What It Could Cost the Warriors to Trade for Aaron Gordon

There are rumblings that Aaron Gordon could be available on the trade market.

Bennett Durando of the Denver Post reported Saturday that Gordon "will no longer be considered off the table," which makes sense considering he's had two injury-riddled seasons in a row and the Nuggets seem stuck outside the true title-contending tier.

The Warriors should be in on Gordon. Players like him are usually not available on the trade market.

But what would a trade even look like? That's the question I'll try to answer.

Understanding What the Nuggets Want

The Nuggets aren't looking for a rebuild. They will want quality players in return instead of draft picks.

That could be an issue for the Warriors.

There's a remote chance that the Nuggets would be interested in Jimmy Butler. But it's unlikely because of his ACL injury as well as how his massive salary ($56.8 million) would make Denver's roster even thinner and tax Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray even more.

If Butler isn't involved, it becomes easy to see that any Warriors-Nuggets trade will have to include at least one other team.

I could see Denver having interest in Brandin Podziemski and/or Gui Santos as part of a return package for Gordon. But the Nuggets will need a more established player from a third team to accept any Gordon trade.

Third Team Would Probably Be a Rebuilder

It's not clear who the third team would be, but there are a handful of franchises that would have more interest in some of the Warriors' draft capital than acquiring Gordon for themselves.

For example, the New Orleans Pelicans might be open to getting a first-round pick or two from the Warriors to facilitate a Gordon trade. The Pels have an extremely young core and two forwards in Trey Murphy III and Derik Queen who might make Gordon somewhat repetitive.

At 30 years old, Gordon is not ideal for a team that isn't ready for major contention for a year or two.

What Gordon Could Cost the Warriors

Let's keep using the Pelicans as an example as a third team for this trade.

Say the Nuggets want Herb Jones, the Pelicans want Warriors draft capital, and the Warriors want Gordon. That could work out, but there are a lot of issues to button up.

First, Gordon is better and more valuable than Jones, so the Nuggets will want more talent. Second, the Warriors would be acquiring Gordon's $32 million salary, so they would need to trade some salary back in return.

We can start to fix the first issue by trading Podz and Santos to the Nuggets. Now the Nuggets are getting three quality players and saving money, which might make them close to satisfied.

But still, the Warriors are not sending out enough money to make the trade legal.

One option they'd have is to trade Draymond Green after he opts in, but keep in mind that the Pelicans won't want him unless they get extra draft capital in return, and the Nuggets won't want his $27.7 million salary. After all, they are trading Gordon to save money and get three-plus good players in return. Taking back Green would make that impossible.

So maybe the Warriors can instead trade Moses Moody to the Pelicans so that they are sending out enough money. But considering Moody is out for much of next season, New Orleans might want a first-rounder as well for its trouble, and Denver might still feel like it deserves one first-rounder because Gordon is that much better than Jones, Podz and Santos.

So now the Warriors would potentially have to trade two first-round picks, Podz, Santos and Moody just for Gordon to satisfy the demands of both teams.

There's no way the Dubs do that.

But this is the issue the Warriors will have trying to pull off a big trade this offseason. They will have problems matching salaries, and even if they find a way to make the trade legal, their outgoing players aren't valuable enough on their own, so they will have to deal major draft capital.

It will take a very creative approach from general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. to dramatically improve the roster.

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