I quit my toxic draining job yesterday. Its a small pet sitting business with less than 15 employees. I worked as a client relations manager but also did events, marketing, advertising, and was sent out in the field to cover for staff. She refused to pay me more than 15 hours per week doing admin work, but frequently reprimanded me for not being available and on call during their working hours from 8-6. I worked at this place for two years. She also gave me pushback when I had surgery and tried to make me work during my medical leave. I would frequently wake up to messages at 6 or 7am when I was off the clock to sceenshots of typos ("you said 'the' twice in this sentence) or how I misgendered a dog in a social media post before it went live or something.
I frequently covered shifts when we were short-staffed, worked off the clock, and went out of my way to make her life easier. But every time, she would take advantage of my efforts, asking me to do more and more while pushing back when it came to paying me. Id give her an inch, she’d take a mile. We would often get into power struggles, and petty arguments over inconsequential issues. From the micromanaging and nitpicking, I felt taken advantage of. Yesterday, 30 minutes before a meeting that should have been an email, I reached my boiling point and decided to quit on the spot, and then immediately drove over to her place, which was 40 minutes away from me to drop off as much company property as I could.
About an hour after dropping her shit off, she messages me pointing out things I missed and demanded they be returned by Monday. After events, my boss would often dump the decorations I went out and purchased for her for me to hang on to, so many of these are dollar store items from events we did months ago. I told her I was busy and would get them to her by next week. She then threatened legal action and told me I was stealing from the company. Work shirts, training gear, and similar items? Totally fair. But perishable items and $1.25 holiday garlands from events from 8 months ago? I find that outrageously petty. This person has over 500 clients, charges exorbitant rates, and pockets 65% of the cost for the services that the pet sitters provide. She often leaves for vacations during our peak seasons. She is by no means struggling, so this is clearly yet another power play she’s trying to pull with me.
I’m going to drop her shit off a day earlier, and just reimburse her for the other items to get her the hell out of my way. I’m so tired.

First time through without losing a life and being revived!

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Welcome to part 2 of the pre-draft deadline Bruce Brown breakdown. For part 1, we went over a trio of trade partners in the Bulls, the Hawks and Jazz so if that interests you, give it a read. In part 2, and going forward, we'll be taking a look at a single team for the sake of what can be charitably described as me being "brief".
Now that we have finally learned which teams have jumped or dropped in the lottery, let's talk about a team that also officially lost a pick in this year's draft.

Golden State Warriors

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Most likely player(s): Chris Paul, Andrew Wiggins, Moses Moody, Trayce Jackson-Davis
Incoming salary: Varies depending on the combination of players coming back/sent out; 26.2 million incoming at minimum, 30 million at maximum. $10.2 million exception from the Siakam trade may be used depending on the structure of a deal
Pick(s) available: 52nd, 2025\ or 2026 1st*
Note: Assets listed above are not a proposed trade package, they are simply a list of players & picks that can be combined in a potential trade worth consideration.
Who here likes multiple choice? Yeah i'm not listing all of their stats for the year, there's too many players for that this time around.
Golden State is interesting as far as trade partners go. As they lost their 2024 1st round pick post-lottery to the Blazers, they have menial draft capital to include in a trade for this year and as far as salary relief goes, the potential loss of Klay Thompson and the declining of Chris Paul's option seem both very real and deserved given the Warriors were perhaps the most expensive 10 seed in NBA history, not to mention their respective play regressing.
To put this into perspective, the Warriors luxury tax bill - for a team that needed to win 2 games to make the playoffs I might add - is estimated to cost Joe Lacob $176 million, more than the entire Raptors roster at $161.9 million post-trade deadline. Changes should be on the horizon no matter what direction they go in the offseason and with Lacob talking about wanting to avoid the luxury tax earlier this year, there's a fairly straight line to connect one dot (no tax) to the other (Klay walks or is signed & traded for a lesser return, Paul's team option declined & either he walks or signs a significantly cheaper deal). We'll ignore that Johnathan Kuminga has likely played himself into an expensive extension and how that could put them close to or over the line the year afterwards for a moment but the point stands: The Warriors don't technically need salary relief when doing nothing can accomplish that...
...but on the other hand, the Warriors still have Steph Curry and that's reason enough to ride out the remnants of the dynasty unless/until the most important/best player in franchise history decides to ask out. Plus, while they did miss on their highest pick since the dynasty formed by selecting James Wiseman over LaMelo Ball or Tyrese Haliburton (Admittedly, Haliburton would have been a stretch for 2 but the Warriors could have traded down), they have managed to land on a few of their lottery picks with the ever productive Johnathan Kuminga and the underutilized Moses Moody in 2021, not to mention they nabbed All-Rookie candidate Brandin Podziemski and the respectable Trayce Jackson-Davis in 2023 with relatively late picks in the 1st and 2nd round.
While none of them scream All-Star upside aside from the Kum Bucket, it goes to show that Golden State has found hidden gems late in the draft to add depth to a top-heavy and typically expensive team that hasn't been afforded free agent signings or access to certain exceptions, let alone the ability to keep together the supporting cast that helped them win a championship in Gary Payton II (They got him back via a controversial 3-team trade involving Wiseman) and Raptors Legend™ Otto Porter Jr.
With the Raptors prioritizing players over picks in their trade of O.G. Anunoby and them turning the worst of the 2024 picks received in the Siakam trade into two rotational players via Ochai and Olynyk, you can see where this is going: Golden State makes sense as a Bruce Brown destination if the Warriors want to kick the luxury tax down the road by deferring a particular player's extension in favor of a new rookie contract while still getting someone who is all but assured to contribute to a playoff rotation, and if the Raptors want to trade out of this draft while still getting a young player on the roster or potentially move in to a stronger draft class such as 2025 or 2026.
Fittingly for the former option, there's one player that makes sense for Toronto in light of Trent's uncertainty as their starting/bench shooting guard as a pending unrestricted free agent, and the Raptors already traded out of this draft twice so it would not be surprising if they did it a third time.
It'd be funny, but not a surprise.

