At one point this summer, the Golden State Warriors looked like they were on the verge of making a splash trade.
Paul George, now with the Philadelphia 76ers, was the top target. The All-Star was on the outs in Southern California, wanting a contract that the Los Angeles Clippers weren’t willing to pay him. However, the Warriors sensed that George was the type of star that would bring them over the top. Unfortunately for them, the Clippers were unwilling to complete a sign-and-trade that would’ve sent him to The Bay.
Mikal Bridges and Lauri Markkanen were two other players that the Warriors were seriously intent on acquiring. Bridges was taken off the board when the Brooklyn Nets sent him to the New York Knicks for more picks than a lottery ticket. That left Markkanen, who was drafted by the Chicago Bulls before being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers and ultimately the Utah Jazz.
With all of that traveling, it’s no wonder why Markkanen would want to stay put with a rebuilding team. Yet, the reason the Warriors weren’t able to trade for the rising star was their lack of draft capital and desire to hold onto young players like Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga.
Warriors Cornerstone: Splash Jazz Trade ‘Could Have Been Trash’
Warriors cornerstone Draymond Green is known to be outspoken, to the point where he’s intimately involved in the team’s roster decisions. When confronted about his team’s failed trades for Markkanen, the defensive anchor didn’t mince words.
“That could have been trash, by the way,” Green says, per ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk. “Markkanen coming here, we don’t know. We have never seen it. So there was no thought of what could have been because we don’t know what that look like.”
Green’s assertion that the Warriors could’ve played out poorly is correct. There have been multiple instances where a transaction looked great on paper but didn’t turn out so well. In this case, Markkanen appeared to complement Golden State’s frontcourt with his length and shooting.
He Has A Point
Markkanen isn’t at, say, George’s level because he isn’t a great shot-creator. Though the Finnish forward can go one on one, he’s more effective when playing off of others. However, all the Warriors really needed was for him to play off Green, Kuminga, and Stephen Curry.
So, while Green is right to point out that the Markkanen move might not have worked, it still seems like it would have. In fact, Golden State’s biggest problem is the fact that Green, Kuminga, and Trayce Jackson-Davis —their starting frontcourt —struggle to play off of each other and compromise the offense’s spacing. If Markkanen was with the Warriors, they could start him over Kuminga or even Jackson-Davis and avoid that issue.
Now, though 2-1, they’re off to a bumpy start. Kuminga is playing 19.7 minutes per game, sixth on the team. He’s averaging just 8.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game, shooting 33.3 percent from the field and 11.1 percent from 3. He has no creases to slide through inside the arc. He looks unnatural and uncomfortable in a stretch role.
With that being said, the way that Andrew Wiggins is playing lends itself to the idea that the Warriors made the right choice. A player who can create for himself and has morphed into a legitimate long-range threat, Wiggins is averaging 19.7 points per game and connecting on 57.9 percent of his threes. As Golden State looks to the future, holding onto the former No. 1 pick could become important.
If Kuminga and Podziemski come into their own this season or beyond, maybe it all works out for them. If not, they may have to find a replacement for Kuminga as early as next offseason.
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