The Warriors need to blow it up! Why it’s time to trade Stephen Curry and Draymond Green

[ad_1]

I spent my Monday afternoon watching the Warriors get obliterated by the Celtics — a 40-point loss, wire-to-wire domination, and a stark reminder of just how far Golden State has fallen. One thought kept creeping into my mind: The path Boston took to become the powerhouse it is today is the exact lesson Golden State needs to learn.

The Boston Blueprint

Almost 12 years ago, Danny Ainge made the kind of ruthless, franchise-defining move that separates good front offices from great ones. He traded Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn for a treasure chest of picks. At the time, it wasn’t obvious that trading Celtics royalty for those picks would morph into Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the foundation of a team that’s now a perennial contender. But that’s the point: Ainge didn’t wait for things to fall apart. He made the tough call before it was too late.

A lot of teams wouldn’t have had the guts. Most franchises would’ve held on to Pierce until he was wheezing his way to 3.2 points per night, all in the name of loyalty, nostalgia, and PR optics. The Celtics didn’t want to repeat history from two decades prior when they clung to Larry Bird and Kevin McHale for too long.

“I sat with Red Auerbach during a Christmas party (in the 1990s),” Ainge recalled during a 2012 radio interview. “Red was talking to Larry, Kevin, and myself. There was a lot of trade discussion at the time, and Red actually shared some of the trade discussions. And I told Red, ‘What are you doing? Why are you waiting?’ I mean, I feel that way now. If I were presented with those kind of deals for our aging veterans, it’s a done deal to continue the success.”

Bird and McHale were falling apart physically in the early 1990s. Pierce and Garnett were still competitive when they were dealt in 2013, but their play was regressing and the team was getting worse. That’s why the Celtics cut ties before things got ugly. Sure, it pissed off fans and local media. But it worked.

Which brings us to the Warriors.

(Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

Golden State’s crossroads

The Warriors are staring at the same crossroads with Stephen…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/the-warriors-need-to-blow-it-up-why-its-time-to-trade-stephen-curry-and-draymond-green-183726649.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2025-01-21 18:38:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.