Kevon Looney is coming back to The Bay, Gary Payton II got his bag elsewhere and Otto Porter is taking his talents north of the border. The Golden State Warriors still have possible extensions with Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins to negotiate, but barely 48 hours after the start of free agency, suddenly find their options for potential signings limited.
Getting Donte DiVincenzo for most of the taxpayer mid-level exception is a coup for the reigning champions. He's a couple of levels below Payton's all-world defensive ability but should provide Golden State a reasonable facsimile of the versatile impact Young Glove made on both sides of the ball. Though not a gunner from long-range, DiVincenzo is still a much more threatening spot-up three-point shooter than Payton, too.
But his signing also leaves the Warriors more strapped to bring in reinforcements after losing their seventh and eighth men in Steve Kerr's championship rotation to free agency. Golden State has just under $2 million of the taxpayer mid-level to play with now and is otherwise confined to adding free agents on minimum contracts.
Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody will no doubt pick up the slack left by the Warriors' departures. James Wiseman, still not fully recovered from the knee injury that cut his rookie season short, will factor in there, too. But Steve Kerr prefers a deep bench, especially during the regular season, and Golden State's aging Big Three presents the specter of looming injury risk. The defending champs may very well need more to repeat in 2022-23.
Here are three free agents the Warriors should go after as the pool of available players continues to winnow.
Warriors: 3 best players still available in 2022 NBA free agency
Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot
Golden State has its fingers crossed Andre Iguodala returns for a 19th season, but could use his stoic leadership and ability to relate to young players almost as much as his on-court impact. Turning 39 in January and beset by nagging knee injuries throughout 2021-22, he can no longer be counted on for regular spot even deep in Kerr's rotation, flashes of nuanced two-way brilliance notwithstanding.
Luwawu-Cabarrot won't ever live up to early-career promise, and struggled shooting from deep over the last two seasons despite getting a steady diet of open looks with the Atlanta Hawks and Brooklyn Nets. He's nowhere near a marksman, instead the type of shooter defenses will dare to launch on the weak-side or one pass away even if he's already connected on a couple triples.
But it was just two seasons ago that Luwawu-Cabbarot connected on nearly 40% of his catch-and-shoot threes on career-high volume. Why wouldn't the Warriors take a minimum flier on a 6'7 forward with a seven-foot wingspan who has the blend of strength and quickness needed to bother superstar wings?
Luwawu-Cabbarot isn't a stopper, and his lacking touch and nuance as a finisher makes him worse around the rim than his physical tools suggest. He's also never been a super reliable defender. Golden State's ecosystem has routinely magnified the strengths and minimized the weaknesses of other teams' cast-offs, though.
Luwawu-Cabbarot doesn't have the gifts to thrive like Payton did with the Warriors, but it certainly wouldn't be surprising if the best basketball of his career came under the tutelage of Steve Kerr, alongside the genius of Curry and Draymond Green.
The Miami Heat didn't sign Morris last summer to be an every-game rotation player, but his lost 2021-22 season still counts as a major disappointment regardless. He appeared in just 17 regular-season games after Nikola Jokic's retaliatory shove left him with a whiplash neck injury, and only got off Erik Spoelstra's bench once in the playoffs despite Miami's utter lack of playable bigs behind Bam Adebayo.
Morris isn't the athlete he was a few years ago, and there's a chance that neck injury simply made him too stiff to be anything more than a break-in-case-of-emergency reserve. But his combination of toughness, size and shooting stretch remains intriguing regardless, especially in wake of Nemanja Bjelica's departure for Turkish basketball powerhouse Fenerbahce.
Green will always be the Warriors' emotional tentpole, and they won't ever be fazed on the floor as long as Curry and Thompson are still around. Absent Payton's unrelenting intensity and potentially Iguodala's sweeping influence, though, Golden State could use another veteran tone-setter—especially one as combative as Morris.
Ibaka lost the LA Clippers' backup center job to Isaiah Hartenstein last season, then was mostly an afterthought after being dealt to the Milwaukee Bucks at the trade deadline. He appeared in five games for Milwaukee during the playoffs, but didn't get any burn off the bench that didn't come in garbage time.
There's a chance persistent back issues have made Ibaka no longer capable of playing at an NBA level. He's never been a quick processor of the game, far more reliant on quick-twitch athleticism to be effective than positioning on defense and feel on offense. Ibaka isn't a switch defender anymore, had just 21 dunks last season and posted a meager 2.0% block rate with the Bucks, the worst number of his career.
But bigs with his combination of shot-blocking instincts and shooting stretch remain few and far between. If Wiseman isn't ready for rotation minutes at center, either due to injury or his lagging basketball IQ, Golden State could definitely do worse than bringing in Ibaka for the minimum.
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