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The 19-17 Golden State Warriors have been far more “mid” than they may have been internally expecting thus far this season.
But that’s kind of what happens when your best centers are Quinten Post, Trayce Jackson-Davis and the ghost of Al Horford. 6-foot-6 Draymond Green, who was an intimidating small-ball option at the five spot during his Defensive Player of the Year heyday almost a decade ago, is just too small to restrain the rising giants in the Western Conference.
With All-Star-level centers like Nikola Jokic, Victor Wembanyama, Alperen Sengun, and Chet Holmgren manning the middle (and spreading the floor outside the paint, too), it would almost be unfair to expect Green to keep up with them — especially now that the 35-year-old has been slipping a bit athletically. But the younger Warriors centers just don’t have the strength or size to hold their own.
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Head coach Steve Kerr, for one, seems to be embracing Golden State’s decline from a dynastic run that saw the team win four titles from 2015-22.
“We are no longer the ’17 Warriors, dominating the league… We are a fading dynasty,” Kerr said, per Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “We know that. Everybody knows that.”
Last year, thanks to the midseason trade arrival of six-time All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler, Golden State finished with a solid 48-34 record and won a playoff series. This season, the team has fallen back down to earth, due in large part to this frontcourt issue.
Still, the Warriors seem to be turning things around a bit. Golden State has won six of its last eight contests.
It’s clear that the Warriors have a bit of a size problem. Obviously, this writer believes the issue needs to be solved through an investment in a traditional, rim-running center.
But it sounds like Golden State team president Mike Dunleavy Jr. might have other ideas.
Golden State Considering A Pricey Non-Center Option?
Sources have informed Jake Fischer of The Stein Line that the Warriors have held “some internal discussions” regarding a trade for Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. The 6-foot-10 Missouri alum can certainly score at all three levels, but he’s not going to solve their defensive issues at center — especially since he’s nominally a three.
Through 26 contests this season, Porter has been averaging 25.8 points on .496/.410/.812 shooting splits, 7.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists a night.
“He looks great,” Kerr raved about Porter to Fischer. “Obviously he’s the focal point now here whereas in Denver he played off [Nikola] Jokić and he was fantastic. Now he’s taking on newer responsibility and more shot creation and he’s a tough guy to guard at that size. With the way he moves and can put the ball on the floor and rise up and shoot over the top … he’s tough to handle.”
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How exactly the Warriors can obtain Porter — who makes is owed $79.1 million this year and next as he wraps up the five-year, $179.3 million deal he initially inked while with the Nuggets — remains an open question, per Fischer. Golden State power forward Jonathan Kuminga, who has fallen to the back end of Kerr’s rotation, is the key trade chip the Warriors are hoping to offload by this year’s deadline. The 23-year-old will be trade-eligible on Jan. 15.
“It is nonetheless difficult to pinpoint a clear pathway for the Warriors to get into the Porter mix,” Fischer writes. “That’s because Brooklyn, sources say, has not shown much interest in acquiring Jonathan Kuminga dating to last summer.”
Fischer wonders if the cleanest fit to send Porter to the Warriors is a three-team trade. Those kinds of moves are a bit tougher to pull off, but with the right motivated parties, they can be in play.
This is a talented Golden State team, and with Curry and Butler still performing at All-Star levels, Dunleavy owes them a move or two. Adding a big scoring wing in his absolute prime, at the level of Porter, would certainly help. But it wouldn’t fix the Warriors’ center problem.
Funnily enough, the Nets actually do have a rim-running center in his prime who would fit in nicely at Chase Center in starter Nicolas Claxton. The 26-year-old is currently earning a fairly reasonable $25.5 million, a number that’s fairly in line with Kuminga’s $22.5 million salary this season. The Warriors could throw in a veteran’s minimum contract to match money.
Claxton would give Golden State exactly what it needs at the five spot: an athletic center with legitimate size who can hold his own in the post and rack up lobs from any of the Warriors’ three high-level playmakers. He would cost less, from both a contract and an asset perspective, than Porter — and adding him would more directly treat Golden State’s biggest weakness this year.
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