With the trade deadline wrapping up today, there’s been a lot of drama: Simmons and Harden swap teams, Kristaps Porzingis is going to Washington (???), and contenders like Phoenix and Milwaukee adding pieces at the end of their bench rotations. There’s only one team that didn’t make any moves prior to the deadline, offseason or otherwise, to change things up. At face value, this looks like a bad thing: Why would a contender not try to address a major team need at the deadline when they have assets they can sell high on?

The Golden State Warriors are, fortunately, smarter than that. And more importantly, they know what wins in this league.

There are plenty of reasons a trade would not work for the Warriors in their current state, but there’s 5 obvious ones which have answers (and even some solutions) for how this team gets better. This mid-season slump has caused a lot of panic with “fans” saying the Dubs are no longer contenders after depth-changes and exchanges have made several teams at the top better. So without drawing it out any further, here’s why the Warriors were smart to not trade for a center:

1) No available center makes them better
This one should be an obvious one. There is nobody on the trade market that would move the needle for the Warriors enough. Myles Turner is probably the number 1 name in terms of his fit with the Dubs because he can shoot and block shots. But Turner, while a unique player at his position, isn’t as much of a unicorn as people think. Another name is Richaun Holmes, but with the Kings making moves to try and make the playoffs, it’s highly-unlikely they’re going to entertain any trades for their starting center, especially with Marvin Bagley III now gone. Look around the league, and there’s really nobody that gets what the Dubs want done. They’re a high-IQ team, and most centers don’t make the reads or screens necessary to work within the offense (more on this later). The “just get a body out there” article doesn’t work because we all know Draymond Green is going to be eating up center minutes in the playoffs anyways. Not to mention, there isn’t a center the Warriors could target that would do anything James Wiseman cannot.

2) They would have to give up valuable assets to get one
There’s a very negative attitude surrounding James Wiseman right now. Not just by Warriors fans (and unfairly so), but by the league as a whole: He’s an extremely raw prospect, and there isn’t a team who is going to try sell a good win-now player in exchange for him. The money wouldn’t work, for one, but the buzz around him was always questionable because he didn’t play much in college. You would have to package other young players (probably Kuminga) and draft picks, which have no value to rebuilds because the team is good. Doing a simple cost-benefit analysis of what the Warriors would get in return for what they’d have to give up, and it’s easy to see that they’d be selling on the team’s future to get a player that won’t help.

3) The buyout market exists
The Warriors could probably get a center that does exactly what people seem to want a Warriors center to do without selling the farm. A lot of people forget that just because the trade deadline has passed, that doesn’t mean teams are done tweaking their rosters. The only question becomes “who do you get rid of” in order to get somebody off that market. There aren’t many viable buy-out options at the center position as of now, but there are some likely candidates down the road that the Dubs could get at a bargain price. This is less-likely, probably, than even a trade, because the roster is currently full-up. You’d have to cut a Damion Lee or Juan Toscano-Anderson. The best option in this case would be Marc Gasol, but he’s getting up there in age, and it’s unclear whether he’d actually be able to contribute at this rate.

4) A traditional center makes the Warriors defense worse
There’s been a weird trend recently of people thinking shot-blocking is an indication of good defense. That’s just not true, especially when it comes to team-defending, which is how the Warriors have the best-rated defense in the league despite Draymond missing time with injury, and how they have the 2nd-best record in the league. The same is true, ironically enough, of the team fans are so damn scared of: The Phoenix Suns. Deandre Ayton is an above-average NBA defender. Phoenix’s defense, much like the Warriors, is so good because it’s quarterbacked by a high-IQ player, and they can switch everything. That has been the calling card of Warriors defenses for years, and why they still win games when the offense is a slugging along. This is why small-ball works, because it prevents mismatch hunting, and makes teams beat them with the guy they either want to beat them with, or concede points to a player who’s gonna score anyways. The league’s #1 defense is better because they can switch, and giving heavy rotation minutes (or even any rotation minutes) to someone that is able to get played off the floor by a team with perimeter stars that exploit switches well (see: Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, etc.) would make them easier to crack.

5) The modern NBA doesn’t require a traditional center to win
The Utah Jazz have an elite center as their 2nd-best player: They are a perennial 2nd-round exit. The Sixers have Joel Embiid, who’s a complete anomaly: The only time they made the ECF once with him, and lost to the Raptors in 2019. Deandre Ayton, a very good defender and player at his position, didn’t do a damn thing to get in Giannis’ way in last year’s NBA Finals. The Warriors are the blueprint for how small-ball can win. When the game slowed down, they were winning with small-ball. They can still do that because of a game-changer in Draymond Green and guys like Kevon Looney who know their role and how to play it well. You can bring up injury concerns all you want (despite Looney playing every single game this season and making improvements across the board), but the fact of the matter is this team goes as far as Steph Curry and Klay Thompson can carry them. Going back to 2016, the Warriors blew that 3-1 lead because most of their key guys (Steph, Draymond) were injured. Kyrie Irving and LeBron James played out of their minds. And the series still went to 7. It took a string of miracles working in their favor for the Cavaliers to take home that trophy. When the rotations shorten, there won’t be a “lack of depth” to be complaining about. It’s just how playoff basketball works.

Conclusions
The buzz around a lack of trades with the Golden State Warriors assumes that this team doesn’t get any better than it is right now, which is pretty laughable considering they started the season off on a hot streak before any downturn could be seen. Fans have a tendency to look at box scores and have a gut reaction which says there needs to be change, which is okay in the short term, but saying that any of what’s happening right now is an implication of a need to add personnel is just short-sighted.

The Warriors are losing games because they’re readjusting to getting players back into the lineups, Steve Kerr is constantly fiddling with rotations to see what works best, and young guys are getting playing time while vets are taking extra rest. This is a long game, and a lack of success at this point in the season is no cause for concern. If things are still rocky like this in April, then maybe it’ll be worth some looking-into, but for now, it’s a ridiculous conclusion to say the Warriors are worse than their competition because they didn’t add a 3rd-string center who probably wouldn’t get playoff playing time anyway.

(Photo credit: Golden State Warriors)