Steve Kerr couldn’t comment on the Golden State Warriors’ trade for Jimmy Butler on Wednesday, but he could share his thoughts on the NBA trade deadline.
After his team swung a trade shortly before a game against the Utah Jazz, the Warriors head coach called for the NBA to make a change to its trade deadline to clash less with its regular-season schedule. His solution: either move the trade deadline to the All-Star break or build in two off-days before the deadline.
“I think the league should consider making the trade deadline at the All-Star break, just so you don’t have to face these games where guys are getting traded half an hour before a game. You’re trying to process the emotions and trying to win a game. I don’t know if that’s possible, but it would be great if we could move it back or make the last couple of days before the deadline off days. I don’t know how to do it, but these are tough days for sure.”
Kerr proceeded to note that Andrew Wiggins, one of the players going to the Miami Heat in the Butler trade, had a baby boy last week with his other children in school.
This year’s NBA trade deadline has been an unusually lively one, with trades of Butler, Luka Dončić, Brandon Ingram and possibly more to come. Some of those deals have come right around game time, and the Butler trade proved awkward for the two main teams involved.
Warriors players and coaches were called to the locker room and told of the Butler trade shortly before the Jazz game, which they proceeded to lose 131-128. The trade left Golden State severely shorthanded, with Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schröder, Kyle Anderson and Lindy Waters III all unavailable.
On the Miami side, some Heat players learned of the trade from a fan while sitting on the bench, leaving them to ask for details while the fan filmed them.
The counterpoint to Kerr’s All-Star trade deadline suggestion is the league used to have it around that time, until the Sacramento Kings traded DeMarcus Cousins to the Pelicans during the break and created a circus in New Orleans, where the game was being held. Former NBA executive John Hollinger noted the NBA “didn’t like that it was screwing up All-Star weekend.”
There is at least one bright side, though, if the league is feeling petty. After the NFL ate the NBA’s lunch on Christmas day last year, NBA trades have so far been the dominant stories in sports for the week before the Super Bowl.
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