Jackson; we’ll see if any other teams follow suit.

Players like Bagley, Fox, and Okogie are locks to have their options picked up, but that’s not necessarily the case for everyone on this list. Zizic and Swanigan are among the candidates to potentially join Jackson as unrestricted free agents in 2020.

Pacific Notes: Kuzma, Kings, Curry

October 29th, 2019 at 10:14pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Kyle Kuzma will travel with the Lakers for their upcoming road trip and it’s possible that he makes his season debut over the next three games, Bill Oram of The Athletic relays (Twitter link). The team travels to Dallas, San Antonio, and Chicago over the next week.

Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:

James Ham of NBC Sports California wonders if the Kings should replace Dewayne Dedmon in the starting lineup with Richaun Holmes. Dedmon, who came to Sacramento on a three-year deal, is struggling to make an impact and Holmes is performing admirably off the bench.
Sacramento’s problems this season are not new, Jason Jones of The Athletic contends. The 0-4 Kings have issues on both sides of the court and Jones cites the team’s lack of energy as a major reason why the squad is underperforming.
Don’t expect the Warriors to turn Stephen Curry into James Harden, as head coach Steve Kerr told the media in Northern California. “We could turn him into James Harden and give him the ball every play,” Kerr said (via Nick Friedell of ESPN.com). “That’s really hard to do and you have to build a team for that. Houston has put five shooters on the floor for years now with Harden to give him that space. We don’t have that kind of personnel, so there’s not the same spacing. And that kind of basketball wears you out, too.”

Nets Notes: Irving, Durant, Jordan

October 29th, 2019 at 8:59am CST by Luke Adams

Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and DeAndre Jordan first began talking about the possibility of playing on the same NBA team during the 2016 Rio Olympics, according to ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan. The USA Basketball teammates didn’t get the chance to become NBA teammates until the 2019 offseason, but agreed when they all hit free agency this offseason that now was the time to make that plan a reality.

As MacMullan details, Irving told Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge during his exit interview this spring that he planned to move on, and he had already decided at that point that he’d head to Brooklyn. Durant spent hours researching Nets general manager Sean Marks, while Jordan talked to veterans like Jared Dudley about their experiences in Brooklyn. Ultimately, all three players decided it was the right landing spot for them.

Here’s more on the Nets, including several more tidbits from MacMullan’s deep dive:

Durant recognizes that the Nets aren’t the immediate championship favorite that the Warriors were during his years in Golden State, but he wants to help lead his new team to a title. “Obviously leaving Golden State, I’m not expecting anything better than that,” he said, per MacMullan. “I see this situation as, ‘All right, I’m coming to a young organization that has championship aspirations but doesn’t quite know what that feels like.'”
As Marks tells McMullan, there’s plenty of excitement within the organization about eventually being able to add Durant to Nets’ lineup. “He goes out and takes a couple of set shots — not jumpers — and the whole gym stops,” Marks said. “You can hear a pin drop. That’s great for our guys, because they sense this guy is waiting in the wings. We’re not waiting for him, but man, it’s kind of a cool feeling to know he’s coming.”
Irving, who has spent nine years working with his own performance specialist, has been somewhat resistant to the Nets’ player-performance program, according to MacMullan. However, Marks insists that Irving’s pushback on that issue has been “neither unexpected nor disruptive.”
There’s some concern among Nets officials about Irving’s mood swings — MacMullan suggests that he can become unwilling to communicate with coaches and even teammates in down moments. Sources tell ESPN that one such funk happened during Brooklyn’s trip to China, but the team is hopeful that having a good friend like Durant around will help.
As Bleacher Report relays (video link), Durant said in an appearance on Serge Ibaka‘s YouTube cooking show that the idea of finishing his playing career by spending a season on a EuroLeague team like Barcelona appeals to him.

Kevon Looney Dealing With Neuropathic Condition

October 26th, 2019 at 7:33pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Warriors have announced that center Kevon Looney won’t play during their upcoming road trip, tweets Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Looney will see a specialist to diagnose a neuropathic condition, which involves pain that results from an injury to the nervous system.

Coach Steve Kerr said it’s a problem Looney has been experiencing for a couple of years, and it was responsible for hamstring issues that sidelined him for much of the preseason and forced him out of Thursday’s season opener (Twitter link). Looney started the game, but was only able to play 10 minutes before exiting.

Looney is coming off his best NBA season, appearing in 80 games a year ago and averaging 6.0 points and 5.2 rebounds per night. He was being counted on to team with Willie Cauley-Stein to fill the gap at center after free agency losses, but both players have been slowed by injuries.

Cauley-Stein, who missed the entire preseason with a strained left foot, is getting closer to returning, Slater adds (Twitter link). He also won’t play on the road trip, but was able to work out today at the team’s G League facility in Santa Cruz.

Warriors Notes: Green, Durant, Thompson, Iguodala

October 23rd, 2019 at 10:50pm CST by Arthur Hill

Draymond Green addressed last year’s altercation with Kevin Durant on a podcast by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that also includes Warriors GM Bob Myers. Green, who was suspended for one game after the November incident, said he began to question his future with the franchise and his standing with Myers.

“I started to tell myself in my mind, ‘Wow, [Myers is] flipping on me,'” Green said. “And it just felt like, ‘Wow, OK, is this not the guy I’ve known for all these years? Is he turning on me?’ And I started to tell myself all of these things, and then everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, the Warriors sided with Kevin Durant.’ That was the hardest thing for me, because a lot of people don’t understand me. Bob does.”