The Player(s)

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Of the Warriors youngest players, Moses Moody stands out and not for the reason that someone has likely mentioned in the comments i.e. Scottie and Moody were teammates in high school. For the past three seasons, Moses has been the most consistently disrespected player by head coach Steve Kerr despite quiet improvements to his overall game, frequently benching him to close games in favor of the wildly inconsistent veteran Klay Thompson and in general limiting his minutes compared to the other young Warriors.
This sentiment was perfectly encapsulated in that play-in loss, where Moses played a mere 15 minutes for the Dubs despite arguably being the best player amongst the supporting cast, if not the best player on the floor for Golden State; he scored 16 points on 5/8 shooting (2/4 from 3), grabbed 3 boards and had one dime without not a turnover to his name. In a game where Klay shot 0/10 and may very well have played his last game as a Warrior with a +/- of -12, Moody managed a respectable +/- of +3 in a blowout loss to the Kings.
Both Moody and Kuminga have called out Kerr's questionable granting of playtime - Moody has a stretch this year where he was racking up DNPs - but while Johnathan was given more playtime and even started for a time due to Draymond's jackassery leading to multiple suspensions this season in conjunction with a notable leap in his offensive game, Moody's role on the team has been inconsistent and his playtime equally so. With him and Kuminga up for extensions this offseason, Golden State moving Moses to kick the can down the road by picking up another rookie who can contribute now, Moody's time in a Warriors jersey may be over.
It also bears mention that Moody is the one young player on the Warriors roster whose name has most frequently come up in trade rumors or failed trades. This very season saw Golden State try to trade for Alex Caruso, a deal which is believed to have been centered around Moody but which fell through due to the Bulls wanting Kuminga instead.
Moody is a good player. We'll get into the bad contract that he'd come with in a moment but it cannot be understated the level of frustration that comes from seeing a clearly capable player be sidelined due to favoritism of a past-their-prime veteran. He might not be as good of a shooter as Klay; he's a career 36% from behind the arc and though his volume remains low, on the occasions where he's shot 6 or more more threes, he's around 44% across the 14 games he's been given the greenlight to take that many shots.
It's a limited sample size of an already limited sample despite having 3 seasons under his belt, but you can understand why he isn't feeling that he's been given much of any opportunity when his hands are this hot on increased volume.
Of course, any player on the Warriors' outside shooting has to come with the obligatory asterisk that they are shooting the shots that they've got & thus the 3-point percentage they're shooting at due to Steph Curry's inescapable gravity. A team playing worse without their best player is so obvious a statement that should go without saying, and the sample size of Curry-less Moody games is once again limited but across 44 Curry-less games in his career, Moses Moody only saw a minor dip in 3-point percentage from his career 36% to 33.6% though again, this is on relatively low volume; his attempts have stayed around the same as his career average with 3 per game in those Curry-less games.
The quality of competition is another factor that does need to taken in to consideration along with whomever else was absent but considering that the dip is relatively small and a sizeable amount of teams faced in said sample includes playoff seeds from the 2022/23 season, that's a surprisingly encouraging stat. If there's anything about his overall range that stands out in a negative light, it's that his overall catch and shoot numbers aren't anything to write home about at roughly 36% but I digress.
Beyond his shooting upside, there's a lot to like about Moody. For intangibles, he's highly competitive. For fit as a potential starter, he's a 6'6 shooting guard with a lengthy 7'1 wingspan that's shown flashes of his defensive upside and consistently improved on that end of the floor. He's great at moving off-ball and while he's never going to rack up assists, he's willing to pass up a good shot to let a teammate take a better one.
