The Warriors’ path to the top of the Western Conference just got a whole lot harder the past three days.
The Brooklyn Nets have shaken up the power dynamic of the entire league by unloading their two stars. Late Wednesday night, Woj and Shams broke the news that Kevin Durant was headed to the Phoenix Suns. The move comes just a couple days after Kyrie Irving was shipped from Brooklyn to the Dallas Mavericks.
The Warriors can’t afford to keep losing games like they did on Wednesday night, as they went scoreless for more than five minutes in the final frame of a 125-122 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. Once again, fourth-quarter failures foiled the Warriors, as they moved back toward the familiar .500 line at 28-27.
Heading into Thursday’s noon PT trade deadline, the Warriors will be the West’s No. 9 seed in the bunched-up conference picture. They’ll be looking up in the standings at the Mavs (No. 4 seed) and the Suns (No. 5 seed) who share identical 30-26 records.
Both Dallas and Phoenix added elite players without giving up a star in return. Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and Jae Crowder are all capable of being solid-to-stellar role players, but Irving and Durant are top-notch talents who have championship experience.
The Suns now feature a very fearsome foursome of point guard Chris Paul, shooting guard Devin Booker, Durant and big man Deandre Ayton. According to Wojnarowski’s report, Phoenix was Durant’s preferred destination and new Suns owner Mat Ishbia pushed to make the deal happen.
The Suns could be loaded for years to come. Durant and Ayton are signed through the 2025-26 season while Booker has signed a four-year supermax extension in that runs through the 2027-28 season.
Phoenix suddenly becomes a much more formidable threat in the playoffs this season with Durant in the mix. Ditto for Dallas. According to FanDuel, the Suns (+460) now have the third-best odds to win the title, as the Mavs’ championship odds (+2400) also improved with the Irving trade.
Golden State (+1500) holds the seventh-best odds, according to FanDuel, decreasing a bit from its +1200 odds earlier this week. The Warriors are 0-3 against the Suns this season and 1-1 against the Mavericks. Golden State will host the Suns on March 13 and play at Dallas on March 22.
The Mavericks reached the Western Conference finals last year riding the coattails of superstar Luka Doncic. For the first time in his five-year NBA career, Luka will have an All-Star for a teammate. Many skeptics are expecting Kyrie to implode the franchise from within at some point, but for now, Irving and Luka make a fierce duo in the West.
The Warriors have a stable of stars and the league’s biggest payroll at $359.7 million after taxes, so a blockbuster wasn’t expected this deadline. Golden State historically hasn’t been a big buyer at the deadline, but could probably use some help in the frontcourt or a backup point guard, especially with Steph Curry (leg) out for a few more weeks.
A couple of potential Warriors trade targets were moved on Wednesday night.
Earlier in the day, Spotrac contributor and NBA insider Keith Smith suggested that the Warriors could benefit this season by adding players like Jakob Poeltl or Crowder via trade. Both players now have new homes, as Poeltl reportedly was traded from the San Antonio Spurs to the Toronto Raptors and Crowder is in Brooklyn. Young Warriors players like James Wiseman, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga or Patrick Baldwin Jr. would probably need to be moved in order to make a trade.
The Denver Nuggets (38-17) are slowly pulling away atop the Western Conference with two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and the Memphis Grizzlies (33-21) are still firmly in the No. 2 seed. The Sacramento Kings (31-23) remain the surprise story of the season as the West’s No. 3 seed, while the next nine teams are separated by just three games. LeBron James and Anthony Davis got some help, too, as the Los Angeles Lakers acquired D'Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt.
In adding Durant and Irving, respectively, the Suns and Mavs have positioned themselves to break away from the pack and move into the West’s upper echelon over the final two months of the regular season. Given their wild inconsistency and repeated displays of late-game malfunction, the Warriors’ goal at this point might be just to finish in the top six as to avoid the play-in tournament.
You have to imagine that Golden State remains a massive challenge for any team this postseason in a seven-game series, but the crapshoot nature of the play-in tournament is something they don’t want to mess with.
We’ll have to see if Bob Myers pulls the trigger on a deadline day deal, but the Warriors simply might have to find another gear with their current squad to keep pace in the stacked new-look Western Conference.
