Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. insists the team’s quiet offseason shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of effort.
“We're super aggressive. I mean, if people knew the cold calls I made, offering a lot of stuff for players, I think they'd realize how hard we're trying,” Dunleavy said.
That’s the claim, anyway. The results tell a different story.
This offseason brought a wave of major movement around the league, including Kawhi Leonard to the Raptors for a package centered around Brandon Ingram, two first-round picks and one first-round swap (pending), Jaylen Brown to the 76ers for a package centered around Paul George and two first-round picks, and Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Heat for a massive haul. There were also smaller deals in which the team getting the player either didn’t give up a first-round pick or sent one out and got one back.
The Warriors, meanwhile, were tied to serious interest in Leonard and Antetokounmpo. They also at least explored a big swing for Brown before passing. For lower-cost targets such as Dort and Bridges, it isn’t clear how far Golden State went, but it’s tough to believe the team had no route to improvement at a modest draft-capital price.
That’s why the “super aggressive” label is hard to square with a team that didn’t actually land much of anything.
Dunleavy did suggest the Warriors spent time on players who never moved.
“There's a lot of guys that we really, really value that don't get moved and that's probably because so do those teams,” Dunleavy said.
Trey Murphy III may have been one of them. The Warriors reportedly put two first-round picks and salary filler on the table for Murphy, but the Pelicans wanted more.
There’s no way to know every name Dunleavy was chasing. Maybe he even made a real run at Nikola Jokic. It never hurts to ask whether a player is available, but that’s a long way from prying loose a true top-three star.
At some point, though, a pile of inquiries and low-end offers starts to look less like aggression and more like noise. That would also fit the recent pattern around Golden State, which has reportedly been connected to plenty of stars over the last few years but has landed only Jimmy Butler.
The better comparison might be the fantasy manager in your dynasty league who keeps tossing out wild trade proposals every few weeks. You can call that aggressive. You can also call it a waste of everyone’s time.
If the Warriors want to be serious about contending in 2026-27, Dunleavy needs a more practical approach. Pushing a little harder on Murphy would come with risk, but he’s also the kind of player worth taking a swing on.
A truly aggressive GM would zero in on a few targets, learn the price, pick the deal that delivers the best value and finish the job.
That’s the kind of urgency 38-year-old superstar Stephen Curry needs from his front office as he tries to outrun Father Time for as long as he can.
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