Many Warriors fans wanted Golden State (46-36) to make something happen before the Feb. 8 trade deadline during the 2023-24 NBA season.
Even though a major move never came to fruition and Golden State got hot in the NBA Play-In tournament against the Sacramento Kings, a trade wouldn’t have made things worse in hindsight.
However, Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy firmly believes it was best not to make roster changes, a process he explained to reporters Thursday.
“I think knowing what I know now, there’s nothing on the table that I would have done or experienced,” Dunleavy said. “I think it was good to see this team knocked out. I think one of the best things about this year, frankly, there were no catastrophic injuries. There’s no ” Hey, Steph only played 40 games.” Things like that.
“We clearly know what this team was. They weren’t good enough, and so there’s no doubt about that. There’s no ‘what if’ if we had acted on the date limit — “Well, maybe it wasn’t.” [or] “What if we had kept this or that guy? We have answered all these questions and we can now move forward with clarity.
The Warriors pulled off a blockbuster trade last offseason when they sold Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards in exchange for 12-time NBA All-Star Chris Paul. Golden State hasn’t made a trade of this magnitude since.
At the deadline, the Warriors kicked the tires by trading for then-Toronto Raptors forward OG Anunoby, ESPN’s Zach Lowe reported, citing sources, but nothing came of it. came out either.
Dunleavy wants the Warriors’ season to go better. However, he appreciates the information he was able to gather about his team throughout the year.
“But looking back on it, no, I feel good about this team,” Dunleavy added. “We really invested a lot in it before the season started and put a lot of thought into it. I thought she could play in multiple ways – pretty versatile defensively, offensively. Did we do that all year long? No. But being able to see this after the deadline, I thought it was important.
“It’s… the feedback that I got from the players, from the coaching staff. And frankly, we were 27-12 in the last half of the season. So, I’m happy with the way we went after the deadline. I just don’t like the first part of the season which put us too far behind and we couldn’t catch up.
The Warriors looked like their dynastic self to finish the year, but as Dunleavy mentioned, the team simply didn’t have enough juice and dug itself too deep a hole early on.
And it was the right decision, in Dunleavy’s eyes, to do no more than trade Corey Joseph to the Indiana Pacers at the deadline for draft considerations and everyone’s favorite considerations: cash considerations.
However, it appears the Warriors might have to make some moves this offseason.
Expect Dunleavy to work the phones more than before in his second offseason as general manager.
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