Preview: Butler back, Melton resting, as Warriors welcome Heat on MLK day

Wiggins, Kuminga, and a bunch of "what-ifs?"

[Author’s note: It is MLK day today. The text below touches on politics, human decency, and historical parallels that may not be what you’re looking for in a basketball article. Feel free to scroll past, and into the “Game Details” section for straight basketball content.]

Today, America celebrates the legacy of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr… or not. Depending on which side of the political spectrum you come down on, praising a civil rights activist can be a core part of your identity, or something that you do tongue in cheek once a year while selectively viewing his arrest record and calls for peaceful protest as a call for conformance. A silver lining of the current state of our government though: we are extremely unlikely to be subjected to any discordant messaging from the hostile administration as they fully lean into their ethno nationalist agenda of far-right ideologies.

Fighting against the status quo is hard, and sometimes (as we are seeing right now in our country) progress can rapidly backslide. Before we get into basketball, I just want to take a moment on this Holiday to remind us all that fighting for things to get better is always going to be hard, and will always be worth it - even if the results don’t meet expectations. This is a wild time to be an American, citizen or resident and I hope that we can make it through this period in a way that won’t require state-mandated rewrites of government action; but in the meantime, remember that the warmest ideals that this country was founded on: freedom, lack of discrimination, separation of church and state are still worth fighting for.

And while none of that has anything to do with basketball directly, it does set the tone for a day that’s fundamentally about values - about what we choose to prioritize, what we’re willing to fight for, and what compromises we accept when ideal outcomes aren’t available.

Happy MLK day, to those that celebrate!

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GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (24-19) vs Miami Heat (22-20)

WHEN: Monday, January 19th, 2026; 7pm PST

WATCH: NBCSBA

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Ok, right, basketball

As it turns out, this is a pretty fitting day to talk about an organization navigating its own version of uncomfortable trade-offs.

The rumor mill launched into overdrive over the weekend, with Jimmy Butler getting pulled out from the Golden State Warriors’ starting lineup moments before the game and sitting out for what the team formally described as personal reasons. According to folks at the game, Butler was on court and warming up with the rest of the team, and was still listed as one of the starters as fans filed into their seats. Added to some other notable players sitting out, there was some worry that Butler may be on the move. Kerr’s terse response in his postgame media availability didn’t provide much soothing:

"I got word from Mike [Dunleavy] that everything is fine," he said. "He just had a personal thing that came up right before the game."

Thankfully, today’s injury report is clear, and it looks like Butler will be back with the team. The Warriors will be playing without Gui Santos (still recovering from that rolled ankle), and De’Anthony Melton (back-to-back game management). The Warriors host the Toronto Raptors tomorrow, so expect Melton to return for that and Al Horford should play tonight but be out tomorrow. Playing the long game!

The Heat have a longer list, but it’s a weird one. Tyler Herro is out, that’s clear enough. But I don’t recall ever seeing “available” as something… we generally just wouldn’t see that player appear in the injury report. Weird. Maybe they are attempting to “flood the zone” to take attention off Terry Rozier’s vague “not with team” as he was swept up as a central figure in the NBA’s ongoing betting investigation?

As has been the case recently - and perhaps for this entire season - Golden State is going into tonight’s game with the mindset that they simply cannot be bothered about who isn’t on the court.

But here on the internet, we don’t need to concern ourselves with such mundanity,¹ the team is 10-4 since mid-December and is gelling under this new but familiar rotation. With Curry, Butler, and (hopefully) Green leading the way, the Warriors’ role players are beginning to find their stride, and coach Steve Kerr has settled into a rotation that balanced perfectly between predictable/stable, and flexibility. Which is a good thing, as the Kuminga trade issue keeps getting messier²

There’s less than three weeks left in the trade season, and Golden State is no closer to a close of the Kuminga saga. To their trade partners, this is a tough sell. Golden State sees the former lottery pick, a guy who was part of their long-term plans as recently as last season. Kuminga’s last gasp wasn’t enough, a beefy 24.3 points per game on 55.4% shooting in the four playoff games the team played without Curry during the Warriors' second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves last season that did little to fix the underlying dynamics.

