Is Andre Iguodala Returning To Warriors?
Is Andre Iguodala returning to the Warriors?
With the Memphis Grizzlies refusing to waive him, it is increasingly beginning to look that way.
When the Warriors made the decision to trade away Iguodala this summer, league rules stipulated that he could not be re-acquired by the organization this year.
The assumption was that Memphis would waive him and that he would land with a championship contender like the Lakers or Clippers.
Unfortunately for those two teams, the Grizzlies decided that they would not simply let him walk for nothing. With neither the Lakers nor Clippers having much in the way of trade bait, Iguodala has remained with Memphis.
While there is still a very good chance Iguodala gets traded somewhere before the deadline, if it is not one of the two LA teams, there is a very good chance he will simply return to the Bay this summer.
According to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, the Warriors and Iguodala share mutual interest in reuniting.
The reunion would make sense.
Iguodala, 35, has deep ties to Golden State after six seasons with the organization.
Head coach Steve Kerr has also consistently maintained that losing Iguodala was a very painful blow to the Warriors.
“That was a complete gut punch,” he said.
“I’m not going to lie. That was probably the most … not even probably — that was the most painful loss, in terms of a personnel move, that I’ve felt as a coach in my five years.
“Guys in this profession come and go pretty quickly. It’s a very fluid business,” he continued.
“But for what Andre has meant to not only our team but to me personally, as a coach, for accepting his role, for mentoring younger players, for monitoring the bench and keeping everything going — the respect the stars had for him combined with his mentoring of the younger players — Andre was the unsung hero of all this.
“For him to move on was just devastating for me.”
Barring a situation where the Grizzlies trade him to one of the two LA teams, expect to see Iguodala back with the Warriors come 2021.
Related: Lakers Officially Trading Kyle Kuzma?
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