Jackson-Davis is also worth mentioning as a potential "young" player though one who is less likely to see the Dubs part ways with. The 24 year-old rookie was a productive member of the team's bench with limited playtime and considering he's making the equivalent of a minimum contract, there's little incentive to move him when he won't need to be extended for at least another season.
While Moody for the 19th pick could be an option on its own, we're talking Bruce Brown-centered "salary dump" trades and thus there's two main candidates to consider since it's very hard to see Golden State moving Draymond Green even if a paradigm shift is on the horizon.
Andrew Wiggins is hard to currently evaluate whether he's a truly awful contract or just temporarily undervalued. The Mavericks and Pacers were apparently interested in him at this year's deadline but whether that was serious interest or part of negotiations with the Hornets and Raptors respectively for PJ or Pascal to lower their asking prices is up for debate since Andrew stayed a Warrior after the deadline.
What can be said is that after being a key contributor to the Warriors Final Dance-esque championship run, Wiggins has had a rough duo of seasons; his 2022/23 encore was more of the same for the regular season if he played, though the key word is "if". Owed to an injury in December and personal matters from February onwards, Wiggins only played 37 games for Golden State & while he was generally decent on both ends in the regular season, his return to the playoffs marked a notable shrinking of Wiggins. Going from a terrific 39.6% from 3 on 6 attempts to 29.7% on less than 5 per game and playing with far less intensity on defense, this version of Wiggins would carry on into the 2023/24 regular season where Andrew had arguably his worst season relative to expectations. He did pick things up in the later games of the season, but said second half has done little to repair his current reputation.
Like I said, it's hard to really say if Wiggins contract is viewed as an albatross like former teammate Jordan Poole or the now-expiring Ben Simmons - Andrew is getting paid an AAV of $28 million for the next 3 years - and I don't care to speculate about what was going on in his personal life or if it's still affecting him. What I can say is that while his name does bear consideration, if the Warriors really are determined to run things back, they'll likely hold on to Wiggins and hope whatever personal issues have hindered him for the past two seasons are behind him. When healthy/locked in, he is one of the best wing defenders in the league and as mentioned before, his 3 ball has been terrific in his best seasons with Golden State.
With that in mind, Chris Paul could be considered the option for the main salary ballast. At this stage of his career, "Point God" Paul cannot be asked to be a team's starting PG due to a combination of age and injuries but he's shown some effectiveness as a bench in Golden State and despite a poor reputation around the league, he's been a notable mentor to a slew of younger star players like Shai and Booker and has been noted as a culture setter in their respective organizations.
He's absolutely not worth paying $30 million for that role - there's a reason why his contract isn't guaranteed whatsoever for the season - but for a season? More than likely 2/3 of a single season? One can stomach the price tag to make such a deal work, especially if Toronto somehow manages to flip his expiring contract at the deadline. If nothing else, having Paul on the last legs of his career as a Raptor (potentially passing Jason Kidd for 2nd on the all-time assist leaderboard in a Raptors jersey at that) would make for an interesting playmaking mentor to Quickley and Scottie.
While a straight up swap that includes Jackson-Davis or Moody works financially, owed to the trade exception that the Raptors generated from the Siakam trade which in of itself utilized an exception made via the Anunoby trade, and a 1:1 trade for Brown also works (Moody and Paul on the move would save the Warriors around $7 million in payroll before factoring in the tax), trading Paul for depth in Brown and, say, Chris Boucher - who it should be noted is also expiring and was originally signed as an undrafted free agent by the Warriors - doesn't offer the Dubs long-term salary relief in the same way that moving off of Wiggins would, at least not for the upcoming season.
