Grade the Trade: Warriors send Draymond home, add Steph stopper in vital 3-team pitch
The Golden State Warriors need to make a big swing this summer. This trade proposal sends Draymond Green home and adds a two-way star alongside Stephen Curry.
Everything should be on the table for the Golden State Warriors this summer.
Making that statement is easy; backing it up is not. If the goal for the Warriors is to win a title, their best shot is with Stephen Curry, even as he ages toward the point where he can no longer drive winning at that level.
If that’s the goal, then other goals like honoring lifelong Warriors, keeping the gang together or investing in young talent can be important but secondary.
Following that path leads to some difficult decisions about the Warriors’ veterans, and in particular Draymond Green. Last season’s Warriors team was good enough to compete with any team in the Western Conference, but instead of getting that chance they were relegated to the Play-In Tournament and lost in a one-game win-or-go-home scenario on the road. The reason they were so low in the standings? Draymond Green.
Trading Draymond Green is on the table
Draymond Green’s inability to take personal accountability and control himself cost the team significantly in the early part of the season as he was suspended for two different stretches, and in both the Warriors lost ground in the standings that they could not make back up.
Green “played nice” for much of the latter part of the season, and his defensive impact is obviously vital to the Warriors’ success, but the organization has to assume he is a bad day away from earning another, likely longer, suspension.
Could the Warriors consider trading Draymond this summer, leveraging his defensive impact and perhaps some hometown pride to get back a more reliable player, someone highly unlikely to lose control and cost the Warriors yet another season? Let’s look at one such trade proposal that would do just that and see if the juice is worth the squeeze for the Warriors.