Moses Moody’s injury changes things
[GSW-DAL videos/recap/transcripts]
First off, the recap from Dallas with highlights is right here. Please drop a ❤️ on this article if you like it. There are some extra insights in there on De’Anthony Melton, Brandin Podziemski, and Gui Santos. This includes on-screen highlights, which are not available on the YouTube version:
There are also a ton of instances of Moses Moody praise. Makes you wonder, who’s gonna come off a pin-down or pin-in screen and curl, pivot, catch-and-shoot?
Makes you appreciate Moody a little more. There’s only so many wings who can do that, let alone be able to reach-in every now and then at the point-of-attack and get a steal the other way, which was the last thing he’ll have done a basketball court for awhile.
As for the future, Dr. Nirav Pandya confirmed on Twitter what you can do research on: it takes nine to twelve months to return to play for players who have torn their patella tendon. Interestingly, former Warrior and Bay Area product Jeremy Lin tore his, back in the day. It took almost exactly a year to get back on the court.
The timing of Moody’s injury is, at first blush, complicated. The NBA’s Disabled Player Exception (DPE) was designed to enable teams to replace a player through June 15th, with the deadline for filing on January 15th, the window beginning on July 1st.
A DPE allows a team to acquire a replacement player at about half the value of the injured player’s salary for that year. More detailed info here in HoopsRumors’ awesome article.
Salary cap sheet-wise, if the Warriors go the DPE route, that’s a $6.25 million replacement player they can go out and get, but Moses would effectively be out the entirety of 2026-27, per the rules, unless they can somehow convince the NBA that he was all along scheduled to be out for 12 months and then, to Golden State’s fortune, Moody came back in nine months, which would be January 2027, which should be plenty of time for him to round back into form by the playoffs.
Or, Mike Dunleavy, Jr. could just roll with Moody throughout the, let’s say, nine-month rehab and, yeah, just get him back without any replacement.
It’s probably too early to prognosticate on this and, well, the Warriors could just wait and see. Also, the rules state that a league-designated physician has to conclude Moody won’t make it back until June 15th, 2027 (see aforementioned HoopsRumors article).
You’d think that going out and finding a veteran wing for $6 million sounds a lot better than being stuck with a veteran’s minimum, which is the only way to get a replacement wing unless the Warriors can dip under tax and utilize the Non-Taxpayer Midlevel.
The $6M DPE is like a very slightly higher Taxpayer Midlevel Exception player, which may be attractive to a veteran wing out there that might normally be relegated to a vet min. As benchmarks, a 3&D player somewhere between a Nic Batum ($5.8M, team option) or a Derrick Jones, Jr. ($10.5 million, signed through 2026-27) are archetypes of who could replace Moody, although both Batum and Jones appear destined to remain with the LA Clippers.
I’ll be sure to invite Yossi Gozlan of Third Apron to a livestream at some point to get his take on this.
By the way, the DPE can also be used as salary filler for a trade. Let’s say there’s a renewed pursuit of Giannis Antetokuonmpo. Six million is still another six million short of the salaries necessary to consummate that trade, but it’s better than nothing.
Also, as I said in the previous article, a lot depends on Kristaps Porzingis. He and the eventual Draft pick are the fulcrum of the offseason optionality. Any roster for the Dubs that does not include Porzingis next season would likely be the result of a sign-and-trade involving KP. But, again, more on these what-if analyses in due time.
This brings us to whether or not one Wardell Stephen Curry should be shut down. With Moody’s injuries, I’m now leaning heavily towards shutting down Curry, even though the last post said that a seven-game series would be great experience for guys like Podziemski and Santos.
The problem is that, from a fiscal management perspective, Moody was our next-highest contract after the main guys, so now with him taking up a valuable roster spot, it’s time to consider asset protection.
If Steph were to get injured again, that would make Golden State an even worse destination for a new player acquisition than it already is. The franchise might be considered as the Titanic or perhaps using a more respectful metaphor, snake-bitten, if it is not already. GSW is definitely not high on any free agent’s list of landing spots.
Granted, this is not about playing the game of basketball in fear of a devastating injury, although obviously Steph is already injured or coming off one. And luckily our players will not have to play in that same arena, where there towel crew was in full effect multiple times in the game, again.
By contrast, Al Horford is on our books and probably doesn’t figure much into whether a player considers coming here, so I think it’s okay to play him. And the team is having trouble fielding a full team anyways.
I haven’t thought about all these things that much yet, but maybe converting Nate Williams sooner than later is a better idea than the tried and true way of converting him on the last day of the season to save money.
LJ Cryer and Malevy Leons are already on two-year contracts, so they can continue to be two-way players in 2026-27 without any fear of losing them, but converting Williams after Omer Yurtseven’s second 10-day contract (announced earlier today) expires makes sense to me, as it would allow the Warriors to sign a new two-way, letting the franchise scour the G League market for another Williams-type wing, for example, and perhaps getting that player under full control, if he has G League eligibility left over.
That brings me back to Porzingis. I am all in favor of continuing to play him because the Dubs may need to prove to the marketplace that he’s indeed healthy. A healthy asset is necessary for any off-season trade talk.
I would consider shutting down Draymond Green as well. Everyone else could use the reps. Melton is a tough one to decide on, but do we have enough players available for the remaining ten games? Yeah, I’m just thinking out loud right now. Hope I didn’t leave anyone out. Maybe if we have time during the livestream tonight, we can go up and down the roster.
