Jaren Jackson, Jr. the 1-A target? Derrick White 1-B? Kuminga gone?

[video/analysis/commentary]

The way I navigate the trade rumor clickbait jungle is I try to identify a “1-A” target that could, on paper, make our Warriors a legit Finals contender and therefore root for that outcome. Anything else that happens that isn’t as earth-shaking, I scroll past until Shams Charania of ESPN says there’s a deal. I’m sure we’ll get to that point, soon.

So, work from the top down. Everything else flows off like water.

Last summer the Lauri Markkanen pursuit never really got anywhere, but it didn’t faze me. First of all back on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2024, luckily my co-host Dean “of Positivity” Chambers identified Markkanen as a 1-A target: seven feet, can shoot, is mobile, falls out of bed and gets 7 rebounds, 18 points. A potentially perfect complementary pick-and-pop-or-roll piece to one Wardell Stephen Curry.

At the time, it was a stretch (no pun intended) to make something work with the cap sheets and salary matching, but Chambers dreamed up a scenario where Utah general-manager-at-the-time Danny Ainge fell in love with acquiring Jaylen Brown — that might be happening rn if you’re paying attention to the sources rumors — as his own primary 1-A target, and concocted a multi-team trade to achieve that end, even involving Chicago’s Zach LaVine.

Lo and behold about six months after that, Lauri became an actual rumored pursuit. Staring at the Jazz and Warriors cap sheets all the time, I couldn’t help but constantly view Andrew Wiggins’ contract as a super-depressed asset that just couldn’t bear the weight of the basketball side of things needed to get a Markkanen deal going, due to the salary matching.

It just didn’t bother me the way casuals started complaining that no deal was happening, pointing blame at Joe Lacob for supposedly not wanting to part with Brandin Podziemski after Ainge supposedly balked at Jonathan Kuminga.

Well, my own supposition was that Wiggins carried no value in the marketplace especially after suffering through his dad’s health difficulties and posting career-low numbers. No one wanted to be stuck with that contract, especially in a blockbuster deal. You’d be the butt of jokes at NBA Governor’s meetings for years to come. Oh well, move on. The Lacob/Ainge chatter was meaningless to me.

But prior to that, Lacob had his eyes set on Paul George as his 1-A target, with the approval of Draymond Green, who later revealed on his own podcast how mad he was at the Clippers for backing out. George himself would later say on his own podcast that the trade scenario actually involved Klay Thompson staying on the Golden State roster and that LA wasn’t enamored by Podziemski and/or Kuminga despite the flinging of Draft assets.

I think the Klay part was why Lacob saw this deal as his “1-A”. Even though PG ended up being a bust free agent pickup (at least so far) for the Sixers, I respect Joe for taking this swing, just like I respect Orlando for making the Desmond Bane home run swing.

Not outraged by anything, I kept my mind open and learned that even though Klay was a free agent, he could still land on a team that by far had zero cap space and only the passion of the “1-A” desire to add him to an NBA Finals runner-up that was missing exactly his specific skill set in their starting lineup. Kudos to the dad of Rocco (RIP!) for finding himself the dream job.

The whole time we were thinking Orlando was the team that had cap space and could fit Klay.

Hello, sign-and-trade!

Here’s the thing about sign-and-trades: they require the team receiving the player (that got signed then traded) to be hard-capped at the first apron. Therefore, when discussing sign-and-trades, there is a requirement to study the cap sheets of all teams involved.

Anyways, Lacob — I should say Mike Dunleavy, Jr., as he’s the actual GM — then pivoted on the crisis (of losing Klay) and maneuvered to get under the luxury tax line, bringing in Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson in a six-team deal at nearly the same salary combined (Klay $17 million, Hield and Anderson $9 million apiece). This allowed Golden State to stay under the luxury tax line, enabling them to acquire De’Anthony Melton as a free agent using the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (under $13 million at the time).

Klay for Buddy, Kyle and (essentially) Melt? Okay. That’s pretty cool.

And so that exercise of staying under the luxury tax line forced me to check the spreadsheet many times.

Speaking of 1-A targets, Chambers was famously on our livestreams this past December and January making the emphatic three-word high-decibel rebuttal as we mulled whether Jimmy Butler was going to mess up the fragile Warriors ecosystem.

“He’s Jimmy Butler!!!” screamed Dean.

All the while the audience and I continued to vote for keeping JK. Turns out, come February trade deadline, the Heat were desperate enough to leave him out of the equation. Yay!

But, I mean, how many times did we hear fans whining to get Jonas Valanciunas or Nikola Vucevic? If you’re spending assets on a 1-A target like Jimmy, who’s got time to worry about Nic Claxton?

“We need a big man!” How? With what money? What’s the trade scenario? Where’s the salary match? Or are you just complaining? We were .500 at the time, obviously, so I get it, but who wants to hang out with Debbie Downers?

