The Warriors are at an impasse with the Utah Jazz on their negotiations for Laura Markkanen. August 6, when Markkanen can sign an extension, looms as a major date to determine his future.
Will the Warriors wait it out and then push in their chips? Few understand the situation better than Anthony Slater, who joined a morning edition of Willard and Dibs Wednesday.
Slater assessed the situation as one the Warriors will be patient on, but that even acquiring Markkanen would only put them in "fringe contention."
He said he believes that the likelihood of Markkanen being dealt is "under 50 percent, maybe even lower," but that Markkanen's desire to compete and the potential for the Jazz to tank for Cooper Flagg could set up a mutually beneficial trade scenario.
But according to Shams Charania and others, the Jazz would want Brandin Podziemski in any deal. So, where do the Warriors stand on the second-year guard?
"I mean, they don't want to trade him," Slater said. "He is beloved organizationally. They think he has winning qualities. And one of I would say, the rare aspects of Podziemski compared to their other recent draft picks is not only, obviously, does the front office love the talent and draft him and want him to play, but the head coach as a rookie couldn't keep him off the floor. I mean, Steve Kerr's putting him in his best lineups last year. His plus-minus is great. He's raving about him as a rookie. So there is not much of an appetite for the Warriors to trade him.
"Now, again, if it comes down to a major trade, and he is the swing piece, sometimes you do have to give stuff up. We'll see. But yeah, they're not actively looking to move him. But part of the reason why he has an appeal, not only to the Warriors, but on the market to a team like Utah, he's got three more years of very cheap money. He's just entering year two of a four-year rookie deal and he was the 19th overall pick. That's really cheap labor in a lot of ways. But that's also why the Warriors want to protect him."
Slater also said it's not so cut and dry on who the Warriors would value in a hypothetical Podziemski versus Jonathan Kuminga valuation. It could come down to who means less picks have to be involved in a deal.
Listen to Slater's full interview above.