During the NBA’s recently concluded one-week transaction window, all teams — including those that were eliminated from taking part in this month’s restart — were allowed to sign new players from the league’s free-agent pool. As a new report suggests, the Golden State Warriors chose not to shake up their roster just yet despite finishing with a league-worst 15-50 record.
In a tweet posted late on Tuesday night, Anthony Slater of The Athletic wrote that the Warriors were going to let the transaction window — which expired Wednesday at midnight — pass without filling any vacant roster spots, given that they don’t have any guaranteed money to offer for the 2020-21 campaign or any approved summer mini-camp. He added that Golden State will focus its attention instead on the 2020 NBA Draft in October, as well as the upcoming free-agency period.
Elaborating on Slater’s tweet, NBC Sports Bay Area wrote that the Warriors actually had the opportunity to sign one player, with the choice to do so for the remainder of the 2019-20 season or to a multi-year contract valued at about $1.2 million per year — the prorated value of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception. However, the possibility of not playing any games until December would have made signing another player impractical.
Regarding the Warriors’ offseason plans, the team has a top-5 pick in the upcoming draft, and rumors have pointed to various options from this year’s rookie class, including Georgia Bulldogs guard Anthony Edwards , Memphis Tigers center James Wiseman, and Iowa State Cyclones guard Tyrese Haliburton. Golden State also has a $17.2 million trade exception, thanks to the deal that sent Andre Iguodala to the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2019 offseason, and the option to sign someone with their mid-level exception.
“So the Warriors should look a little different when they take the court on opening night next season even if they look the same on July 1,” NBC Sports Bay Area noted.
Currently, the Warriors have 13 players who will still be under contract in the 2020-21 campaign, though Ky Bowman, Mychal Mulder, and Juan Toscano-Anderson are all under non-guaranteed deals. The team will also be welcoming back All-Star guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson , who both missed significant time in the 2019-20 season due to injuries.
While Golden State will be keeping the same roster in the meantime, that wasn’t the case with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were also eliminated after finishing at last place in the Eastern Conference with a 19-46 record. As reported by Forbes , the organization signed former Warriors forward Jordan Bell and converted G-League mainstay Dean Wade’s two-way deal into a conventional, multi-year contract.
