NBA trade rumor: Golden State Warriors looking to move minimum salary player

Kings have talked with Warriors about taking minimum-salary player, with cash as sweetener. GSW trying to avoid tax; Sac has roster spot.

— Ken Berger (@KBergCBS) February 21, 2013

Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News elaborated on Ken Berger's report in a blog post this morning.

CBS' Ken Berger reports that the Warriors are in discussions with Sacramento to trade a few of their minimum-salary bench players-it'd have to be a combination of Kent Bazemore, Jeremy Tyler or Charles Jenkins-in order to dip under the luxury-tax line, with the incentive of giving the Kings some money to do take the contracts.

That makes sense, because if the Warriors believe they might get over the line and stay there in ensuing years (a very real possibility with the big contracts they're carrying), the repeater rules (for three seasons in a row over the line) are very rough.

Given that Bazemore has made some major strides over the course of the season, you'd have to believe the Golden State Warriors would try to keep him and move one (or both) of the other two options.

Somewhat related to this rumor is the Francisco Garcia and Thomas Robinson to Houston deal that the Sacramento Kings just made ostensibly to save a little bit of money for this season, as described by Grantland's Zach Lowe this morning.

Robinson's a "wow" athlete, and he's already a better rebounder than Patterson ever will be; Patterson rebounds more like a small forward than a power forward, and he's the only player of any long-term relevance going to Sacramento here. The Kings do save about $3.6 million in salary for this season, so hooray for that! Cost-cutting may well have been a motive during an awkward period for the franchise, and if it was, well, have fun digesting that one, Sacto fans.

Surely the Warriors are looking to deal a minimum-salary player for their own financial reasons, but the Kings' interest in such a deal in conjunction with the Robinson deal might be a bit more unclear or maybe, as described by the folks at Sactown Royalty, maddening to fans.

For more on Warriors trade rumors, check out our trade rumors storystream.