Haynes: Warriors targeting center like Claxton, Gafford, Robert Williams

[trade market + rumors]

Last night on Prime after the Minnesota-OKC game, which knocked the Thunder down a notch to be on pace for a 73-9 season, Chris Haynes, one of the more reliable news breakers of the NBA, said he was told the Warriors are targeting center like Nic Claxton, Daniel Gafford or Robert Williams in this upcoming trade market.

This, by the way and due to our real-time feeds from Twitter, was breaking news in the VIP section of our Discord server. Get a taste of it here, for free: https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-free — the key difference from Twitter itself being that every post becomes part of a searchable database, which is handy if you’re just looking for videos, which this popped up as a segment from Prime’s postgame report, posted by NBA on Prime themselves.

Here is a copy of the video that got fed to our Discord server:

The notion of a pursuit of Claxton, Gafford or Williams kind of flies in the face of the “we’ve wanted a space-5 for a decade,” as Steve Kerr recently said, because none of these athletic rim-running shot-blocking 5s can shoot.

And, well, the Dubs have not had one of these since JaVale McGee, whose last season with Golden State was all the way back in 2017-18.

So, why the sudden change?

Well, I just did multiple videos on the trade market. First thought: the grand prize is, as it always has been, Giannis Antetokuonmpo. To match salaries, my co-host Dean “of Positivity” Chambers convinced me to trade Draymond Green as well as Jonathan Kuminga — the assumption being that there are very few teams in the NBA who want Jimmy Butler.

As for Green, I can envision a team like the LA Lakers finding value in him, if not with the Bucks (ergo: multi-team trade).

Granted, this was two weeks ago. Right now, with Draymond TTBTTOT’ing (pronounced “teebeetotting”, i.e., an acronym for Throwing The Ball To The Other Team) left and right, it’s of course way easier now to envision Draymond in any trade.

And after Quinten Post had deer-in-the-headlights with a potential game-winning bucket against the Timberwolves, I wondered if Myles Turner wouldn’t be a good Plan B if the Giannis chase didn’t work out. After all, like Jake Fischer of The Stein Line noticed, Turner’s salary is within range of Kuminga’s:

It was in that video where, because of having a target that could also play center, not to mention hit clutch threes, I crossed off Gafford due to all the talk about space-5s. Oops! 🤷🏻‍♂️

But then, as far as Giannis and therefore Turner were concerned, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype shut that down.

So, staying true to top-down big game hunting, I wondered if, instead of emptying the cupboard for an MVP such as Giannis, as he’s unavailable per Scotto, you would “fling all them assets”, in the vernacular of one Wardell Stephen Curry (perhaps almost exactly 365 days ago), for two fringe stars — I don’t know, maybe Jaren Jackson, Jr. and Trey Murphy III? That’s right, both!

Okay, we’d probably be laughed at by both Memphis and New Orleans, but as I’ve said before, Jackson almost became a Warrior this summer before the Grizzlies asked for one more pick — I’m told it would’ve been a fourth first-rounder (gulp!).

For the Pelicans, I wondered if our 2026 pick might hold extra weight for New Orleans as they traded away theirs last summer to move up and pick Derik Queen and got roasted in the media and among GM circles for it:

The exercise of going through these thought experiments led Dean and I to conclude that maybe the Warriors should hold on to its picks, especially with the possibility that Giannis might not want an extension with Milwaukee this summer. Maybe just trade Kuminga and/or others for some Draft capital is the best path.

At least that would signal a plan.

It would also say to the vets, effectively, hey, you guys made your bed, now lay in it — we are of the ilk that a lot of these losses come down to the vets turning the ball over a ton, or not being healthy, or maybe they’re just old in an early season of crazy pace, yadda yadda yadda, the vets just aren’t playing to their ceiling.

Think Games 3 and 7 of the Houston playoff series when Steph literally admitted on the podium that he was just trying not to turn the ball over. But can you please do this in the regular season?

And so I view this sudden rim-runner-5 pursuit as a middle ground for:

1. Giannis is not available.

2. Guys like JJJ and Murphy are not available.

3. Trading Kuminga for Draft capital might end up with too many losses and Curry isn’t getting any younger, although his game has surely held up. And Giannis leaving the Bucks is no guarantee.

What are we left with?

Using JK’s salary slot, lower the average age and get a quality starter-type — which were my goals with the JJJ+Murphy pie-in-the-sky — by pursuing the rim-running 5 position.

The price for Murphy might be too high right now. Since the market has no quality 3&D wings that are near Kuminga’s salary (e.g., Jerami Grant is at $30 million), the Pelicans might be thinking more than one pick is needed for Murphy; they might be asking for Desmond Bane-level stuff (three picks).

That’s a steep price for a wing.

Some more problems that sort of fly in the face of what I’ve come to learn about the Warriors’ cap sheet trends, if I’m staying away from the word “strategies”:

• Curry, Dray and Jimmy all come off the books Summer 2027. During the summer rumor mill when Sacramento and Phoenix emerged as suitors for JK, the Warriors reportedly did not want players like Malik Monk or Grayson Allen because they have player options for 2027-28 that Monk and Allen would likely take, around roughly $20 million apiece. Granted, their contracts are not great value to begin with.

• Claxton at $25.6 million makes more than Kuminga at $22.5, so you’d have to trade another player.

• By the way, that player will not be Seth Curry ($2.8 million). As we found on the Discord feed, the three-month window after which he was signed on December 1 is March 1, which takes you past the trade deadline.

• Claxton also has a descending salary whereby he’ll make a guaranteed $20 million on 2027-28.

• Gafford has an ascending contract that takes him from $14.4 million to $17.3 next season, $18.1 for 2026-27, and finally $19 for 2028-29. Granted, the salary cap should be going up through these years, but that contract is supposed to be too long! Now suddenly you’re okay with contracts that take you two years past the Big Three? I suppose the market could always use a Gafford type, even if the Warriors haven’t prioritized it since McGee. And even in the 2018 playoff run, Kerr went with Kevon Looney over Zaza Pachulia and JaVale.

• Williams has a $13.3 million contract that ends this season. So, you’re gonna trade for a guy who can’t be a trade chip this off-season? Also it doesn’t look like a cost-cutting move. Per capsheets.com, the Warriors are presently $20 million over the tax line. If you trade JK for Rob, you’re saving $9 million. Where’s the other $11 million coming from? Are you sending out Moses Moody for a second round pick?

• Then again, you do get Williams’ Bird Rights. I’m not well-versed on the intricacies, but the Warriors could re-sign Rob and the hit to the cap table wouldn’t be quite as much as what they end up paying him.

Maybe the Claxton/Gafford/Williams rumor opens the door for a bigger deal with one of those teams?

Dean just came up with a scenario of JK, Brandin Podziemski and Buddy Hield for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray. Let’s assume it’s straight up, no picks involved. Seems fair and the connection to Williams is that it’s Portland.

That 3-for-2 trade would open up a roster spot to eventually convert Pat Spencer, which was reported by Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints.

I’ll probably do a livestream after tonight’s game against the Suns to scour the trade market for more bigs of the Claxton/Gafford/Williams archetype.

All livestreams occur simultaneously on the Substack app, so keep a lookout for the auto-email, if I do go live after the game.

And, obviously, I could be completely wrong about all of the above. But I treat a lot of this like the physics/scientific community: I don’t mind being wrong as long as I learn something in the process to increase my NBA cap sheet knowledge even by 1%.

🫶💙💛