…or is it Klay Thompson?

Leave aside the who of that question or what that package is; for all we know a star not currently on the market will be requesting a trade in the next month or so. Regardless of who, the Warriors have 2 aging veterans on exorbitant expirings in Chris Paul ($30 million) and Klay Thompson ($43.2M). Paul technically has a team option but no team is likely to pick that option up unless it lets them do a trade in the offseason they otherwise could not.

It should go without saying that Klay is the more important player to the franchise, being the Warriors equivalent to Scottie Pippen. He’s incredibly important to the Warriors dynasty and without him, Golden State doesn’t have the 4 championships that the Splash Bros. won. But Pippen did leave the Bulls on less than amicable terms and in a similar vein to Klay Thompson, a large portion of that breakdown of the . Unlike Pippen, who was still a good player but whose decline in Houston was notable, Klay is a shell of his former self. While it’s true Klay also started out sloppy at the beginning of last season before recovering slightly, Thompson has been truly dreadful to start and all signs point to this being less of a slow start and more than the second Splash Brother is simply washed up.

In 13 games, Klay Thompson is averaging 14 points, 3 rebounds and 2.1 assists, turning the ball over almost as much as he assists with 2 turnovers per game and easily the worst defense he’s played in his career. He’s also shooting around 7 3s a game with overall shooting splits of 40/33/87 in around 29 minutes per game.

Chris Paul has also declined though not to the same extent as Klay has; On shooting splits of 38.9/30/90, CP3 is averaging 9.4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 7.4 assists, turning the ball over around once in around the 28.4 minutes he’s played in 13 games. While Paul’s defense has not been amazing either, it hasn’t been anywhere near the travesty that is current day Klay.

Paul’s impact off the bench has been more notable than originally anticipated despite the increase passivity of Chris when it comes to shooting but beyond the impact off the bench, there is a willingness for CP3 to make it work in Golden State despite the history between CP3 and the Warriors whereas it remains a question as to whether Klay would be willing to come off the bench or have his minutes reduced after the issues regarding the scuttling of his extension negotiations that culminated in an Instagram post from him that featured Rasheed Wallace and Scottie Pippen in their respective Blazers uniforms*

*For reference, Pippen later traded to the Blazers in the 1999 offseason due to, among other contributing factors, a public dispute with Charles “sorry and fat butt” Barkley

There is one other factor to consider, and that is money. With Klay making more money than Chris by a substantial margin - $43 million to Chris’ less than $31 million - he makes it both easier to match salaries for a star player/makes it an easier sell to trade most of the young guys since the amount of incoming/outgoing salary would likely require the team partnering with them for such a trade to include at least one roleplayer to make up the difference since the 2023/24 season is the last one a second apron team like the Warriors can utilize the full provision regarding the 110% salary rule in the CBA i.e. they can use the outgoing salary and increase salary taken back vs. what they are sending out. Note that the maximum salary the Warriors would be able to take back would change if this occurred in the 2024 offseason or later.

To illustrate this for the Warriors in 2023/24, let’s look at CP3 vs. Klay plus the following rookie combos of Golden State’s 3 young players would result in the outgoing team having to roughly match the following outgoing salaries:

Regardless, this should go to show how the Warriors could use this as one last move to add both a star and perhaps snag one or two impactful roleplayers - if not, rope this trade to a smaller trade to make full use of the allowable incoming salary for this final opportunity - with Klay allowing for more room to operate with the salaries of the roleplayers that could come with a star in a blockbuster trade.

Who is that star/series of supporting cast? Who knows! Right now the biggest names either currently or previously in trade rumors were/are Zach LaVine (making $40M) and Pascal Siakam ($37.8M), and Klay’s salary alone more than matches both so it becomes a discussion on what a trade for them or the latest star player on the trade bloc and which roleplayers either team is willing to part with; former Warriors Otto Porter Jr. ($6.3M) and never Warrior Alex Caruso ($9.4M) immediately come to mind though Caruso alone has substantial trade value and thus wouldn’t be a throw-in to make the money work.