No Deal: Golden State Warriors Won’t Give Up David Lee and Harrison Barnes for the New York Knicks’ Tyson Chandler

The Golden State Warriors are not on rebuilding mode.

The Warriors are apparently looking to deal for the New York Knicks’ Tyson Chandler and will give up David Lee and Harrison Barnes in the probable trade.

Marcus Thompson II of MercuryNews.com disagrees vehemently saying that the exchange won’t help the Golden State franchise in the short or long term.

“For the record, a precursory look into this with my sources revealed this won’t happen. But it doesn’t take an inside source to see this would be a very backwards move from Golden State,” wrote the Bay Area News columnist.

As per NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) trade rules, a Chandler for Lee plus Barnes swap is allowed for both squads.

The Knicks center is set to earn $14.59M for the 2014-15 season and has an expiring contract. Lee is at $15.01M next season with another $15.49M for the 2015-2016 season. Barnes is on his rookie deal valued at $11M in the next three years or around $3M-plus a year.

If this type of deals pushes through between NY-GSW, the Warriors will save about $3M in 2014-2015 and have a bigger cap space by 2015-2016—assuming they won’t re-sign Chandler.

The Warriors will indeed gain some savings but not enough to chase big-name free agents this offseason but will have to wait the following year.

“On top of not actually getting cap space from the Lee and Barnes-for-Chandler deal, the Warriors would be losing a very productive starting power forward and replacing him with a non-offensive center in Chandler — who played in fewer games last season than current starting center Andrew Bogut,” opined Thompson, who was also worried about giving up on a potential star like Barnes.

“What’s more, that would be drastic undervaluing of Barnes. You don’t give up young talent for cap space. That’s a bad practice. You give up young talent for proven talent, to upgrade the roster. Not to clear the way so you can possibly upgrade the roster.”