SAN FRANCISCO — The trade speaks for itself right now, especially since the Warriors can’t say anything about the surprise deal that sends Chris Paul to the Bay Area and Jordan Poole to the Wizards until it becomes official on July 6.
Yes, the mere fact of swapping a moody 24-year-old on a long-term contract for a dour Hall of Famer inductee 38-year-old on a very short-term contract goes a long way to explaining the Warriors’ state of mind and finances parameters at this moment. Add to that the lineup of two hardened talents, Santa Clara’s guard Brandin Podziemski and Indiana’s big man Trayce Jackson-Davis, and you have a loud topic that’s hard to miss.
New general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr., Joe Lacob, Kirk Lacob, Steve Kerr and everyone else doesn’t need to say the words: they still love their dynastic core of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, but after the struggles and because of the Last season’s stresses meant they needed to make some important changes to the rest of their squad. They want to make themselves harder. Stronger in the face of adversity. More efficient and consistent in playoff situations.
The warriors don’t have to say the words. But after Friday’s press conference introducing Podziemski and Jackson-Davis, and days before anyone on the team was allowed to discuss the Paul acquisition, Kerr explained the general terms of the Warriors’ offseason goal.
“We’re going to be very different,” Kerr told me. “The last thing I will do is say anything about a team that just won a league a year ago and then struggled through a difficult season. Did an amazing run at the end of this year. I love this group that we’ve had for the past few years.
“But the most important point is that we felt that we needed a change. That didn’t mean we needed an overhaul, but we did need some kind of change. I think everyone in the organization felt that. And it feels like we’ve made a pretty significant shift without giving up our identity and our sense of who we are as a team. I think all in all it’s a very positive change.”
There is obviously a high risk. Just eight months ago, Warriors leadership was unanimous in favor of granting Poole a four-year, $123 million contract extension that doesn’t begin until next season…when he’s expected to score more than 30 points a game in Washington. Even on Friday, none of the Warriors employees I spoke to expressed any regrets about this deal.
But the Warriors had to change a few things, both stylistically and financially, to try to catch up with the champion Nuggets and the rest of the Western Conference powers and earn a way out of the dreaded second payroll by the next offseason. The Poole for Paul deal (which includes the Warriors also sending 2022 first-rounder Patrick Baldwin Jr. to the Wizards) deducts nearly $100 million in future salary obligations — which otherwise collect through luxury tax penalties That money stayed on the books for seasons to come — and also gives the Warriors their best second-perimeter playmaker since Shaun Livingston. Additionally, if Paul goes through another injury-related season, the Warriors may opt out of his non-guaranteed $30 million in 2024–25 or trade the contract for another high-paying player.
GO DEEPER
The Warriors crown wild draft day with a trade between Baldwin and Jackson-Davis
Paul is also a notable scowler and combatant on the pitch; He had his tense moments with the Warriors just like he did with just about everyone else. Additionally, he rarely turns the ball, struggles on defense and is just the kind of adult the Warriors have been yearning for this season break after their experiences with Poole, James Wiseman and several other teenage draftees.
Here’s what Dunleavy said Thursday night after the draft when I asked him if he intended to attract the kind of players that would make the Warriors tougher next season:
“Yes, I would say ‘competitiveness’ – there is a competitiveness,” Dunleavy said. “We picked a few people with pretty good track records. Apparently Trayce, age four (college game); Brandin has only really played for a year, 21 years old but guys who have a sample of going out and getting things done. I think given the feedback from our team and coaches this year we had to go back to the competitive/tough factor.”
Podziemski is a sharp-shooting minor guard who led in WCC rebounds (8.8 per game) last season and said he hopes to average a triple-double very quickly in his NBA career. A slightly undersized, tall man who can’t shoot jumps, Jackson-Davis was a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year finalist and blocked 2.9 shots per game last season. Records abound from both of their college careers, and none of it suggests they shy away from anything.
