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The Golden State Warriors are in danger of wasting the remaining years of Steph Curry’s prime by trying to copy the approach of a rival team, an insider says.
Wes Goldberg, Warriors beat writer for The Mercury News, said in the Locked on Warriors podcast that the team’s attempt to replicate the model of the San Antonio Spurs could end up backfiring if they can’t jump back into title contention in the remaining prime years for Curry.
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Warriors Need to Reach Decision on James Wiseman
In the podcast, Goldberg said that Warriors could be “wasting their time” by holding onto some valuable assets that could be used now to score a playmaker. He said it appeared that Golden State is trying to replicate the Spurs model of developing talent to sustain a long stretch of title contention, but believes this may not work given how the Warriors are built around a once-in-a-lifetime talent.
“You have to assume you’ll never have a player as good as Steph ever again,” he said, adding, “Even if you have a 10 percent chance of winning a championship, you have to put all the chips in. You have to go all in.”
Going all in may look something like trading rookie big man James Wiseman or the protected first-round pick that the Warriors scored from the Minnesota Timberwolves in last year’s D’Angelo Russell trade — or potentially trading both.
Goldberg suggested that the Warriors should spend the rest of this season evaluating whether Wiseman can grow into an immediate contributor. If it looks like it will take a few years for him to reach his peak, the Warriors should squeeze a more immediate value out of him as trade bait for a player who can help them become a contender in the Western Conference again once Klay Thompson returns next season.
Golden State Could Swing Big Deal
There are already suggestions that the Warriors are pursuing the kind of deal that Goldberg suggests. Golden State has been pegged as a top contender to land Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards if he should hit the trade block.
But the Warriors do not appear to be interested in any short-term fixes. General manager Bob Myers also said this week that the Warriors will be thinking long-term at the upcoming trade deadline, not wanting to sacrifice too much for a run at the playoffs this year and instead continuing to build toward the future.
“I don’t think we want to think too short-term and give up something in the future just to make a little bit of a push now,” Myers said in an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. “As hard as that is to stay discipline, I think we would hope that anything that we would decide to do had legs beyond this year or had advantages beyond the rest of this season.
The Warriors enter the All-Star break outside the playoff picture, having fallen to ninth place after a three-game losing streak dropped their record to 19-18.
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