SAN FRANCISCO – Mike Dunleavy swung for the fences in his first act as Warriors general manager last offseason, trading Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards for Chris Paul in a win-now move that wound up with Golden State taking a sad bus ride back home after being embarrassed by their Northern California counterparts, the Sacramento Kings, in the NBA Play-In Tournament.
One summer later the storylines surrounding the Warriors were all about what Dunleavy didn’t do as opposed to the creative moves he completed, all while the entire basketball world watched his 36-year-old superstar Steph Curry save Team USA men’s basketball to win gold at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics playing for coach Steve Kerr.
Paul now is in San Antonio feeding lobs to Victor Wembanyama. Franchise icon Klay Thompson contentiously darted for Dallas to join the reigning Western Conference champions. Paul George isn’t a Warrior, and neither is Lauri Markkanen or any other established star to play alongside Curry. Dunleavy and the front office went after both, but the other parties weren’t willing to happily join hands in holy matrimony.
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The front office also steered clear of high-risk decisions, doing everything they could to not teeter too far one way or another in Dunleavy’s balancing act of doing right by Curry and making the smartest financial and basketball choices for the team.
The timeline for Curry, Kerr and Draymond Green isn’t lost on Golden State’s general manager. Neither are all the other conclusions someone in his position must come to.
“We're probably as impatient as a franchise as you can be right now given our time horizon and all that,” Dunleavy said Thursday at Chase Center. “But there's a fine line between impatience and undisciplined. I think I feel good about the discipline that we held this summer and the roster we built and the growth from within that we're going to have.
“We're in a good spot headed into this year. I know everybody is always looking for big headline breaking news and all that, but I really like this team.”
Golden State Warriors
"I think at its core we've got a good team."
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) September 26, 2024
Dunleavy evaluates the Warriors' offseason 🔽 pic.twitter.com/8JgSTmni0y
There certainly were opportunities to move on from the youth movement of Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski, both of whom still can be trade options down the line, as well as other young players. The Warriors could have pivoted to players such as Zach LaVine and his monster contract, or Brandon Ingram and the massive amount of money he wants to be paid. That’s where the discipline comes into play.
The reality instead was Dunleavy being able to sign De’Anthony Melton to a one-year, $12.8 million contract after waiving Paul, and then pulling off the first-ever six-team trade that brought the Warriors veterans Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield.
Days ahead of training camp beginning in Hawaii, the Warriors are optimistic about the team they’ve built behind a cloak of so much outside negativity. Dunleavy also couldn’t help but use his new favorite word “optionality” later in the day.
“We've got to see what this team is,” Dunleavy said. “It's a really talented team. I think there's a lot of ways we can be good, which is exciting. We have a generational talent in Steph Curry, got Draymond Green who's one of the more unique, all around players in the NBA, and after that we've got a ton of pieces and depth and youth and experience and just all the things you want in a team.
“We'll take a look at it, see where we're at. The good news is we've got plenty of ways to get better from the outside, but right now we're fully behind this team, and we think they're going to have a great year.”
In the case the right trade is put on the table, Dunleavy says the Warriors will be aggressive. They have intriguing young players that can incite other teams, still own alluring assets and have tradeable contracts at their disposal.
For how bad team owner Joe Lacob, Dunleavy and the rest of those who sign off on deals want to win, they also aren’t just going to make a move simply to make a move. Nothing was more evident than how they maneuvered the offseason.
“There's no point in going all in to be slightly above average,” Dunleavy said. “To go all in, you've got to feel like you're all in. That's how we'll kind of judge and evaluate things, and we'll see what's there.”
"We've got ways to improve, we'll be aggressive."
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) September 26, 2024
Dunleavy on the possibility of the Warriors making an in-season trade pic.twitter.com/y1ODQlG22M
The Warriors followed their 2021-22 NBA championship season by winning 44 regular-season games, resulting in a No. 6 seed before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the playoffs. They increased their win totals by two games last season to 46 games, yet dropped to a No. 10 seed and failed to make the playoffs for the first time under Kerr where they had a healthy Curry, Green and Thompson.
This latest iteration of the Warriors has Kerr and Dunleavy ready to see the product on paper produce on the court. What’s at stake isn’t lost on the front office, making the next few months pressure filled. It’s also a time to reintroduce themselves when the Warriors might feel forgotten, a notion that Kerr didn’t dismiss.
“I don't see any reason why we can't improve on last year's team and have a great season, and then you roll the dice from there,” he said. “You don't know what happens with the rest of the league.
“But if we control our team and our destiny and be the best team we can be, I think good things can happen.”