The Warriors open the season thinner than their rotation chart suggests. ESPN’s Anthony Slater reported that the Golden State Warriors will be without starting guard Brandin Podziemski for their season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers.
That is a jolt, because on an older team, the 23-year-old guard is considered their most durable and reliably available rotation player. He was one of only 18 players to appear in all 82 games last season.
He is not the only one out. Steve Kerr said that Porziņģis will not travel with the team to Los Angeles and that the 7-foot-2 center remains out indefinitely, and backup big man Charles Bassey is expected to be a game-time decision.
If both Podziemski and Bassey sit, the Warriors would have just 10 active players on standard contracts for the opener.
Every Trade Being Floated Is a Star Chase
The trade ideas from the past week don’t solve this problem. Heavy’s latest pitch has the Warriors receiving Domantas Sabonis and Keegan Murray while the Kings get Kristaps Porziņģis and Jimmy Butler.
CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn listed Golden State as the obvious fit if the Washington Wizards decide to move Anthony Davis. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons mentioned the Warriors as a possible Zion Williamson suitor before February’s deadline.
Each of those deals is about the top of the roster. None of them adds a ninth or tenth man.
Two of them also run into a wall Slater has already reported on: “The Warriors didn’t show an appetite to offer Butler for Anthony Davis or Jaylen Brown this summer, considering the pick packages required and contracts attached to both.” Team sources told him that every other Butler-plus-picks conversation was shut down too.
That reasoning hasn’t changed with the calendar. Slater reported that general manager Mike Dunleavy still sees him as an essential part of the next few years.
Any proposal that starts with Butler’s $56.8 million expiring deal is technically possible and dead in practice. That leaves no live depth proposal worth ranking.
Porziņģis’s Contract Is the Only Real Chip
If help comes by trade, it will come through Porziņģis’s salary. ClutchPoints’ Brett Siegel reported that the Warriors’ top trade candidate is Porziņģis, because his $20 million salary matches, and only $3 million is guaranteed for next season, essentially making it an expiring contract.
He added that a rival executive said Porziņģis could be moved closer to the February trade deadline if his health-related absence persists.
That timing matters. Golden State used the same playbook last season, and Siegel noted that the Warriors ultimately turned Kuminga into Porziņģis. A $20 million contract can bring back a real rotation big or two useful reserves.
But nobody has reported the Warriors working on such a deal now, and an indefinite medical absence makes the contract harder to move in October than it will be in February.
Kerr Will Patch the Guard Spots From Inside the Roster
Here is the likeliest outcome. Golden State makes no trade in the opening months and patches the guard spots from inside the roster.
With Podziemski out, the expected plan is De’Anthony Melton stepping in to start, along with sophomore guard Will Richard and new addition Brandon Williams to lead the second unit. In the frontcourt, Kerr’s best option is to play Yaxel Lendeborg at center in stretches rather than lean on a thin group of true bigs.
That holds as long as Podziemski’s back is a short-term problem. The Warriors have not said how long he will be out. A soreness scratch for a player who hadn’t missed a game in two seasons is a reason for caution, not a reason to trade.
The real decision comes at the deadline. If Porziņģis is still sidelined and the Warriors are hanging around the play-in, his contract becomes the money-matcher for a center or a reliable reserve.
If the season falls apart early, the Butler conversation Dunleavy has refused to have could finally start. Until one of those things happens, the Warriors’ bench depth is whoever Kerr has in uniform.
Source: Anthony Slater of ESPN
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