“I like the fact that they both have a lot of college experience,” Kerr said. “I think that’s really helpful. Trayce played over 120 college games. It’s meaningful. It just means you’re ahead of the curve when you get here. That means you’re further along than you otherwise would be. The guys from the last few years are doing a good job, they put in a lot of work. But they have to reach the level that an older player is already at.
“We feel like we have a really good, competitive group. And there will still be places available. Everyone will get a fair chance to earn playing time.”
Of course, everything has to work on the basketball court too. The Warriors have a unique style of play with Curry, Klay and Draymond and have been incredibly successful at it. This is based on ball and player movements, curls, cuts and screens. Nobody dominates the ball. Everyone moves it to the open type. That doesn’t have much to do with what Paul has been playing for the last few years, when he thrived as a ball-dominant pick-and-roll type who you don’t often see slicing away and shielding the ball to close spaces for others create or set him to start a catch-and-shoot from a distance.
GO DEEPER
Thompson: Chris Paul and Steph Curry join forces and prove life is a flat circle
But the Warriors can make adjustments during periods of play. Kerr has done this before, most notably in the Kevin Durant years (when the Warriors did a few more isolation sets at Durant’s suggestion) and when Livingston led the second session during the Curry minute break. As Kerr pointed out Friday, it’s not as if they’re totally averse to pick-and-roll basketball, either. Next season they will have an additional extremely capable ball handler to take over if Curry is out, or available as an alternate option if Curry is out.
“If you think about the Lakers series and maybe the last game of the Sacramento series, we did a high pick and roll hundreds of times, over and over,” Kerr said. “This obviously makes Steph deadly. But it also limits your opportunities to cause offense elsewhere, and it puts a lot of strain on Steph’s shoulders.
“If we want, we will obviously be able to implement this style better. But also about getting Steph off the ball. One of the strongest strengths we’ve had on this team is Steph’s versatility when playing on or off the ball.”
The idea is to give the Warriors another way to challenge the defense. Paul can implement his attacking style with the second unit (perhaps igniting Jonathan Kuminga’s rim-running game), and then he can potentially close halves alongside Curry and Klay and let them both sprint around screens off the ball while Paul defends probing and pressuring in its own way.
“One of the things Steph said … I think his most telling quote after the Lakers series was that we didn’t have enough variety to score,” Kerr said. “And with Steph, it was all a high pick and roll. The whole series. We just couldn’t do enough. When we did our best, this team had a lot of good passes, a lot of connectors, a lot of people who knew how to play with Steph, free him and use his gravity to make layups or take shots on the other side of the floor.
“We have to keep that variety in our game somehow. We lost a lot of that this year. Hopefully next year we can win some of that back. … When we needed a bucket, we relied on Steph/Draymond’s tall pick-and-roll. It’s our best piece. This is our 98 mph fastball. But if you throw that far enough in the middle, it’ll hit someone in McCovey Cove. And that’s what happened against the Lakers, we just didn’t have the variety. We didn’t have a transition like Steph said.”
As Dunleavy and Kerr point out, the Warriors still have several roster spots left, which is exciting for them but also a little scary given that they are fairly thin leading up to this point. They’ll be in even worse shape if Draymond doesn’t re-sign in July, but the Warriors are steadfast in his belief that he will return to the roster.
So deducting Poole and Baldwin saved them a lot of money going forward. (I’ve been told the Warriors are now projecting next season’s payroll commitments near $420 million, which is slightly more than was suggested earlier this week, but of course things are changing. Next season, it could be down to $320 (millions or less if they want.) With Paul, they feel more versatile and tougher. They’ve got a few talented newbies who could win Kerr’s trust relatively quickly. They’re a little slimmer. They’re a lot older. They’re different, and the Warriors, with a new GM and mounting pressure to claim another title in the Curry era, definitely wanted something different this offseason.
The TK Show: Go to Tim Kawakami’s podcast page on Apple, Spotify and The Athletic app.
GO DEEPER
Chris Paul’s move is Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s gonzo contest for the title
(Photo: Jed Jacobsohn/NBAE via Getty Images)