The Warriors‘ biggest offseason priority was to bring in a high-level, established scorer next to Stephen Curry, according to The Athletic’s Anthony Slater. That’s why the team targeted both Paul George and Lauri Markkanen, though the team came away with neither. While the general sentiment is that Golden State did well for itself to bring in players like Buddy Hield, De’Anthony Melton and Kyle Anderson, Slater ponders whether the team is falling flat for Curry.
To be clear, Slater points out that the Markkanen situation in particular may not have been management’s fault. According to Slater, Markkanen’s availability felt more like a mirage and him extending with Utah always seemed like the intended outcome.
Curry hasn’t shown any signs of unease or unrest with the roster, Slater reports. There’s still no reported reason for either side to feel less than optimistic about an extension getting done, even though it won’t happen in the near future as Curry unwinds after the Paris Olympics.
There isn’t any rush for Curry to get an extension done and he can play out the season to see if the young players develop or if the new veterans fit in well. It would also be helpful to see if Draymond Green stays out of the league’s spotlight more this season or if Andrew Wiggins bounces back, Slater writes.
The Warriors themselves believe they improved this season, with internal team models giving positive outlook on their veteran additions and projecting them a fourth-place finish in the conference. Still though, Curry’s decision on an extension before the leaguewide deadline of Oct. 21 may indicate how he feels about the roster.
We have more from the Pacific Division:
- The Paris Olympics are another major reason the Lakers should continue to be aggressive in looking for roster upgrades, Jovan Buha of The Athletic reports. LeBron James and Anthony Davis played major roles in the gold medal win, with James in particular coming away with Olympics MVP. Both players are either firmly in or pushing to be in the league’s top 10 best players conversation and the tandem is still more than capable of contending for championships. Two-way wings are still a need for the team, Buha writes, but they can still look to get creative in optimizing their stars with the talent on board, perhaps by playing Davis alongside another big more often or using their young shooters like Dalton Knecht and Max Christie.
- In a similar piece, Michael Pina of The Ringer opines that the Lakers needed to bring in more veteran talent around James this offseason. The only standard players currently on Los Angeles’s roster who weren’t on last year’s team are Knecht and Bronny James. For my money though, I’ll be curious to see how they deploy their young talent this season. While the team didn’t make major veteran moves, Knecht was widely regarded as one of the biggest draft steals and players like Christie, Maxwell Lewis or Jalen Hood-Schifino could play themselves into the rotation or show enough promise to be used to trade for vets.
- The new Clippers arena, Intuit Dome, had its grand opening on Thursday, Law Murray of The Athletic relays. The arena’s features, like the halo board, have gone viral through the last year and it marks the first time since 1998 that the Clippers won’t shares Staples/Crypto.com Arena with their rival Lakers. The 2024/25 regular season home opener for L.A. is against Phoenix on Oct. 23.