Bill Simmons thinks Lakers’ Reaves for Dubs’ Green could fix Warriors

Throughout the ups and (mostly) downs of this Warriors season, one thing has remained clear: The current roster is by no means a championship contender.

To address this issue, former-writer-turned-podcaster, and NBA awards voter, Bill Simmons suggested a trade the Dubs could make that has the rare distinction of being crap for both sides of the transaction. 

“I don’t think Golden State needs Draymond,” the head of Podcast Innovation and Monetization at Spotify declared. “I think they should trade him and I think it’s time for them to trade him. I didn’t feel that way a couple weeks ago because I thought he was too important to [Steph] Curry offensively, but I actually think they should trade him at this point and just let him start fresh.”

It’s worth noting that the trade doesn’t work financially unless the two teams expand it to something like the Lakers sending Reaves and D’Angelo Russell to the Dubs for Green, Moody and Cory Joseph — and any trade involving Reaves can’t be made until Jan. 15 because of eligibility restrictions.

Even so, while it’s true that the Warriors have improved their record since Green’s indefinite suspension began, and that it might be best for the team to move on from a player whose risk of on-court assaults outweighs his on-court usefulness, this can’t be the way they go about this. In theory it could provide additional scoring avenues for Golden State, but Russell is incredibly streaky and doesn’t offer much elsewhere on the floor (characteristics that really haven’t changed since his stint with the Warriors in 2019-20), and teams have learned how to guard Reaves in a way that stifles the explosive performances that led to his breakout last season. The Warriors would also give up quite a bit of size and defensive know-how in trading Green without filling that void in return.

It’s hard to imagine even the Lakers wanting to do this either. Moody is perhaps the only useful midseason acquisition, but that depends on whether his year-by-year improvement has been a result of his own work, or a product of his role in the Warriors’ system. Sure, they might be happy to dump Russell, but the headache that they could get with Green would certainly be worse. They’d also lose two scorers from their already bad offense.

That being said, it’s a rather desperate time for the Warriors. While they competed hard against the Nuggets on Christmas, they suffered one of the toughest losses of the season against a short-handed Miami Heat squad that had a player on a two-way contract outscoring each of the Splash Bros. At this point, any potential trades should be on the table, even if they’re hair-brained moves from someone like Simmons.