Andrew Bogut is leaving the Bay Area. The Golden State Warriors agreed to trade the veteran center to the Dallas Mavericks in order to help clear the cap space needed to sign Kevin Durant on Monday.
Warriors trade Andrew Bogut to Mavericks to clear cap space to sign Kevin Durant
The 2010 All-NBA center was Golden State’s defensive backbone in the paint. Now he’s Dallas’ anchor.
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The Warriors and Mavericks are in the advanced stages of a trade that will send Andrew Bogut into Dallas' cap space, league sources say
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 4, 2016
Bogut was shipped to Texas, taking just over $1 million in salary off the Warriors’ ledger for the 2016-17 season. In return, the Warriors will receive a future, conditional second-round draft pick. Since the Mavericks are currently well under the league’s salary cap, they will not have to send back a matching salary in return.
Bogut played the fewest minutes per game of his career this season but was still the backbone of the Warriors’ defense. The seven-foot center was a key rim deterrent who recorded his highest shot-blocking rate since 2010 this winter. More importantly, he was the healthiest he’s been in a long time; Bogut’s 70 games played was the third-highest mark of his career and the most action he’s seen since 2008. However, he bowed out of the NBA Finals after five games thanks to a bone bruise in his left knee.
The Mavs are taking on a low-risk, high-reward proposition with the 31-year-old veteran. Bogut is a 2010 All-NBA honoree who is only one season removed from posting the second-highest defensive rating in the league. While his offensive impact was lessened by a cache of dynamic scorers with Golden State, he still shot an ultra-efficient .627 from the field this past winter -- albeit in limited scoring opportunities (just four field goal attempts per game).
Dallas has a definite need for his skill in the paint. The Mavericks have been searching for a defensive anchor since trying, and failing, to lure the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan to Texas last summer. They relied on a surprising resurgent year from Zaza Pachulia in 2015-16, but Pachulia faded as the season wore on and is a free agent this summer. Behind him, Salah Mejri and JaVale McGee dot the depth chart, but neither one is an easy sell as an NBA starter at this point in their careers.
The move leaves Golden State extremely thin at center, where Festus Ezeli and Marreese Speights had backed up Bogut this winter. Both are unrestricted free agents after the Warriors renounced their rights to Ezeli in order to clear the cap room needed to sign Durant.
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