Golden State Warriors: 3 bold moves to start a rebuild in Golden State

Trade Kelly Oubre Jr.

It is incredibly early into the season but it seems already that the Kelly Oubre Jr. experiment is going really badly. He is shooting historically bad, he is playing more as an individual than as a team player and the Warriors are slightly better with him off the floor than with him on.

So should the Warriors just bite the bullet for the season and pay the tax bill with Oubre counting against the cap or like The above Wiggins deal, should the Warriors look to shed his contract and get some cap relief?

All depending on whether they are potentially in playoff contention but with it being very unlikely that they will be contenders this season, it makes more sense to move on from Oubre Jr. and simply just live to fight another day.

The Warriors would not really get anything back of note.

Oubre Jr. has not done much to help his trade value, he is an expiring contract which is usually valuable but any team looking to take Oubre won’t be looking to give up anything of real value.

With the Boston Celtics, due to their historically large Gordon Hayward trade exemption, they can absorb Oubre Jr. and send out a token second-round pick to get a deal done.

While the Warriors would usually want an asset back in return, shedding the salary of a player who isn’t part of their long term plans and reducing their tax bill will be more important than receiving another salary in its place that will still land them a huge tax bill at the end of the year.

The Celtics get themselves another talented wing to add to Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and co. They can give Oubre a test drive, see if he fits in their system, if he doesn’t they can move on from him at years end, no harm, no foul.

The Warriors get a second-round pick in 2022 which could end up being a decent role player but this trade is all about saving money and living to fight another day.