There’s realistic NBA mock trades, then there’s this. The Golden State Warriors have been included in a wild three-team trade idea that would go down in history were it to eventuate.
While the individual pieces could realistically be on the move across the 12 months, seeing them all together in one transaction is difficult to process and extremely unlikely.
A wild three-team, eight-player trade proposal would see the Golden State Warriors and Brooklyn Nets as clear losers of the deal.
Proposed by Orlando Silva of Fadeaway World, the deal would see Golden State acquire Los Angeles Lakers’ big man Anthony Davis for Draymond Green and their three most talented young players.
The Lakers aspect jumps off the page — they get Durant to pair with James as two elite offensive players, while combining Green and Simmons as two elite defenders. It might not even work effectively, but the risk is worth it when the price is Davis, who’s proven extremely injury-prone, Westbrook, whose contract is of enormously negative value, and the two future first-round picks.
Brooklyn go into rebuild mode here so they won’t be happy with giving up the pick which, if the trade were to happen shortly, would likely result in a lottery one. It’s unsure whether or not they’d be happy to take Poole’s four-year, $140 million contract from next season, while Warrior fans will be acutely aware that Wiseman and Kuminga are no guarantee of panning out.
From a Golden State perspective, are we sure Davis is actually more valuable to the Warriors than the decade-plus chemistry Green provides? Maybe he is, but not to the point where you are giving up Poole, Wiseman and Kuminga as well. The Brooklyn pick may actually be a top 12-15 one, but if you’re letting go of three young players in the trade, what’s the point of getting the pick to draft another one?
The Lakers would do this trade in a heartbeat, while the Nets and Warriors would hang up the phone in a similarly quick timeframe. It’s still debatable if Golden State would trade Green for Davis straight up, unless of course they believed that his punch on Poole had caused irreparable damage to team morale.