If You Love Someone, Let Them Go (Home)

The Golden State Warriors have reached the end of the line. Since Jimmy Butler went down, they're 2-4. One of the wins came over a shellshocked Timberwolves team a day after the murder of Alex Pretti. The other came against a tanking Utah Jazz team that has allowed 120+ points in eight of their last 10 games, and 138+ points in four of them. The Warriors are only four games over .500, have not slipped below or risen above eighth place in the West in weeks, and their only active player averaging more than 13 points per game is Stephen Curry.

Somehow, they're now trying to scheme to trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo, but given the supposed promise they've made to not trade Butler, the only way the Warriors could acquire Giannis while retaining Butler and Curry is to trade Draymond Green. This all feels as desperate as the Bucks' behavior did this past summer. As much as I personally dislike Green, trading him means ripping up the entire offensive system the Warriors have played with for the past 12-13 seasons and starting fresh. It means you'd be swapping out one of the most intuitive passing big men of this generation in Green for one of the least intuitive passing big men of this generation in Giannis. The reason Giannis got so upset when Alperen Şengün called him "not a great passer" is because Şengün was correct.

Curry has played his whole career with players who knew exactly where to find him when he's running around the court so they can hit him with crisp passes. This is basically the antithesis of how Giannis plays, and expecting both Giannis and Curry to reinvent their games doesn't seem like a great strategy. It seems especially fraught considering the Warriors also would have to send out Jonathan Kuminga and either Moses Moody or Buddy Hield in this trade. Say it's Moody for the sake of argument. That leaves Golden State with Al Horford, Brandin Podziemski, and De'Anthony Melton as the three other likely starters, and approximately zero playoff-tested reserves. And the health of Horford and Melton can't even be counted on. I don't care how good Curry and Giannis are, that team is not making the NBA Finals, and it would be a stone-cold miracle for them to make even the Western Conference Finals.

So what the Warriors really need to decide in this next week is just how much they truly love Stephen Curry. I think it's pretty clear that Curry wants a fifth championship ring. It would give him one more than LeBron James, and would tie Kobe Bryant. Curry never comes out and says so publicly, but he wants both of those things. And if the Warriors truly want that for him as well, then they need to admit that it's time to let him go. Specifically, to let him go home to Charlotte.

A little more than three weeks ago, I noted that the Hornets had a 9-6 record when all three of LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, and Brandon Miller start together:

Since then, the splits have become even more pronounced. When two or fewer of Ball, Knueppel, and Miller start, the Hornets are 4-21. When all three of them start, they are 18-7. Read that again. When LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, and Brandon Miller all start, the Charlotte Hornets are 18-7. That's a .720 winning percentage, good for a 59-win pace, and right now the only teams with a better winning percentage are the Detroit Pistons and Oklahoma City Thunder. In other words, this version of the Hornets would be the two seed in either conference.

The main reason the Hornets are still in 11th place in the East and 22-28 overall is because Miller missed a large chunk of time in the early part of the season. He missed 13 straight games from October 26th through November 19th. The Hornets went 3-10 in those games. It took a few games for them to get back on solid ground after that, and after 18 games, the Hornets were 4-14. Since then, they're 18-14. That is a .563 winning percentage that would put them in the six seed in the East entering Saturday's games. Said differently, the Hornets are already pretty good. Adding Curry could put them over the top, and at the very least make them incredibly frisky.

The Hornets have plenty to trade, but let's be realistic and admit that the only reason that Curry to the Hornets would happen is if Curry specifically asked the Warriors to send him there. In that scenario, the Warriors are not extracting maximum value for Curry, because they wouldn't have that much leverage. Here's the trade I think works:

There would also be a slew of first-round picks heading back to Golden State. In addition to all of its own picks, Charlotte has four additional first-round picks in its war chest, including the Dallas Mavericks' 2027 first-round pick, which they acquired in the PJ Washington trade. That has the chance to be a particularly juicy pick. Charlotte also possesses Golden State's 2026 second-round pick, which they could give back to them. Let's call it five first round picks, plus that second rounder.

The talent in the trade obviously doesn't match up. But it gives Golden State an empty calories scorer in Bridges, and allows them the chance to wipe their books clean and start over a little sooner with the two expiring contracts. The sooner they rip off the band-aid, the better.

For Charlotte, this essentially swaps out Bridges for Curry. It is truly essential that the Hornets get off of Bridges (rumor has it they feel the same way). Not only is he an awful human being, but he has the same big brother-little brother thing going with the three young guns that Marcus Smart had with the Jay's here in Boston. I've watched my fair share of Hornets games this season, and toward the end of games, Bridges is still taken to believing that it's Miles Bridges Time. It's not an unfair belief – Bridges is now third on the Hornets' all-time scoring list behind only Kemba Walker and Dell Curry – but Bridges forces a lot of these winning time shots, and while that may have been fine when the team was awful and had no better options, that is no longer the case.

Teaming Curry with the three young guns and the role players around them – Moussa Diabaté, Sion James, Ryan Kalkbrenner, Tidjuane Salaün, Josh Green, Grant Williams, Tre Mann, and maybe even some guest appearances from Liam McNeeley – is a rock-solid team (As I've said, I really like Diabaté. I also really like Sion James). That is absolutely a team that can work its way into the top six in the East, and become a major, major factor in the playoffs. What's more, the Hornets already kind of play in Curry's mold. They play fast, they move a lot on offense, they score a lot of points, and they're a little loose with the ball. Curry's fit on Charlotte would be seamless. And with the East up for grabs this season, there's definitely a world where the Hornets could find themselves in the NBA Finals. And would you really bet against Curry in the NBA Finals? Doing so hasn't been a good bet in the past, that's for sure. I certainly haven't forgotten Game 4 of the 2022 NBA Finals, and I doubt you have either.

Even if you think that is all a bit premature, this would be a team that could really stay together for a few years – as long as Curry wants to play, essentially. Ball and Knueppel are on good deals and locked in through the 2028-2029 season (ie, three more seasons after this one), and Miller isn't due a raise until after next season. Green, Williams, and Mann all have movable salaries if they decide they want to get more/different veterans to complement the team. Curry has kept himself in great shape, and is the kind of team-first player who probably would take slightly less than the max if he saw the vision for how that money could be used to bring him his fifth ring.

You could squint and see it. Will it happen? Almost certainly not. The Warriors wouldn't be publicly clamoring for Giannis if they had any intention of selflessly sending Curry home to Charlotte, where his dad Dell is the team's color commentator on their (excellent) TV broadcasts. But I would argue that that homecoming is not only what's best for Curry, it's what's best for the NBA. I realize in saying that I'm being hypocritical, as I'm on the record saying that I never want to see Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown leave the Celtics. And it is admirable when players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan, and Dirk Nowitzki only play for one franchise. But I also know that the admirable thing and the right thing are not always the same thing. And it would be really great to not see Curry spend his last seasons struggling helplessly against a rising tide, especially when he's still such a great player.