Can the Warriors add Bennedict Mathurin to the Porzingis trade?
[trade idea and salary cap analysis]
After Kristaps Porzingis was traded from the Atlanta Hawks to the Golden State Warriors for Jonathan Kuminga ans Buddy Hield at about 9pm Pacific time Wednesday night, I went live about 2.5 hours later to update the cap sheet and see where the franchise was headed.
Monte Poole of NBCSBA wrote that the front office is still working the phones:
The Warriors, according to sources, have not completely shut off their phones. They continue to ponder other potential moves before the NBA trade deadline at noon Thursday.
Also, Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints suggested that the last two roster spots would probably
So we embarked on finding another deal that could improve the Warriors’ roster. As I was replying to a bombardment of trade targets in the live chat…
…my esteemed colleague, Dean “of Positivity” Chambers went to go look at players making around the amount of the next two highest players, Moses Moody ($11.6 million) and Al Horford ($5.7 million), minus about $2 million for a veteran’s minimum spot needed due to the two players out, one coming in.
He went down the list and found Bennedict Mathurin, making just $9.2 million. A transaction including Mathurin in the existing Porzingis framework left all teams satisfactorily under their respective apron issues
An immediate and obvious salary match is Moody. To pry Mathurin from Indiana, Chambers decided Brandin Podziemski would be attractive enough for the Pacers to do the deal, as both Podz and Moody are great complementary system players and would fit well next to Tyrese Haliburton.
Mathurin would fill the void the Warriors have in terms of wing and 3&D athleticism and can not only shoot, but the handle the ball, effectively combining the skills of Mo and BP into one player.
Just an idea that seems to work in terms of salary, needs, and skills. And it fits within the framework of an existing trade that has not completed yet.
We also didn’t think it would cost a pick. We tried to find other more realistic/modest trades and, in doing so, tried to avoid the habit of enticing a deal with a first-round pick, which seems like a common practice of more fantastical trades.
I'll try to cover other salary cap-related topics that will fall out of the Porzingis trade in an upcoming post, such as converting Pat Spencer, going after a buyout candidate with the remaining spot, who those buyout candidates might be and what the plan might be for the off-season.
Other reasonably realistic ideas — independent of the KP trade, though — that popped up during our 3-hour livestream were (see timestamps in the Comments):
Jaime Jacquez for Podz and a second-round pick
Santi Aldama and Brandon Clarke for KP
Credit to @jaivira7337 for coming up with these. The power of community and push-back by me to try and keep the trade ideas from getting too far out of hand.
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