Upgrade of roster will be difficult
Buyout candidates few, must fit needs
The Golden State Warriors attempted to upgrade their roster at the trade deadline by dealing third-year center James Wiseman to Detroit and acquiring defensive stalwart Gary Payton II from Portland.
However, Payton’s post-trade physical revealed a core-muscle injury that won’t be evaluated for a month. There’s a realistic chance he could miss the rest of the regular season.
The return of Payton, a key member of last season’s championship team, will do wonders for chemistry and team morale. However, his presence won’t help the Warriors win anytime soon.
Golden State, which continues to hover around .500 entering the All-Star break, has one available roster spot should it choose to fill it. Any roster upgrades at this point in the season must come by way of the league’s buyout market — which is often unpredictable — or by converting a two-way player to a standard contract.
“I think it always depends on who you’re talking about,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “The buyout market, in general, over the years has been overblown. Usually, it’s just hard to find someone who’s going to make a big impact.”
A player bought out by a team gives back a portion of his guaranteed contract to become a free agent upon clearing waivers. All buyouts must be completed by March 1 for a player to remain playoff-eligible.
General manager Bob Myers told reporters on Monday that any buyout candidate on the open market would cost the Warriors between $3 million and $4 million.
Golden State’s tallest rotation player is 6-foot-9 (Kevon Looney), so the team could be interested in searching the buyout market for a reserve big man to add some size on the front line. Dewayne Dedmon and Serge Ibaka might be in that category.
Then again, the Warriors won
the championship last season with non-traditional big men, so any player they might add via buyout must make sense within the system.
“It’s also determining how the coaches will use that player,” Myers said. “For us to say, ‘Here’s a big guy,’ and the coaching staff to say, ‘We’re not playing that guy,’ it doesn’t matter if he’s 7 feet tall or 8 feet tall. Any buyout conversation has to be done in collaboration with the coaching staff, because why bring a player in if they’re not going to use him?
“But if there’s a player the coaching staff and the front office thinks can be helpful, absolutely. We’ll go target that guy.”
If the Warriors want either Ty Jerome or Anthony Lamb to be playoff-eligible, one of their two-way deals must be converted into a standard NBA contract.
As two-way players, Jerome and Lamb can play in only 50 NBA games. Jerome is at 36 games after Tuesday’s matchup against the Clippers; Lamb is at 43. The season has 24 games remaining after Tuesday night.
“I think the way we’re looking at it is we’ll see who’s available,” Kerr said. “We’ll take a look at the names, look at how everybody might fit, look at our two-way players, see if that makes more sense to put one of them on the main roster and we’ll just figure it out.”