Game Thread: Green, Mulder both questionable for Warriors in Sacramento
A quiet trade deadline, and now a key player out? Sure, let's go!
Well, there goes the trade deadline.
The Golden State Warriors, sitting at 10th in the Western Conference, chose to not make any significant moves. They did manage to clear out some salary by moving Brad Wanamaker and Marquese Chriss, but the big takeaway from the day is that the Warriors are mostly going to ride out the rest of this season with the current status quo.
Just a few hours before tipoff, it was revealed that both Draymond Green and seldom used bench shooter Mychal Mulder may not make an appearance in Sacramento tonight. Remember that “questionable” is a grade better than “doubtful” and much better than “out” - so it isn’t impossible, just unlikely.
The Kings made some moves as well, swapping seldom used guard Corey Joseph for other seldom-used guard, Delon Wright. It’s not clear yet why this move was worth two 2nd round picks for Sacramento, but hey, it’s the Kings!
They also managed to turn dis-satisfied bench shooter, Nemanja Bjelica into Maurice Harkless and Chris Silva; while also conducting a second trade to bring in second-year player Terrence Man, who went undrafted last year. It’s like the NBA front office version of that football play where everyone just runs in circles throwing lateral passes to each other.
GAME DETAILS
WHO: Golden State Warriors (12-12) at Sacramento Kings (19-25)
WHEN: Thursday March 24th, 2021 // 7:00pm PST
WATCH: NBCSBA
A quiet trade season
It’s been pretty well established that the Warriors didn’t have much ammo to swing a trade. Though the were vocally and transparently dangling impending Free Agent, Kelly Oubre, the available offers weren’t enticing enough to pry away the young athletic wing.
Instead, the Warriors tidied up their ledger a bit, moving both Marquese Chriss and Brad Wanamaker for essentially nothing but salary relief.
Though Wanamaker was already assigned to bench-warming duty, and Chriss was out for the season with a leg injury, it’s telling that the Warriors weren’t able to find a viable trade partner for Oubre.
It also punts the pressure on the Warriors front office to do something meaningful with that roster spot that Oubre occupies. Because the team is so cap-constrained, they are prevented from adding anyone else in that skill/price range as a free agent. Now, they’ve got to contend with Oubre’s market value and think long and hard about how they plan to improve the team ahead of Wiseman’s development curve.
Though there’s some chatter of freeing up roster spots for the buyout market, I wouldn’t expect much. Most of the more desirable players will go to contenders, leaving the Warriors looking at a list titled “You got bought out for a reason.”
For now, we ride with what we got.
Let’s go, Warriors!!
For the rest of the news around the league, we turn to NBA legend, Magic Johnson - though I would respectively disagree and say the Nuggets won the day:
Wiseman is looking decidedly not great. I would say it's concerning but I think most of us know he's past concerning. The worst part might be that he's probably looking worse now than he did at the start of the season.
Poole, Mannion (if his shot's real he's probably got an NBA future), Wiggins and JTA were pretty good.
Our over-reliance on Steph for offense and Dray for defense is very concerning.
Good night folks.