Trade deadline: GM Myers outlines Warriors’ approach.
The NBA trade deadline is ripe with buyers and sellers eager to add or move assets.
The Warriors, owners of a league-best 40-11 record, are neither. With no glaring holes on their roster, they are content to spend the week until the Feb. 8 deadline gathering information. A trade will only be made if general manager Bob Myers believes it’ll make his team markedly better.
“I don’t know that we have a weakness,” Myers said. “We’ve had guys that have produced well. It’s an interesting dynamic with our team, because we have four high-caliber players pretty much always on the floor in some capacity, so we don’t traditionally have a bench unit.”
Odds are that if the Warriors make a trade, it’ll be to even out the roster. Including Damian Jones, who has spent almost the entire season in the G League, Golden State has six centers. Giving up a big man — JaVale McGee, for example — for another guard would give head coach Steve Kerr a bit more flexibility with his rotation.
Such a move would be more cosmetic than foundational, of course. Championships are won by core players, not the 14th or 15th man.
After practice Thursday, Myers outlined how he plans to approach one of the most frenzied periods of the NBA calendar. Here is an edited transcript:
On whether he thinks the Warriors need more point guard depth:
“It’s hard. I think if you’d told me we would be 40-11, and the way we’ve had to do it, with some of the injuries. We’ve probably had more injuries this season than any season I’ve been here. No roster’s perfect. I know everyone likes to talk about how good of a roster we have, and we’re fortunate to have a very good roster. No roster’s perfect, and that’s why we still have to look around. … Every team’s unique in its own way. So, we look to get better. We look to address some of our weaknesses. Over the course of a season, things change. There will be one area that’s stronger, then things will evolve. You kind of have to do your best. The trade deadline’s a week earlier, and we have less time to make these decisions. As far as what we look at, we look at the whole thing: What makes us better now? What’s something that might help us down the road? Things like that.”
On whether he would like to even out the roster more:
“I mean, if it made sense to. I think there’d have to be a good reason to change things. You saw JaVale step up (Tuesday), even though it wasn’t a good game overall for us. We have a luxury of bigs. We have more bigs than wings. I think the entire league is probably looking for more wing players. The league has changed. So, what used to be power forwards are now centers. Even a guy like David West. Even Draymond (Green). We didn’t draft these guys to be fives, but the league has shifted. We have guys who are more traditional fives, so we know what they are. We look around. But at the same time, it has to make sense, and it has to make sense for whoever we’re trading with.”
On whether he feels pressure not to mess with what the Warriors have going:
“I don’t know if pressure is the right word. I feel pressure every day to help us win, to make the moves. We always put internal pressure on ourselves. I don’t feel external pressure. I know this group’s capable, but it doesn’t mean you just sit back and say, ‘I don’t want to do anything. We have the best record.’ That’s not what it is. That’s not what it is now, that’s not what it’ll ever be. But look, it’s a competitive league. There’s pressure for everybody. People may not believe this, but our players have pressure to win every night. Every time we lose, it’s a catastrophe. We feel it because people expect a certain outcome for us. So there’s constant pressure, that’s fine. That’s probably where you want to be. But it doesn’t mean you react to that pressure or do something shortsighted?”
On how active he is at the trade deadline:
“I would say I’m pretty active. Maybe not as active as some others, but I’d say I probably talk to two-thirds of the league. It’s sort of just guys I know. Some of them five-minute conversations and some longer. The fear in this job is that you wish you would’ve had a conversation and you didn’t. That’s always the fear. That’s what motivates a lot of conversation. It’s just conversing broadly. ‘What’re you thinking? What’re you doing?’ Thankfully, I work with 29 other people. You trust your relationships. You trust what you’ve done with them. So, you have that dialogue. But you have to have that dialogue to do anything. Dialogue that occurs at this trade deadline may lead to something that occurs years from now. You just don’t know.”