The Golden State Warriors ended the 2021-22 season as the NBA Champions and can look back at their year as a great success. Klay Thompson returned to playing basketball, Draymond Green proved his defensive value, and Stephen Curry proved to be ageless as usual. The emergence of Jordan Poole and Jonathan Kuminga further aided the Warriors in their championship quest.
The success wasn’t a guarantee when the season started, with experts drooling over the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets as title favorites. The Warriors emerged from the fire as winners but almost made a move to make themselves unbeatable when they reportedly tried trading for Bradley Beal.
According to Brian Windhorst, the Warriors had expressed an interest in adding Beal to the roster. However, Beal rebuffed the move and expressed a desire to stay in Washington. Maybe knowing the contract extension that lay ahead for him made the decision to pass up on the Warriors a little easier.
“Before last season — now granted, they didn’t know if they had a championship team, they know now they do — they kicked the tires on Bradley Beal… [The Warriors] were like, ‘Hey, could we do a deal for Bradley Beal?’ But Beal didn’t want to go.” (h/t NBC Sports)
Maybe it’s best that the Warriors didn’t end up making this trade. Considering how their role-players played through the playoffs, the depth they had made it possible for them to outduel so many teams. If they had given up players like Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, and Jonathan Kuminga (to make the money match), they would have been worse off.
Keeping defensive wings on the roster instead of adding another microwave scorer in Beal was the best move, so Beal’s disinterest may have saved the Warriors a lot of heartaches, especially considering Beal spent a lot of this season injured.
