The Warriors may have spent the offseason poking around the market for bigger names, but the real opportunity to reshape the roster might not come until later. General manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. made clear recently that Golden State expects to have more than one path to improvement once the season starts, with the trade deadline looming as the most obvious opening.
“We have multiple ways to get better during the season, which is something we’ve done the last few years,” Dunleavy said in a press conference last week. “Whether it’s adding [Jimmy] Butler, adding [Kristaps] Porzingis, you can go as far back as adding Andrew Wiggins. I’d say we’re pretty good about improving our team in the middle of the year.”
For Dunleavy, the early focus is straightforward: get through the start of the year healthy and in the hunt. Butler and Moses Moody are both expected to miss significant time, so the Warriors’ ability to stay afloat early could shape how aggressively they can attack the rest of the season. If they’re still in position after the deadline, the picture changes.
“If people see us as running back a 37-win team, I would say we’ve added to that team from the way it started last year with a player like Porzingis,” Dunleavy said. “And then most importantly, we get into the season and we see how our guys come back from injuries like Moses and Jimmy.”
Elsewhere in the Pacific Division, the Lakers are trying to keep the basketball side steady while their proposed sale hangs over the franchise. According to Dan Woike of The Athletic, with contributions from Sam Amick, the team is operating with a “business as usual” approach for the players. Still, some sources around the league believe the uncertainty could slow down further growth in basketball operations, especially when it comes to pro scouts.
On the rookie front, Warriors lottery pick Yaxel Lendeborg has already shown the kind of personality and versatility that made him stand out. But before his Summer League debut, he says the moment hit him harder than he expected.
“When we were going to the game in Vegas, I was about to cry on the bus,” Lendeborg said. “… Three or four tears kind of like dripped from the eye, but I was on a bus with a bunch of guys.
They don’t even know me. They barely know me, so I can’t just be crying for no reason.”
Lendeborg’s path has been anything but direct, eventually leading him to a national championship with Michigan. He was later named Summer League MVP, yet he says confidence has never come naturally.
“I’ve never been a confident kid. So, actually having this time to believe in myself - it means a lot to me, and I’m trying my best to not lose that no matter what goes on,” he said.
And in Phoenix, the Suns are already laying the groundwork for the 2027 All-Star Game. One major piece of that effort is a 226-foot-by-41-foot LED display outside the arena, a multimillion-dollar project that will be the largest of its kind for any professional basketball team in the United States, according to David Brandt of AP News.
“[Suns owner Mat Ishbia] has tasked us with making it the best ever,” CEO Josh Bartelstein said of the All-Star Game. “The best ever is in all the details.
For every fan that comes in town, all the players, the different teams, we care about every detail. You’re going to see that once the All-Star Game comes here in February.”
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Warriors May Be Adding Another Player To Fight For A Roster Spot
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Nothing is official yet, and the Warriors still have not announced Terrys addition. Even so, the move would fit the usual late-summer template for a team sorting through fringe roster options, with Terry expected to compete for a spot rather than arrive with any assurances. [Read more 🡒]
Warriors Dynasty Slide Keeps Coming Back To One Costly Wiseman Bet
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By the time the Warriors lifted the trophy in 2022, Wiseman was not part of the rotation, and the broader question around the pick had only grown sharper. His second season never became the clean reset the team needed, leaving Golden State to wonder what it had actually bought with such a high selection and whether the franchise spent too long waiting for the promise to catch up to the reality. [Read more 🡒]
Steve Kerrs Warriors Goodbye Suddenly Feels Like The Start Of Something Painful
Steve Kerrs new two-year extension should have settled at least one lingering question for the Warriors, and in the short term it did. After a stretch of uncertainty about his future, the head coach is back under contract and the franchise can move forward with the same man who helped guide the run that defined an era in Golden State. But around the edges of that stability, the bigger conversation has only gotten louder, because every season now feels like it could say something definitive about where this core is headed next.
Draymond Greens one-year deal only adds to the sense that the floor is not as fixed as it once was. If the Warriors stumble this season, the roster questions could turn from theoretical to urgent, and the most familiar names on the team would suddenly be part of a much colder calculation. For a franchise that has lived so long with continuity, the unsettling part is not just that change is possible, but that it now feels closer than it did a year ago. [Read more 🡒]