SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy told reporters Tuesday night that he has no plans to move Jimmy Butler’s contract before the Feb. 5 trade deadline, despite Butler’s torn ACL and the team’s desperate need for a roster upgrade to realistically compete in the Western Conference.
“I don’t envision that,” Dunleavy said. “Now that you’ve brought it up, I’d say my vision for him is to give us a boost next year the same way he did last year when he arrived.”
The Warriors had a lower profile but relatively similar situation manifest last regular season. Veteran guard De’Anthony Melton tore his ACL in November. In December, Dunleavy traded Melton’s contract to the Brooklyn Nets for Dennis Schroder. In February, he flipped Schroder as part of the package to the Miami Heat to acquire Butler.
On Monday, Butler tore his right ACL on an awkward landing against the Heat. The injury ends his season, and his absence, as Dunleavy admitted, is expected to bleed into next regular season.
Butler is owed $54.1 million this season and $56.8 million next in the final year of his current deal.
As the Warriors sort through the aftermath of the devastating injury news, there has been a thought that they could use his contract out on the trade market — presumably attached to draft picks — as an avenue to upgrade this win-now roster around Stephen Curry. Dunleavy, though, shot that down.
“At his age, to have the year he’s had is impressive,” Dunleavy said of Butler, who will turn 37 before next season. “I think he’s got a style of game that can play for a long time with his skill, his physicality, his mind for the game. So I guess my vision for him is him returning at some point between now and this time next year.”
Butler’s injury has a domino effect on Jonathan Kuminga, the Warriors’ embattled young wing who entering Tuesday had played only 10 minutes in the past month and issued a trade demand to the franchise last week as the DNPs pile up.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, as expected, inserted Kuminga back into the rotation Tuesday night against the Toronto Raptors, and Kuminga responded with an inspired effort. He scored 20 points in 21 minutes, making seven of his 10 shots, and helped lead a bench-fueled comeback from 30 points down, trimming the lead to single digits. The Warriors went on to lose 145-127.
Kerr said postgame that Kuminga would remain in the rotation mix moving forward and didn’t rule out Kuminga’s return to the starting lineup as the team departs for a four-game road trip to Dallas, Minnesota (two games) and Utah.
“With Jimmy out, obviously there’s a hole at that spot in our roster,” Kerr said. “JK’s going to factor in here again.”
Kuminga has been buried in the rotation and disgruntled before, only to return to a high-usage role — most notably during the second round of the playoffs last May against the Minnesota Timberwolves after Curry strained a hamstring.
Dunleavy acknowledged Kuminga’s trade demand but said, “When you make a demand, there needs to be a demand on the market.”
“I’m disappointed it hasn’t worked out better [with Kuminga],” Dunleavy said. “But it is what it is. …There’s still time left here. He’s on our roster. I know a trade has been requested, but nothing’s imminent and things in this league can change in a heartbeat, as they did last night. So he’s got to be ready.”
The Warriors are expected to pursue Kuminga trades up until the deadline, but Dunleavy did say he will use the next two weeks to assess where the Warriors stand in the aftermath of the franchise-altering Butler injury.
He said the Warriors could opt to use some of their future first-round picks to search out immediate help, but the threshold for a push-the-chips-in deal is high.
“If we’re talking about trading draft picks that will be going out when Steph isn’t here, it’s going to have to be a player that we think we’ll be getting back that is going to be here when those picks are going out,” Dunleavy said. “That player’s going to have to be pretty impactful. It would take a good amount — positionally, play style, archetype, all that. I would leave it pretty broad and open.
“But if there’s a great player to be had, we’ve got everything in the war chest that we would be willing to use.”