The Warriors dropped 10 spots in the 2nd round of the 2010 NBA Draft for some cold hard cash yesterday. It doesn't look like they're done trying to help the bottom line.
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Over at The Journal Times Gary Gery Woelfel writes in Trade winds brewing before NBA Draft:
Now there's some chatter on the NBA grapevine the Bucks may be interested in another small forward - Corey Maggette of the Golden State Warriors.
It's no secret the Warriors have Maggette on the trading block - even though he is coming off a quality season in which he was the Warriors' second-leading scorer at 19.8 points a game. He also averaged 5.3 rebounds.
But Maggette has a fairly hefty contract - he still has three years, $31 million remaining on it - and the money-conscious Warriors would like to unload it.
The speculation is the Bucks are offering the Warriors center Dan Gadzuric, who has one year left on his contract for $7.4M, and guard Charlie Bell ($3.8M).
I'll be the first to say that the Maggette splurge right after Baron Davis departed to LA-LA land was a silly reactionary move, but give this man his props. His efficiency last season was nothing short of stunning (nearly 20ppg in under 30 mpg with a guady 61.5% true shooting) and from my view he seemed like a fantastic locker room presence that was great influence on his young teammates.
There's definitely better ways to spend his salary, but do you honestly really believe the Cohan-owned Warriors are going to do that? A sale changes everything obviously, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it dragged awhile longer. (If you're a buyer, what's the rush? The franchise value is only going to go down with the Warriors missing the playoffs next season.) I really wouldn't mind the Warriors holding onto Maggette and his contract (versus a straight salary dump which this essentially is) until the new ownership takes over. I will concede that the new ownership might actually use those two incoming Bucks' expiring contracts to net a bigger fish though (what a concept!), but if a certain tech CEO purchases the team Maggette's contract might not be such a burden.
Also, my man Adam also has some good words in Once Again, Cohan's Gain is the Warriors' Loss where he very astutely posits that Andris Biedrins is the likely next victim of a Cohan salary dump. Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy if the Warriors cut ties with this very flawed player (we won't even talk about the silly circa-2007 nonsense that he and Monta Ellis were amazing building blocks for a mythically bright future post-WE BELIEVE) with questionable dedication to improving his game (he's about to hit his 7th year in the league and still has very, very, very poor basic basketball big man fundamentals). However, it would be incredibly frustrating to see his salary dumped for the likes of cash savings. Biedrins (unlike Marco Belinelli who one was last season's salary dump- though I'm in the camp that Devean George was actually the better player last year) is a servicable player and not a player to just be tossed aside without getting anything good in return. Cap space in itself (aside from this potentially rare monumental offseason) more often that not means over paying players on the "free market" that their former teams don't even want... which (unfortunately) brings us full circle to the Corey Maggette contract.
For more discussion on the Maggette rumor check out kenntoe's FanShot.
Archive: RUMOR: Cavaliers talking to Warriors about Corey Maggette + LeBron James believes Maggette can help