The Fall of the Warriors Dynasty Part 2: Chris Paul Trade Asset Farce

The fall of the Golden State Warriors dynasty has been accelerated by front office blunders, among other things.

In Part 1, I explored the mistakes the Warriors made with James Wiseman.

In Part 2, I go over the Chris Paul trade and subsequent decision to not deal him before he became a free agent.

To give proper context to what happened, let's start with the 2022 offseason that includes one punch and two contract decisions.

The Punch and Two Contract Decisions

Coming off winning an NBA title, the Warriors had two major contract decisions to make.

Jordan Poole was extension-eligible for the first time after a breakout third season. The Warriors didn't have to give him an extension immediately, as he was entering the last season of his rookie deal. After the 2022-23 season, he'd be a restricted free agent, allowing the Dubs to match any offer sheet he signed.

Andrew Wiggins had one season left on his contract. The Warriors could have let him play it out without an extension, but there's more risk of losing a player when letting them get to unrestricted free agency, so getting Wiggins extended seemed like the priority of the two.

Days before the Warriors made those contract decisions, Draymond Green punched Poole in practice.

Some will say this was the moment the dynasty ended, and it certainly could have been its own article in this series.

The Dubs ultimately chose to give Poole a four-year contract extension worth up to $140 million. Wiggins received a four-year, $109 million extension the same day.

This gave the Warriors five players with salaries of over $20 million in average annual value.

It raised the question of whether the Warriors could afford Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green with the new long-term contracts for Wiggins and Poole.

But that was a problem for next year. Poole was making just $3.9 million in 2022-23.

Poole's 2022-23 Regression

Poole did not pick up where he left off from the 2022 playoffs. Instead, he regressed to a worse version of himself.

His shooting percentages went down while his turnover rate went up. He looked more disinterested on defense than he had in the past.

The Warriors suffered as a result. They were 5.9 points per 100 possessions worse with Poole on the court, per Cleaning the Glass.

In the last five games of the Warriors' second-round loss to the Lakers, Poole went 13-of-43 from the floor and 1-of-17 from three.

The optics of trading Poole and giving Green a new four-year, $100 million contract were bad, but the Warriors must have felt they had no other choice. Green was too valuable to lose, and Poole had become massively overpaid.

The Unrealized Promise of the Paul Trade

Days after being named the new Warriors GM, Mike Dunleavy Jr. traded Poole, Ryan Rollins, Patrick Baldwin Jr., a second-round pick and a heavily protected first-round pick for Chris Paul.

This trade accomplished two things at once.

For one, Paul was a better player than Poole. No one was expecting the 38-year-old to make the Warriors a title front-runner, but it was reasonable to assume he'd run the second unit better than Poole, which he did.

Second, Paul was on a $30.8 million expiring contract, which made him an ideal trade piece for the 2024 trade deadline (Note: Paul had a $30 million nonguaranteed salary for 2024-25 that no team was going to pick up, so he was effectively on an expiring deal). I believed it would be easier to move Paul than Poole, and with Paul's salary combined with Jonathan Kuminga's and some draft capital, the Dubs would have a package to go star hunting.

With that said, they had some big questions about their long-term cap sheet.

Green and Wiggins had just started their four-year deals, while Curry was on a max contract. Klay Thompson was in the last year of his five-year, $190 million deal, and it was reported that the Dubs offered him a two-year, $48 million extension that he turned down.

The Warriors had five expensive contracts in 2023-24, and had they traded Paul for a star and re-signed Thompson, they'd be at five expensive contracts again in 2024-25.

There were rumors that the Warriors were interested in Pascal Siakam, and a framework of Paul, Kuminga and picks would've worked for Siakam and his $38 million salary.

But Siakam was moved to the Pacers instead, and when the trade deadline came and went, Paul was still on the Warriors.

That inaction revealed what their plan was all along. The front office just wanted to clear long-term cap space, essentially giving up Poole for nothing.

This was the first time team governor Joe Lacob and the front office so blatantly chose saving money over giving themselves a realistic chance at title contention due to fear of future apron penalties.

To be fair to Lacob, the consequences of being over the second apron year after year are harsh. Rival front offices are choosing to avoid these penalties as well with cap-saving moves that hurt their immediate contention chances.

But how the Warriors got to their point of surrender showed a team without much foresight.

Over one calendar year, Poole went from being worth $140 million to being salary-dumped. Ouch.

Then, they had several months to find a trade for Paul that would fit their long-term plan of staying under the second apron, and they came up with nothing. Double ouch.

Immediate Aftermath

The Dubs dug themselves out of a 19-24 hole with a second-half push to get to 46-36, but doing so wore them out. They looked exhausted during a 24-point loss to the Kings in the No. 9 vs. No. 10 play-in game.

Paul signed with the Spurs early in 2024 free agency. Days later, Thompson and the Warriors agreed to a sign-and-trade sending the four-time champ to the Mavericks.

Ironically, the Warriors' decision to clear long-term cap space on the Paul trade ended up not allowing them to keep their core together, as they lost Thompson anyway. They could have, for example, traded for Siakam and easily afforded an extension for him if they knew they were losing Thompson.

Not trading Paul and assets for a better player directly cost the Dubs any chance at contention in 2024 and led to a rough first half of the 2024-25 season.

It's hard to say what it cost beyond that. The Butterfly Effect game can get unwieldy fast.

For example, using Paul's contract to acquire a star would have resulted in being able to keep Wiggins. Instead, the Dubs had to move Wiggins as part of the Jimmy Butler trade.

There's no guarantee the Warriors would be better off now had they traded Paul, but it would have been a better try. Losing him for nothing is part of a larger strategy of being afraid to trade future draft picks and holding on to younger players too long.

We'll get more into that for Thursday's Part 3.

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