General Manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. says he’s comfortable with his decision not to make a mid-season trade after the Golden State Warriors were eliminated from the Play-In Tournament on Tuesday night.
Despite plenty of speculation amid a below .500 record before the February 8 trade deadline, Dunleavy and the Warriors refrained from making a move much to the surprise of some fans and analysts.
Was Mike Dunleavy Jr’s decision not to make a mid-season trade justified by the Golden State Warriors’ run over the late part of the season?
Now, just over two months on, Dunleavy has no regrets about his decision to stand pat despite the Warriors absence from the playoffs for just the third time in the last dozen seasons.
Part of that had to do with what was available, with Dunleavy maintaining that there was nothing lucrative on the table in what concluded as a rather quiet trade deadline across the league.
“I think knowing what I know now, there’s not anything on the table I would have done or gone through with. I think it was good to see this team out…Frankly we were 27-12 over the last half of the season, so I’m good with how we went after the deadline, just don’t like the earlier part of the season that got us too far behind.”
– Mike Dunleavy Jr.
"Knowing what I know now, there's not anything on the table I would have done or gone through with."
Dunleavy on the Warriors' trade deadline approach and if he would have done anything different pic.twitter.com/kzKK5otJGy
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) April 18, 2024
Golden State had been linked to two-time All-Star Pascal Siakam before he was traded to the Indiana Pacers in January, while Atlanta Hawks’ guard Dejounte Murray had also been a player of interest ahead of the deadline.
Was Dunleavy’s decision not to make a trade proven the right one? Even despite Tuesday’s elimination, the answer should be yes. The first-year GM is correct — the Warriors were categorically a good team after the deadline, they just left themselves too much to do that ultimately put them at the mercy of a one-off elimination game.
Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins were poor on Tuesday but drastically improved their play after the deadline, with the latter in particular having been involved in a myriad of speculation in December and January.
The future of that pair and a number of teammates will again draw discussion over the offseason as Dunleavy and the Warriors look to re-tool a roster that’s fallen well out of championship contention.