The Golden State Warriors continue to be a team in limbo. They are not quite good and not quite bad. They are decidedly average and if they want to be good the rest of this season, they need to make a trade to address an obvious weakness.
A brutal loss against the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night threw this reality into even starker relief. The Warriors simply could not get anything going for much of the game and made just 38% of their shots as a team which simply isn't going to cut it.
Golden State needs more offense. They need guys who can simply score and take some of the pressure off star guard Stephen Curry, having continually struggled to score without number 30 on the floor.
Warriors need a boost to the offense ahead of the trade deadline
Jimmy Butler is a scorer as well, but the Warriors need someone else who can shoot from the perimeter and get hot. Someone who could potentially even take a little attention off Curry and force opponents to respect their ability to score.
The hope coming into this season is that an internal option would fill that role. Someone like Brandin Podziemski or Moses Moody, both of whom have shown they can get hot in the past, but neither has been reliable or consistent enough.
That is why the Warriors have to make some sort of trade to try and get some more offense. The only problem is that arguably their best trade piece outside of Curry, Butler and Draymond Green, three players who almost certainly will not be dealt, is Jonathan Kuminga whose value has plummeted.
They need a shooter which is why they have been linked to Trey Murphy III of the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans are one of the worst teams in the NBA, meaning they may be willing to sell despite the fact they don't own their first-round pick this year. The question is whether the Warriors could put together an enticing enough package to get New Orleans interested, particularly when other teams will surely want Murphy as well.
But the Warriors know what they have to do. They can stand pat, not do anything and just bank on being a Play-In team with the hope of getting hot at the right time, but if they are serious about making one more run, then they need to get a scorer as soon as possible.