Embracing the 1-A target provides immunity to casuals acting out.

And so that’s my long-winded way of getting to the latest 1-A target, actually not suggested by me, but by cap expert Yossi Gozlan of Third Apron and his usual co-host Sam Quinn of CBS Sports. I think it was Quinn who came up with it.

That target is Jaren Jackson, Jr. Is he a big man? Check. Can he shoot? Check. Can he defend? Check.

All the machinations, including links to the original Gozlan/Quinn proposal, are in my cap sheet video analysis here:

If you’re wondering why the heck Memphis would do this deal, I quote Quinn:

Now, the reporting has been a little bit mixed where they've kind of signaled no, we're planning to rebuild around Jaren and around Ja Morant. But I think teams have been a little skeptical about that. The other thing here is that Jaren has some degree of agency and if he gets wind that he has a chance to go to the Warriors — now, he can't renegotiate and extend there, but as a free agent in 2026, I think he might be able to just say, “Look, I'm planning to sign with the Lakers. You can — you should trade me now, or I'd really like to go to the Warriors. Send me there.” It would've to be a team like that, probably. But I don't think that they're locked into keeping him. I think if they get another really significant offer, they would consider it and the Warriors have a chance to make a very significant offer where they can trade all or most of their four first round picks — the 2030 pick we covered — and then maybe throw in a swap. They can get Kuminga, who could be a very nice developmental player for them in a rebuild and I think at that point, honestly, I know that market is not gonna have much of an appetite for a quote-unquote tank, but if you've gotten all of these Warriors picks and you got all those picks from Orlando in the Desmond Bane trade and you still have Morant and Kuminga, you could kind of sell it as like a retool more than a rebuild where it's, like, we're gonna see if these two have anything. Could they be like a 30-win team, 32-win team next year? And then we maybe put some of those picks back on the table and we try to trade our way back in, or we just draft good young players. They have a really good Draft track record. I think that would be something that they would consider if the Warriors were really prepared to go all-in.

Again, 1-A, 1-A, 1-A. Coby White? Idc. Bobby Portis? Small potatoes. Vucevic? Again?! Stop it!

Incidentally I did look at another 1-A and even a 1-B.

First off, Markkanen right now at $46 million would require a gutting of the team. So we move on. Unfortunately, I don’t think Naz Reid is opting in to his paltry $15 million option, but we’ll see. If he opts out, his new contract might be up there, like $25 million (JJJ is at $23 million, so theoretically Naz could still be within reach with our examples here).

I’m sure there’s a lot of spite among NBA players about the 140% rule. It really sucks that they can’t get paid market value on their extensions when they’ve improved their games vastly, like Reid has. Anyways, the scenario we had envisioned had Naz opting in at $15 million, so we think it’s unlikely Reid can be targeted, especially when you consider Minnesota probably cannot be hard-capped at the first apron.

And I like Jabari Smith. He also checks off a lot of boxes in a Curry ecosystem. But a sign-and-trade to receive JK would have hard-capped Houston at the first apron and, well, it’s probably all a moot point after they got Kevin Durant. Besides, JJJ is 1-A. Jabari would be 1-B. Let’s keep the fun of NBA trade scenarios to 1-As.

But yeah, Kuminga is something that needs to be ironed out. Bobby Marks of ESPN suggested a market value of three years at $81 million which is at $27 million average annual value. Let’s talk about guys we can get back that are more than just a straight trade for Coby, Portis and Vuc, who would all be below JK’s signing.

Now, I will say, Derrick White is an intriguing 1-B. I might need to look at that one, but I’m kinda not as worried about it because I really like the JJJ idea and that one is what we’ve been wanting the focus to be on: a bigger fish. But maybe the Grizzlies really don’t want to part with JJJ and so maybe I’ll do a cap sheet analysis video on how a D.White transaction might work.

Why would Boston do that? Again, cap sheet analysis. They obviously have a gap year coming. They unloaded Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday already to get under the second apron and shed dozens of millions in luxury and repeater tax. They’ve got momentum to possibly get under the tax, which will reset the repeater penalty. So I think the Celtics might bite the bullet, assuming they get something good back. It’s going to cost three or four first-round picks for the Warriors, of course. But then again, the Anfernee Simons contract comes off the books next season, so maybe Boston waits?

Incidentally, these “big fish” deals all involve Kuminga, who will have the highest salary of trade-able players. Moses Moody is also required to get any 1-A player back, due to the Base-Year Compensation (BYC) rule, which restricts the outgoing salary value for JK at 50% of what he signs for.

Isn’t it ironic that Jonathan’s camp let Anthony Slater of The Athletic — also rumored to be headed to ESPN, btw — in behind closed doors, with two video clips to boot, in a spacious gym in Cleveland, the hometown of JK’s trainer Ant Wells?

