Kurtenbach: The Luka Dončić trade has plunged the NBA into chaos. The Warriors need to take advantage
Before Saturday, Luka Don?i? was considered untradeable. Now he’s on the Lakers. It’s all the more reason for the Warriors to go all-in with Steph Curry.
You shouldn’t need a reminder of Steph Curry’s greatness, but you received one late Saturday night.
The biggest and most shocking NBA trade in recent memory will have ramifications that will be felt for decades.
It makes a statement when you trade a perennial MVP candidate at 25 years old.
For the Dallas Mavericks, a team that played in the NBA Finals this past June, the statement was that they don’t trust Luka Dončić.
With a “supermax” $69-million-a-year contract extension looming in Dončić’s future and with well-known concerns over his conditioning (perhaps contributing to absences on the court), the Mavs decided to sell him for 50 cents on the dollar, picking up Anthony Davis (that bastion of health), a few bit players, and one of the Lakers’ two tradable first-round picks.
Does this make the Lakers better? Maybe. Sure, they no longer have a rim protector, but they added one of the league’s brightest stars, who should (that’s the operative word here) be entering his peak.
Does this make the Mavericks better? For the next year or two, perhaps. They still have Kyrie Irving, after all.
The situation highlights two things that pertain to the Warriors.
The first is to never take Curry’s excellence — on or off the court — for granted.
Since Curry signed what turned out to be the most team-friendly contract in the history of the NBA in 2012 (four years, $44 million), the Dubs have never needed to give a second thought to paying him every penny he could possibly earn under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.
Even now, when Curry, on the career decline and halfway through what is, in effect, a five-year, $278 million contract that runs until the end of the 2026-27 season, there is little doubt he’s worth every penny.
Say what you will about the Warriors’ current standing. Heaven knows I’ve exhausted myself on that.
But where would the Warriors be without him?
Praying for lottery balls to bounce their way in May.
Instead, the Warriors can still fancy themselves “in it.”
And, once again, in case the severity of the situation hasn’t sunk in just yet — the reigning Western Conference champion just totally freaked out and traded away their franchise cornerstone without much logical impetus.
They didn’t even bother to shop him around the league. (The Warriors would have been able to make a competitive offer.)
But Dallas’ inability to commit to Dončić is all the more reason for the Warriors to commit to Curry in ways beyond general wealth.
If a 25-year-old who is five-times All-NBA — a player who before Saturday was considered untradable — isn’t worth full commitment, then that bar is impossibly high.
Or, to put it another way, there’s no such thing as a “future” in the NBA if a player like Dončić (for all his downsides) isn’t considered a player worth a max contract by an unquestionably successful team.
(For all the deserved skewering of the Mavericks for this deal, some deference needs to be provided, too. They should know Dončić better than anyone, and their annoyance with him, particularly in the last 18 months, hasn’t exactly a close-kept secret.)
Meanwhile, the Warriors are holding onto their “future” with a level of preciousness that’s actively harming their present.
This brings us the second lesson of the Doncic trade. It’s not a new one:
The Warriors are never going to land another Steph Curry. At least not in the next decade or so.
And no, they’re not going to land a Dončić, either.
That’s just not how the NBA works.
The Celtics and Lakers dominated the 80s and stunk in the 90s.
The Bulls dominated the 90s and stunk in the new millennium’s first decade. The Knicks didn’t even win a title in that era and have been trying to reach their level of play for 25 years since.
How’d the Lakers do at the end of the Kobe Bryant era? How’d the Spurs do after Tim Duncan retired?
This league is one of incredible highs and lows. Some teams can stave off the latter better than others — the Lakers, it seems, are blessed by the basketball gods; whereas the Heat have an excellent program for sustained quality — but there’s only so much one can do.
It’s best to make the most of Curry while he can still do what he’s doing.
I’m a broken record on this, but the good news is that there are only a few days left to say it: Curry turns 37 years old in a matter of weeks. One could argue his days as a title-winning player are over, but the fact that it’s an argument speaks volumes.
The NBA trade deadline is on Thursday. As of Sunday morning, the Warriors are four games back of the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference.
No one is advocating for a trade like the Mavericks just made — a rash, perhaps even “desperate” move. Don’t toss five first-round picks onto the table for Zion Williamson.
But in a world where Dončić can be traded, there’s no reason not to be aggressive.
And there’s even less of a reason not to maximize what time Curry has left.
Clearly, they do not make superstars like him anymore.
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