Last updated November 10, 2026. Ten targets, ranked on whether the Golden State Warriors could actually get them — not on how good the player is. Every name here comes from a Side Eye Sports piece that argued it, and each entry says whose idea it was and what the verdict was. Several of these are arguments against the trade. Those are on the board too, ranked by how realistic they are rather than by how much we liked them, because a map of what has been considered is more useful than a wish list.
1. Jalen Smith, Chicago Bulls
Jake Fischer reported at The Stein Line that Golden State has called the Chicago Bulls about Smith. Side Eye Sports argued the Warriors should not wait on it: trade Moses Moody for Jalen Smith now, not in December. With seven Warriors frozen until December 15, Moody’s $12,500,000 and Kristaps Porziņģis’s contract are the only salaries that can legally move today, and Smith himself is not on Chicago’s restricted list — Norman Powell is. Smith’s $9,428,571 fits inside Moody’s dollar-for-dollar ceiling with $3,071,429 unused and $4,993,802 of hard-cap room afterwards, and it converts Moody’s guaranteed 2027-28 money into a contract that simply ends. Reported contact, legal today, and it staffs the one position the roster is short at. The honest hole in the case is his shooting, at 28.2 percent from three.
2. Domantas Sabonis, Sacramento Kings
Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report proposed Draymond Green, Porziņģis, Will Richard and a top-four protected 2032 first-round pick for Sabonis, calling Golden State a near-ideal landing spot. Side Eye Sports endorsed it: make this one, and the apron is not the obstacle. The three salaries total $49,341,683 against Sabonis’s $45,472,000, clearing dollar-for-dollar matching with $3,869,683 to spare and finishing $5,792,056 under the second-apron hard cap. The only hard block is Green’s December 15 eligibility, and the real cost is roster spots: three out for one leaves the Warriors at 13, payable twice over with the room left. This is the largest upgrade on the board, and nobody has reported that Sacramento is listening.
3. Myles Turner, Milwaukee Bucks
Zach Buckley of Bleacher Report proposed Porziņģis, Moody, a 2028 first-round pick and a 2031 swap for Turner and Ryan Rollins. Side Eye Sports found it clean on paper and dead on arrival: the pitch works everywhere but Milwaukee. The salaries clear by about $1.43 million, every player is eligible today, and the deal reduces payroll, which for a team hard-capped at the second apron is close to the only kind it can make. What it needs is a Bucks front office that Sam Amick and Nick Friedell of The Athletic reported is not believed to be interested in Porziņģis — and Turner’s name was never reported inside those conversations. Fischer has since reported the Warriors do not have Turner high on their list and would want draft capital from Milwaukee to absorb his money. Milwaukee has started him every game.
4. Herb Jones, New Orleans Pelicans
This one is ours. Side Eye Sports proposed Moses Moody and Gui Santos for Herb Jones: $17,129,630 out against $14,898,786 back, which sheds $2,230,844 and is what makes the deal legal rather than incidental, with every player eligible immediately. Santos is in it because the cheaper version misses by $247,869, which under dollar-for-dollar matching is enough to kill a trade. The case for paying it is that Stephen Curry is 38 and a perimeter defender of this kind cannot be developed in-house; the case against is Jones’s shooting and the three escalating years that start at $20,858,300. New Orleans’s reported standing price is two first-round picks, one unprotected, at which point the Warriors should walk.
5. Daniel Gafford, Dallas Mavericks
Stephen Noh of The Sporting News proposed sending Porziņģis back to Dallas on the logic that a healthy Dereck Lively makes Gafford an expensive backup. Side Eye Sports ranked it first on mechanics among three center ideas in its October ranking of the Warriors’ starting-center trade ideas, because Gafford makes less than Porziņģis and the deal therefore works under the hard cap without a third player — and named him the fallback if Milwaukee will not deal. What holds it back cuts both ways: The Sporting News concedes Dallas will not give Gafford away, and the Mavericks have no reason to absorb Porziņģis’s situation without a sweetener. Fischer has reported Dallas asking a first-round pick for him.