Meanwhile, Kuminga has been posting — or at least whomever is in control of his Instagram account — 20 to 30 (!) IG stories nearly every day or every other day, showing his workouts, both on the basketball court and in the weight room.

You can see these visuals on our new Discord server. More details coming, but sign up here for a three-day free trial: https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-vip

Sure seems like a marketing campaign by his agent Aaron Turner of Verus Team, especially with the curiously specific 3,000-ish threes that JK apparently took in mid-June at that 52% rate that Slater wrote. Did they really show the counter of the shooting machine to Slater, which would kinda be required per journalistic ethics?

So you couple that with the fact that non-Finals teams rarely just run it back with the same main roster and I conclude that Kuminga will not stay on the Warriors.

During the Western Conference Semifinals, I was told that this was definitely also the sentiment of his own camp, so it should come as no surprise that JK would actively campaign for a bigger role. Slater wrote:

“Aiming to be an All-Star. Multiple times. Aiming to be great. … Wherever I’m going to be at, it don’t matter if it’s the Warriors or if it’s anywhere else, it’s something I want… I did it here and there, but it was never a consistent role, a consistent role given to me,” said Kuminga. “It only happens five games on, 10 games off. I want it to be a consistent role…”

Ergo, I have changed my mind since this:

Now, as the video above mentioned, the Gozlan/Quinn JJJ trade involved JK and Gary Payton II for JJJ and Vince Williams and two second round picks. Those picks would be re-routed to Chicago in a second trade involving Moody and Kevon Looney for Lonzo Ball and Jalen Smith.

While I did not agree with this secondary scenario, I did appreciate the creativity in roster optionality by signing-and-trading Payton and Looney. So keep that in mind. We can sign our own free agents and send them out in sign-and-trades although the same two basic principles apply: 50% of contract value going out due to BYC rule and receiving team is hard-capped at the first apron.

I didn’t think the Grizz would want GP2 at all, I didn’t think Chicago would want to part with Ball’s nice contract — unless they’re tired of him or he’s actually still hurt — and I’m less needy for a pure big man like Smith because 2022 and, oh, Loon-dawg and, oh, Quinten Post will be better. He just will. He’s Quinten Post!

So my idea was simpler: trade JK and Moody and four picks, get back JJJ and Williams and GG Jackson, the latter two of which are solid point-of-attack defenders. We saw them two years ago on two occasions cause havoc for Curry.

We’d still have the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception — a $5.7 million “slush fund” — to use on retaining maybe Loon at, say, a $5 million contract and the same maybe for Melton, in case all they can get on the open market are veteran’s minimum offers?

But…

Kuminga has now been officially anointed by Shams as a trade target for the Heat, although this was reported by a couple other people with sources before (you’d know who if you were on our Discord):

Meanwhile, the super-reliable longtime LAL beat guy Anthony Irwin of ClutchPoints and Lakers Lounge says Rob Pelinka is interested in Wiggs.

When you have this many wants, combine them. Maybe it helps sweeten the offer to Memphis?

• Miami gets JK and GP2 (for salary matching),

• LA gets Wiggs and Jaime Jacquez,

• Memphis gets Moody, Rui Hachimura, and either Jarred Vanderbilt and Dalton Knecht, or Austin Reaves, plus four first-rounders and

• As I mentioned, the Warriors get JJJ, Williams and Jackson.

I haven’t done the difficult task of mocking this on cap spreadsheets, but Memphis is well below the first apron and MIA and LAL are close enough to make it happen. GSW would likely be under the second apron.

Finally, Chambers actually isn’t sold on JJJ (yet), pointing to his penchant for being in foul trouble.

My response: Who cares? In the alternate universe, instead of JJJ on the bench with five or six fouls, it’s JK on the bench with a DNP. And btw, speaking of the 1-A mindset, I’d actually trust JJJ out there with five fouls than I would Markkanen with any number of fouls.

I think I just about covered all bases that I want to cover with the Kuminga trade market and how to navigate that jungle of clickbait. It’s all about the 1-A.

And I’m beginning to love the first and second aprons if only because it shuts whiny casuals out of the room. 🧘🏻‍♂️

Next up in a few hours, assuming I wake up in time: Draft prospects at No. 41 with help from Eric Guilleminault of NBADraft.net.

Then join us tonight for the Second Round live coverage. We’ve got draft war room vet Doc Martin coming back for the third or fourth straight year, as well as Danny Emerman hopping on after Dunleavy speaks to reporters from Chase Center. The link will be in this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLszalip37vKKET99Nh9LNYfygE5mLFojC

Once again, our Discord server has the most content on it, including most or all of the above in bits and pieces as they unfolded: https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-vip

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