Why Myers, Warriors don’t feel urgency to make trade originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
SAN FRANCISCO – The Warriors traditionally approach the NBA trade deadline with a specific philosophy. If scanning the roster produces a frown, grab phones and start calling. If it inspires confidence, keep an eye on the phones.
With the Warriors sitting at 39-13 – second-best record in the league – one week before the Feb. 10 deadline, Bob Myers exuded belief.
“I don’t think we feel urgency,” he said Thursday. “But we’re always listening and talking. We’ll see if something comes up.”
That approach was last exercised in 2018-19, the most recent season in which the Warriors were in the championship race. They made no trades, opting to add emergency center Andrew Bogut to a team that reached the NBA Finals.
That was the last of the three seasons Kevin Durant spent on the roster, and the Warriors slept through each of those deadlines – just as they did the two seasons before KD arrived in July 2016. Five years, not one deadline trade.
It was the right call, as they reached the NBA Finals in each season.
As a borderline playoff team last season, the Warriors made low-impact deals, trading backup guard Brad Wanamaker and backup center Marquese Chriss for draft options and cash. They saw no carrot to chase.
The previous season, in which the injury-ravaged Warriors posted the third-worst record in their Bay Area history, they were hyperactive. They saw a chance to bolster their future and unloaded six players in three separate trades, getting in return getting then-24-year-old Andrew Wiggins and a lottery pick that allowed them to draft Jonathan Kuminga.
This season, however, the most likely deadline additions already are on the roster: Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and James Wiseman. All three happen to be inactive but are expected to return in the coming weeks.
“If I was being told, ‘Don’t count on Draymond coming back,’ we would react differently,” Myers said. “If I was being told, ‘James is not coming back,’ we would approach the deadline differently. Since I’m not being told that asterisks to everything . . . we can only react to the information we have tonight and tomorrow night and the next night.
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“Based on the information we have right now, which is we are being told that we should have a healthy team – based on the guys that are hurt now. And we have to factor that into our decisions.”
With almost two-thirds of the season behind them, the Warriors have yet to play with a full rotation. Klay Thompson missed the first half of the season. Wiseman has not played since last April, the 39th game of his career. Iguodala has missed most of the season but feels he’s nearing a return. Green has missed the last three weeks and hopes to return in early March.
Truth is, the Warriors don’t know how good they’ll be if ever there is a day when the injury list is vacant.
“As far as how do we stack up, or how good can we be, or what is our ceiling, I don’t think anybody can say that, because we haven’t seen those guys play together,” Myers said. “We have an idea of what it could be. If the question is, have we seen enough to stand pat? Yes and no. If something came along that was so good, that we thought was better than the current version of us, we would do it. But as far as feeling a pressure and a mindset of this isn’t good enough, we don’t feel that way.
“I don’t think we look at the roster as deficient.”
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Myers conceded there are imperfections, the most notable of which is lack of size. Wiseman, at 7-foot-1, addresses much of that. Nemanja Bjelica, at 6-foot-9, answers a fraction of it. Green, at 6-foot-6, answers a larger portion simply because he can play four inches taller. Kevon Looney has been a constant and longs for his first 82-game season.
So, a trade is possible but improbable. The more likely plan is that the Warriors will study who is available in the post-deadline buyout market and decide if there is a player they believe will help.
They trust that strategy, as it has worked well for them in the past.
