The Golden State Warriors have broken up as we knew them, but they will be retooling for the 2019-2020 season.
The Warriors have lost Kevin Durant in free agency to the Brooklyn Nets, but they made sure to get back D’Angelo Russell on a sign-and-trade deal. They’re reportedly signing Russell to a four-year max contract. To make the money work in the deal, they needed to shed salary to stay below the hard salary cap and were able to offload Andre Iguodala to Memphis.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Warriors traded Iguodala and a 2024 first-round pick to the Grizzlies as part of the deal. The pick reportedly is top-4 protected in 2024, top-1 protected in 2025, and unprotected in 2026.
Iguodala may not want to remain in Memphis and could be a buyout candidate, which would mean Memphis essentially bought a future first-round pick for the $17.1 million Iguodala is making. This puts Iguodala’s tweet from earlier in the day into context:
I need that Magic meme…
— andre (@andre) June 30, 2019
The Magic meme:
— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) July 1, 2019
If Iguodala is bought out, he could join another team, perhaps the Lakers to try and get revenge on the Warriors. His agent was Rob Pelinka, who is now the general manager of the Lakers.
