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The Golden State Warriors suffered a heartbreaking end to their 2023-24 season with a loss in the play-in tournament to the Sacramento Kings on April 16. The defeat has led many to believe the Bay Area franchise would make wholesale changes to the roster ahead of the 2024-25 season.
Among those changes could be a trade involving forward Andrew Wiggins, who has three years and $84.6 million left in the four-year contract extension he signed with the Warriors in October 2022. Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley has proposed an ambitious trade idea that would send Pelicans All-Star Brandon Ingram to Golden State.
Of course, the Warriors would have to send more than just Wiggins to the Pelicans in exchange for Ingram, a 26-year-old scoring machine just entering his prime.
Buckley has proposed the Warriors ship out a package of Wiggins, Moses Moody, Kevon Looney, a 2025 first-round pick and a 2027 first-round pick (top-three-protected) to New Orleans for for Ingram.
“[Steph] Curry desperately needs someone who can consistently pull defensive attention away, and Ingram has that ability,” Buckley wrote. “The 26-year-old has gone three consecutive seasons of averaging better than 20 points and five assists per outing. Only 15 others can claim the same, and they’re mostly household names, even for NBA casuals.”
To Buckley’s point, Ingram’s playmaking ability would make him an ideal fit in the Warriors system, which relies on read-and-react plays more than any team in the association.
Why Would the Pelicans Make the Deal?
While the Warriors would benefit enormously from Ingram’s addition, what do the Pelicans stand to gain by trading the young All-Star? Buckley argues that with New Orleans potentially suffering an early exit from the 2024 postseason, their front office could ditch their plans of building around the Ingram-Zion Williamson pairing.
“The Pels might think they’ve taken the Ingram-Zion Williamson tandem as far as it can go, in which case they could entertain the idea of flipping Ingram for three plug-and-play rotation pieces and two future firsts to help them go star-searching in a separate deal,” Buckley wrote.
It’s also fair to argue that Ingram and Williamson aren’t the best basketball fit. Neither player is a prolific shooter and prefers to attack the rim instead, making it difficult for New Orleans to field their most effective death lineups. This was evident during their loss to the Lakers on April 16 as Ingram missed 8 of his 12 shots and spent the final few minutes of the fourth quarter on the bench.
The ascension of Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones could also make Ingram dispensable. While Murphy and Jones don’t possess Ingram’s ball-handling or playmaking abilities, they are the prototypical 3&D players that modern NBA teams covet. Furthermore, the duo has proven to fit better alongside Williamson and CJ McCollum.
Andrew Wiggins’ Days Numbered in Golden State?
Even if the teams don’t consider the proposed trade, all signs point to Golden State moving on from Wiggins.
The former No. 1 overall pick averaged career lows across the board for the Warriors — points (13.2), minutes (27.0) and assists (1.7) — in his fourth season in the Bay.
In a more worrying trend, Wiggins’ defense, too, has regressed tremendously over the past year or so. It’s his defense that earned him a four-year contract extension in 2020 in the first place, and the reason Golden State coveted his talents as much as they did.
Considering Wiggins’ all-time low trade value, the Warriors could be forced to attach multiple first-round picks to start a trade conversation with a team. However, as the Russell Westbrook trade in 2023 proved, no player in the NBA is unmovable.
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