Green added that he had to get over his “stubbornness” and accept that he mishandled the situation. He refused to apologize to Durant after being told to do so by Myers and coach Steve Kerr, and didn’t offer an apology “until I came to grips with myself.”

“What people don’t know — which is so hard to know, which requires time and energy — is Kevin and Draymond probably will be the closest guys,” Myers said. “They’re going to be friends for their whole life like this. … In the aftermath when they spoke, they laid it out for each other and they’re like, OK, I got ya. Like, now I know where you’re coming from, from both sides. But that could have happened earlier and that would’ve prevented it.”

There’s more Warriors news to pass along:

Green is preparing to play the entire season without Klay Thompson, tweets Nick Friedell of ESPN. Kerr said yesterday that Thompson seems “unlikely” to return from an ACL injury, although the team hasn’t made any official announcement. Green said that it will be an “added bonus” if the All-Star guard can get back on the court by the end of the season.
Marc Stein of The New York Times believes Andre Iguodala will sign with the Warriors next summer and finish his career with Golden State. Iguodala remains in limbo with the Grizzlies, where the Warriors traded him to open cap space. Memphis is hoping to get something in return for the former Finals MVP and has been reluctant to discuss a buyout.
Rookie Eric Paschall has a chance to get consistent minutes, writes Monte Poole of NBC Bay Area. Paschall was used at center and power forward during the preseason, but his best opportunity may come at small forward. “Most guys when they come in, they’re just not ready for this level of strength and force that exists in the game,” Kerr said. “Eric’s ready for all that. He’s gonna play a lot this year. We’re really excited about him.”

NBA Teams With Open Roster Spots To Start Season

October 23rd, 2019 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

As of Monday’s roster cutdown deadline, no NBA team is carrying more than 17 players in total — 15 on standard contracts and two on two-way deals. However, not every team is making use of all 17 roster spots available to them.

Currently, a third of the league’s 30 teams have at least one open roster spot, either on their regular roster or in their two-way slots.

For most clubs, that decision is financially motivated — teams like the Magic and Nuggets are getting dangerously close to the tax line and prefer to avoid moving even closer by paying an extra player or two. The Thunder and Trail Blazers are already over the tax and won’t want to push their projected bills higher.

For teams like the Heat and Warriors, the decision not to carry a 15th man is dictated by the hard cap — neither club currently has sufficient room under the hard cap for more than 14 players.

Teams’ reasoning for retaining an open two-way spot is less clear. Those players earn very modest salaries and don’t count against the cap, so finances shouldn’t be a factor. Perhaps the teams with two-way openings are still considering their options before G League training camps begin next week, recognizing that any two-way player they sign now is unlikely to actually play for the NBA team this week.

Listed below, with the help of our roster counts breakdown, are the teams that aren’t carrying full rosters.

Teams with an open 15-man roster spot:

Atlanta Hawks
Cleveland Cavaliers
Denver Nuggets
Golden State Warriors
Miami Heat
Oklahoma City Thunder
Orlando Magic
- Note: The Magic have two open roster spots, giving them two weeks to get to the required minimum of 14 players.
Portland Trail Blazers

Teams with an open two-way slot:

Brooklyn Nets
Phoenix Suns

Kerr: Klay Thompson “Unlikely” To Play This Season

October 22nd, 2019 at 3:24pm CST by Luke Adams

3:24pm: Speaking today to reporters, including Anthony Slater of The Athletic and ESPN’s Nick Friedell (Twitter links), Kerr clarified that he wasn’t announcing any news on Thompson, and that it’s still possible the All-Star guard will be back this season. Kerr explained that he was just doing the math on typical ACL recoveries.

“I probably opened up a can of worms with that comment,” the Warriors’ head coach said, per Friedell (Twitter link). “… We’ll leave the door open at the end of the year and see what happens.”

9:23am: The Warriors have ruled out sharpshooter Klay Thompson until at least the All-Star break as he recovers from a torn ACL, and head coach Steve Kerr doesn’t sound like he’s counting on Thompson to return at that point. Speaking to Logan Murdock of NBC Sports Bay Area, Kerr said it’s “unlikely” that Thompson will play this season.

“You have to look at it realistically,” Kerr said. “I had an ACL [tear] in college, and I missed a whole season. Generally, an ACL for a basketball player is a full-year recovery, and if it’s a full year for Klay, that puts them out for the season.

“We’ve kind of left the door open in case the rehab goes perfectly and the doctors say he can go. But the reality is, on April 1, that’s the nine-month mark. … April versus nine months post-op for an ACL.”

Thompson’s recovery timeline could hinge in part on how the Warriors perform this season. If the team is in position to qualify for the postseason and Thompson makes good progress in his rehab, it’s easy to imagine him pushing to make it back by season’s end to participate in the playoffs. However, Kerr makes it clear that the Dubs will play it safe with their newly-extended star, preparing for the possibility that he won’t be back until 2020/21.

“We have to prepare our young guys to fill that role behind him,” Kerr said. “And when he gets back, whenever that is, hopefully these young guys now are developed and in the rotation and ready to really be contributors on a playoff team and we can get better.”

Kristaps Porzingis was the last NBA star to suffer a torn ACL. While every player’s body is different and the Knicks and Mavericks likely treated Porzingis’ 7’3″ frame with an abundance of caution during his rehab process, it’s worth noting that the big man sat out the entire 2018/19 season after tearing his ACL in early February 2018.

As Murdock points out, Zach LaVine and Jabari Parker were able to return a little earlier after suffering torn ACLs, but they were still out for 11 months and a year, respectively. An 11-month recovery timetable would sideline Thompson until mid-May, and Golden State’s season may well be over by that point.