6. Caris LeVert, Milwaukee Bucks
Nobody pitched this one. It is what Side Eye Sports found when it checked whether Milwaukee could absorb Porziņģis at all: the only legal return from Milwaukee is a guard. Jericho Sims lets the Bucks take back $5,852,692 and Kel’el Ware $9,559,840, both far short of Porziņģis’s $19,512,195, and even together they reach only $15,162,532 — so the two cheap centers everyone points at were never in range. LeVert’s $14,809,200 is the one Bucks salary that clears both sides, lifting Milwaukee to a $23,904,909 ceiling. It ranks sixth because it is the most thoroughly verified trade on this board and fills the wrong position: the Warriors have guards, and the verdict was to pass and keep the contract unspent.
7. Trey Murphy III, New Orleans Pelicans
Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints confirmed Golden State has talked with Milwaukee, Chicago and New Orleans about Porziņģis, and Joey Akeley of Warriors on SI read the New Orleans call as a return to the Pelicans’ standing price — three first-round picks with Porziņģis as the money-matcher — and wrote that the Warriors should meet it. Side Eye Sports put a player back into that bill: a Murphy trade would cost Moses Moody, not just picks. Porziņģis alone is $7,487,805 short, Al Horford misses by $665,805 and is frozen until December 15, and the only alternative that clears today is Porziņģis, Brandin Podziemski and Will Richard — three out for one, including a starting guard on money through 2031-32. The reported contact earns it this spot; the $87,000,000 guaranteed through 2028-29 is why the answer was no.
8. Nic Claxton, Chicago Bulls
Inside the Warriors at Sports Illustrated floated what amounts to Porziņģis for Claxton and a first-round pick, with Golden State attaching the pick. Side Eye Sports called him the weakest of the three center ideas it ranked in October. Claxton’s salary of roughly $23.1 million is higher than Porziņģis’s, so the Warriors have to add money rather than shed it, which is the opposite of what a team hard-capped at the second apron needs; the deal costs a first-round pick; and he was working back from a hamstring injury that cost him the preseason. Chicago is also the team Golden State has reportedly called about Smith, which is the cheaper and better-fitting version of the same errand.
9. Klay Thompson, Miami Heat
Thompson said after Miami’s visit to Chase Center that a Golden State return had crossed his mind last offseason, telling reporters “a little bit” when asked. Side Eye Sports costed the reunion and found it does not exist in the form anyone imagines: a Thompson trade needs the Miami Heat to add Tim Hardaway Jr. Thompson’s $5,600,000 lets Miami absorb $11,450,000, which is $1,050,000 short of Moody, and taking Moody back for Thompson alone would push the Heat $4,820,956 past a hard cap they cannot cross. Hardaway’s expiring $6,500,000 answers both at once. Both are frozen until December 15, and the return is a reserve wing for a team whose unsettled spot is center. A remark is not a request.
10. Keegan Murray, Sacramento Kings
Heavy pitched Porziņģis and Jimmy Butler to Sacramento for Sabonis and Murray. Side Eye Sports left it off its October ranking on the grounds that the deal asks a Kings team to take on two hurt veterans at once, with Butler’s injury still being managed on Golden State’s end. It sits last because it is the only idea on this board rejected on the other team’s willingness before the money was even reached — and because Bailey’s later package, at number two, gets Sacramento’s best player without asking the Kings to absorb Butler’s $56,832,773. Murray stays on the board because he is a name the Warriors have been publicly connected to, not because the trade should happen.
What Would Reshuffle This Board
Three things. December 15 unfreezes Charles Bassey, Draymond Green, Al Horford, De’Anthony Melton, Georges Niang, Gary Payton II and Brandon Williams, which is what unlocks the Sabonis package and gives Golden State salary-matching routes that do not run through Moody. The resolution of Porziņģis’s situation is the second: the $19,512,195 is the only large trade number the Warriors have, it behaves like an expiring contract because the year behind it is a player option, and whether it is spent, bought out or kept changes every entry built on it. The third is the obvious one — any reported asking price on a center, since most of this board is still priced by nobody but the people proposing it.
Every entry above is drawn from a published Side Eye Sports piece, linked in the entry. Contract, payroll, apron and trade-eligibility figures are as stated in those pieces; no cap math is recomputed here.
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