But again, this was just one day. Many other things can and certainly will happen in this period. The Warriors need a center, and might add Al Horford, though, at 39, he’d hardly reset anybody’s timeline. The Lakers, guess what, also need a center, and maybe they’ll get Deandre Ayton, if that means much.
None of that, though, is all that important when Houston, San Antonio, Denver, and OKC — especially OKC — are sitting there in the West and getting better in the West.
Yes, the Warriors and Lakers already made their huge moves last winter by acquiring Butler and Doncic, respectively, and it’s unfair to expect these aging teams to get younger and stronger in a blink. But there’s also a gravitational pull to this kind of stuff — once you’re perceived to be a bit stuck in place, it’s hard to push yourself into the most exciting transactions.
And let’s be clear: It’d be worse for the long and short term if Mike Dunleavy and Joe Lacob risked it all by throwing their valuable future first-round picks (as I keep saying, they’re valuable for a reason) or tied up too much money in risky propositions.
Also, the Warriors have been down and nearly written off several other times, starting five or six years ago; in that time, they’ve won the fourth championship of this era, lived through the rise and fall of the Sacramento Kings, and outplayed and outlasted the Memphis Grizzlies, among others. Dunleavy also picked up Butler in the middle of one of their worst periods last season, which revved up the entire franchise.
It’s still possible. This was just one day. It might all work out just fine. Dunleavy has done a lot of solid stuff in the secondary days of free agency over the last few years.
But it’s sobering that the main event of Monday was a fond goodbye: The Warriors had to let stalwart Kevon Looney go to the New Orleans Pelicans when there was no way they could logically come close to the two-year, $16-million deal he was offered. I also don’t know if there was any logic to what the Pelicans were doing, but hey, that’s on them, and good for Looney to get the nice payday.
It would be a very Warriors thing for Looney to follow Andre Iguodala’s path back to this franchise in a few years. It would feel right. But that also would be a bit of spinning in place as the best teams gallop forward. Until the Kuminga situation is resolved, the Warriors are not moving ahead and they might be sliding backward. Monday was a day of feeling that, worrying about that, and wondering if the top teams are moving so far ahead that they really can’t be caught.