A deal like this would be an expiring for expiring deal where they would shed a minor amount of salary after going for a "final run" with this current core before having the same issue of needing to re-sign some of their supporting pieces. Not having to worry about paying Moody might help the season after but those pending UFAs and Kuminga would need to get paid or be lost for nothing, meaning they would still be deep in the second apron for the 2024/25 season, barring Klay being re-signed to a very team-friendly deal. It would be a move that screams "delaying the inevitably" but again: They have Steph Curry and considering how bad the Warriors were in the post-Barry, pre-Steph years, it's understandable they'd want to cling on to the current dynasty.
As for draft capital, Golden State doesn't have the largest pool of assets but they do have some to spare. They have a very late 2nd in this draft - 52nd overall - and now that their 2024 pick has conveyed to the Blazers, they do have the option to trade a future 1st in 2025 or 2026. Admittedly, it's hard to see the Warriors parting with their remaining draft capital when they just gave up a late lottery pick to the Blazers and they owe the Wizards a 2030 1st, not without a notable protection on said pick as their team continues to age. For reference, that Washington pick they gave up is Top 20-protected.
A draft pick, young player(s), a vet (albeit one whose significantly overpaid), like I said, Golden State has a fair amount of options in regards to what combination they can put together for a trade on or after draft night without the Raptors trading down in the 2024 draft but I do want to state that - speaking purely as an outsider to Golden State - the Warriors really should not be doing this. They aren't a Brown + Boucher swap away from being a contender even if Steph is still a consensus Top 3-5 player going in to next season.
But they also can't trade an aging Steph Curry to begin rebuild without him being the one to ask out and their overall asset pool is not enough to land a star outside of Kuminga (who, based on the Caruso trade talks, is not available), not to mention the Jordan Poole salary dump saw them ship out a 2030 1st that restricts their draft capital just as much as the new CBA rules do for second apron teams regarding trading out distant draft capital.
Doing some kind of move like this may be a more dignified end to the dynasty but it is the end of their status as a championship-caliber team even if Wiggins bounces back and Klay finally accepts a lesser role on offense (If he returns). Maybe they make it as a Top 6 seed in the playoffs given how close the 6th thru 10th seed were in the West with a touch more depth. Maybe they win a playoff series, but they're not making the Conference Finals, let alone another Finals so long as the Nuggets, Thunder and Timberwolves are going to be in contention, and this is without considering teams like the Spurs or Rockets being on the rise; the Rockets in particular made a noteworthy run for the final play-in spot that the Warriors ultimately were locked in to.
The current Warriors are in a spot similar to the post-championship Mavericks where they're stuck in a lower seed as their aging superstar stays around for the twilight years of their career, along with all the bumps they'll experience along the road. They'll win enough games to qualify for the playoffs or at the very least the play-in now that the 9th/10th seed make it to the postseason, but they're wholly lacking in options to internally improve or make moves to truly return to contender status.
The big difference is the Mavericks failures were self-inflicted i.e. letting core members of that run like Tyson Chandler walk for nothing while trying - but failing (I know they technically signed DeAndre Jordan but that ordeal ended with him returning to L.A., ergo a failure for Dallas) - to sign free agents whereas the Warriors are simply an old team that's only getting older, which is what makes their only shot to their former status being the youthful Kuminga making a massive leap in a short amount of time a touch ironic.

Conclusion

Here's our TL;DR so far:

Team	Player(s)	Years left on contract	Pick(s) [Assuming position stays if in the lottery]	Incoming salary (2024)	Net salary added to the Raptors (2024)
Chicago Bulls	Lonzo Ball	1; player option in 2024/25	11th, 2025 Blazers 1st	$21.3 million	-1.6$ million
Atlanta Hawks	De'Andre Hunter	3	10th, 2025 Kings 1st	$21.7 million	-$1.3 million
Utah Jazz	John Collins	2; player option in 2025/26	8th (Only an option if we keep our 1st), 2025 Timberwolves/Cavaliers 1st	$26.6 million	+$3.6 million
Golden State Warriors	Chris Paul, Andrew OR Wiggins; Moses Moody OR Trayce Jackson-Davis	1 (team option - Paul, Moody), 3 (Wiggins, Jackson-Davis)	52nd, 2025 or 2026 1st	$26.2-$30 million	+$3.2 to +$7 million (Trade exception to absorb Moody, TJD if included in the trade)

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