Kuminga has played in 18 of the Warriors' games this season, but is quickly approaching more DNPs that appearances. Not an ideal outcome for your return on a two-year, $46.8 million contract. Kuminga has been linked to a number of teams, but the interest is tepid. It’s clear that the Warriors are trying to make tea in room temperature water - and there’s no amount of PR spin that can disguise that truth.

The truth is that this is not panning out. Golden State isn’t seeing much talent offered in return, and seems to be pivoting to a deal similar to the Andrew Wiggins trade that brought in Butler.

"League sources said the Warriors have been prioritizing expiring contracts in return for Kuminga. They've declined the idea of taking back long-term contracts unless they view it as no-brainer positive value. That's been the hold up in conversations with Sacramento," according to Charania and Slater.

It has worked before, but Wiggins was seen as a much more viable current player, Kuminga still has some development to work out. More than that though, the salary structures in Golden State are going to be a challenge, and the team is too close to the dreaded “hard cap” second apron to be allowed to take in more salary than goes out. Rather than a talent upgrade that we saw with Wiggins and CP3’s contract, the potential “add-ons” for the Warriors are much more complicated this time around.

Pardon the long quote here, but this Athletic article from Marcus Thompson and others perfectly captures all of this:

Since the Warriors let Chris Paul’s contract expire in 2024, and used Andrew Wiggins to get Butler in 2025, the only contract with enough salary to get a significant roster addition via trade is Kuminga’s. The next-largest contract after Kuminga is Moody’s $11.6 million and Hield’s $9.2 million. Perhaps Moody plus Hield’s expiring contract has value enough to be combined to get a quality player. But the higher the salary of the potential acquisition, the more Kuminga’s contract comes into play. And with the Warriors so close to the hard cap, the dollars must match.

Without Kuminga, any deal to bring in a significant haul requires using Green’s $25.9 million salary. Any deal involving Green changes the calculus for Golden State. After that, Butler and Curry each make more than $50 million, which all but takes them off the table save for a monster trade. That leaves Kuminga and what he can lure on the market.

The problem at the moment, it seems, is that the primary path to a Kuminga deal that was there in the summer appears to have disappeared.

Buddy Hield may become unglued from the bench, but Kuminga’s tenure in a Warriors uniform is almost assuredly over.

The Warriors now find themselves in a front office equivalent position of a player that has picked up their dribble close to the hoop, but with no way to get a good shot. They’ve pivoted, and then pivoted some more. The frantic glances around the playing field haven’t offered much hope of escape, any step-through attempt is a low percentage look that will probably get swatted. The shot clock is ticking… hold mother of God… IS THAT GIANNIS?

No trade is imminent right now, and the Warriors (and the rest of the league) know that this is a desperate moment. So, maybe the marginal move isn’t enough. A soft underhand layup attempt that gets the team enough cap space to re-sign Melton next off-season? Maybe some picks? That’s not going to help right now, and that’s all that Curry and the Warriors care about. So don’t be too surprised if no trade happens. Maybe it’s time to accept the violation here. Five seconds.

Try again next possession? When the trade market might include Giannis… probably not, but who’s to say that’s any less wise than serving a soft underhand layup attempt up to swarming defenders, just so you can say you took the shot?

That may ultimately be the hardest truth for this front office to accept: sometimes the correct decision isn’t a move at all. Sometimes it’s recognizing that leverage has evaporated, that forcing action only compounds the loss, and that living with an imperfect outcome is better than chasing a cosmetic one. The Warriors didn’t plan to be here - but they are. What matters now is whether they can sit with that reality without making it worse. If Kuminga isn’t moved, it won’t be because the Warriors didn’t try; it’ll be because they finally decided what wasn’t worth accepting.

Prediction

The Warriors and Heat are both sitting in 8th place in their respective conferences, but Golden State is the better team. Warriors win this because they have Steph Curry and the other guys don’t; plus, a ton of direct knowledge of how to play against Wiggins will be enough - but expect a tight game tonight.

1. Spell check caught me! I thought the word was “mundanery.” Learn something new every day!

2. Or maybe the Kuminga trade mess is exactly the same as it has been since the off-season? Like a kid that doesn’t clean their room when asked though, it’s the duration of this mess that is adding to the sense of disarray. On a related note, I really must re-store the Xmas decorations in the garage!