So yeah, sometimes one player can cause a lot of dominoes to fall.
Here are the transcripts from Dallas, including Steve, Podz and Gary Payton II:
00:00 What's the — (on Moody)?
00:04 STEVE KERR, POSTGAME GSW-DAL: He's getting x-rays right now in the arena, so don't know anything more.
00:09 Steve, you immediately put your hands to your face and you knew clearly that it was awful, right?
00:15 Yeah.
00:16 What did you just sort of see? Can you describe — ?
00:18 Just saw his leg buckle and saw him go down in a heap in pain and we don't know what it is, but it sure looked bad and it's just hoping for the best, whatever the best case scenario is, that's what we're all hoping for, but it looked bad.
00:46 Talk about him just coming back and this happening, just how did that feel in the moment?
00:52 I mean, Mo is such a great human being, great teammate, wonderful guy to coach, just puts in the work every day and was brilliant, by the way, played so well defensively, changed the game for us there with his ball pressure and knocked down big shots. And so, great to finally have him back after he missed whatever it was, eight or 10 games and then for that to happen, like I said, we're just praying that it's not too serious, but it sure looked serious.
01:32 The emotion was evident on your players' faces.
01:34 Yeah.
01:34 They're all standing there. You could see how hurt they were. Can you, I mean, you kind of addressed that, but what Moses sort of means in the locker room emotionally?
01:43 I mean, I saw the looks on the Mavericks' faces. Everybody on the floor was just horrified, so yeah, it's just players care about players. They know how fragile this business is and how short their careers are and how injuries can happen and can be catastrophic. And like I said, we're just, we don't know what it is yet. We're just hoping for the best. Thank you.
—
02:23 Where were you? What did you see? I mean, it looked like, I guess, he just slipped.
02:28 BRANDIN PODZIEMSKI: I mean, yeah, I was down on the other end, but yeah, I mean, it looked like he just slipped. I don't know the details of it, but prayers out to him and his family and whatever the recovery looks like.
02:41 What was the mood like?
02:43 Same as what happened with Jimmy. No really words. You just hate to see it, especially to like the good people in life.
02:54 Of course, Coach talked about just his work ethic, just him as a teammate, talk about him.
03:01 Yeah, I think just a quiet soul, but a wise soul, like, way beyond his years in terms of the wisdom he has. He does everything that's asked of him, doesn't complain, so like I said, it just sucks to see that happen to good people.
03:19 I know this is awkward, but just talk about your game tonight and play.
03:24 Yeah, I think collectively we did a really good job, made some shots for the first time in a while, so that was good. Had too many turnovers and I think that's what kept them in the game, but I think third quarter, we started off hot. Steve really got on us at halftime and we found a way to just come together. Coincidentally, Moses started that.
03:47 I was gonna say, how much of the team playing well traces to Moses? I mean, he obviously hadn't played in 10 games, looked very sharp.
03:55 Yeah. Yeah, like I said, in that third quarter, he kind of started it off with maybe a bucket or two, a couple of steals, deflections, so yeah.
—
04:07 How would you, I mean, actually sort of describe just the emotion of it because he's someone (inaudible)?
04:14 GARY PAYTON II: Yeah, it's tough and it's his first game back and he does so much rehab and everything, takes care of his body, does what he needs to do to, get back and just to see just the non-contact thing happen. It's just, that's annoying to see, especially to Moses. Moses just does all the right things as professional, as a pro. It's just, it sucks to see Moses go down, but in our prayers and I know he'll bounce back.
04:44 Gary, what was the mood like in there?
04:48 No, it was just, as soon as we got down, we just ran over there to give love and show we care and thinking about him. And Moses is tough, tough kid, so he was in good spirits and that's what we wanted to see. And just go down there and just give him love and show him — knowing that he's in good spirits has made a whole difference.
05:13 (Inaudible question)
05:15 No, yeah. Yeah, it's a brotherhood. We see our brother go down, we wanna go make sure he's all right and give love, be in good spirits, so as soon as the game went over, everybody went down there and gave love. So we know this is more than basketball.
05:27 In moments was like this, how much will you guys (inaudible) the voice that you'll have (inaudible) have to continue to get the team to look forward.
05:34 Dray, Al, KP, Steph, all those guys is, speaks volumes in the locker room and when they speak, everybody listening and locked in. So we've been following them since the beginning and we're going to continue to follow their lead.
05:51 I don't know if I'm wording this correctly, but when it happened in overtime, there's such intensity, you're engaged in the game.
05:58 Yeah.
06:00 You feel it as a spectator, but for you as a player, what's it like to go from that sort of intensity, trying so hard to get a win that you guys have been struggling to get, and then to see that happen?
06:10 Yeah.
06:11 The emotional rollercoaster.
06:13 Yeah, absolutely, especially when you see one of your brothers go down, in a tough fall, game like that, you definitely want to finish that game off in a positive way just for him, just to let him know that we got your back, everything. Moses was keeping us in the game, to be honest, and all his activity and what he was doing, so just to finish that off for Mo, it's not really about the game. Just, I know everybody was worried about getting to Mo and make sure he was okay, so as long as we see him in good spirits, it makes that win much better.
06:44 And do you, looks like everybody knew, right?
06:46 Yeah. Yeah.
06:48 Because of the way he went down.
06:49 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. You guys are great.
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