Warriors Add Klay Thompson Replacement Via Sign-And-Trade

The Golden State Warriors have agreed to a deal to bring aboard a fresh sharpshooting swingman from an Eastern Conference contender.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, Golden State is bringing in veteran shooting guard Buddy Hield through a sign-and-trade deal with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Per Charania, the Warriors are shipping out a 2031 second-round draft pick, which they acquired from the Dallas Mavericks.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports that the deal will cover four seasons, but only the first two seasons of the deal, worth a combined $18 million are guaranteed. Hield is owed only $3 million of a partially guaranteed contract in 2026-27 and has a player option on a non-guaranteed fourth season in 2027-28.

Charania had indicated earlier this week that a possible Hield deal was in the sights of the Warriors.

Because a sign-and-trade agreement needs to cover at least three seasons, the Warriors needed to include at least the third season, according to Wojnarowski.

Hield seems primed to slot in where head coach Steve Kerr may have been looking to play former five-time All-Star swingman Klay Thompson in 2024-25, as a floor-spacing sixth-man bench piece.

Thompson, 34, is the sixth-most prolific three-point shooter in the history of the NBA, despite missing two full seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21 due to successive ACL and Achilles tears. He has 2,481 total triples to his credit. The 31-year-old Hield, meanwhile, comes in at No. 22, having notched 1,924 total triples. Both average an identical 7.6 attempts from beyond the arc for their careers.

Hield is an absolutely elite 40 percent career three-point shooter on those 7.6 long-range takes per game.

Splitting last year with the Indiana Pacers and Sixers on the final season of an expiring four-season, $94 million deal, Hield posted cumulative averages of 12.1 points on a .436/.386/.881 slash line, with that 38.6 percent conversion rate arriving on 6.8 attempts.

With Thompson now gone, the Warriors have done an intriguing job in pivoting to a variety of multifaceted wings. This summer club has now brought in Hield and his former Philadelphia teammate combo guard De'Anthony Melton, along with former Minnesota Timberwolves backup combo forward Kyle Anderson. Anderson is a unique defender with a slow-motion offensive pace that often confounds opponents. Melton is a talented two-way guard, though a bit undersized to play shooting guard (his primary proposition) at 6-foot-2.

Hield is strictly a sharpshooter, although he's only appeared in one postseason, last year with the 76ers since being selected out of Oklahoma in the 2016 NBA Draft. Sixers head coach Nick Nurse limited Hield, a defensive liability, to cameos in just four games. He averaged 5.5 points on a .412/.462/1.000 slash line and 1.3 rebounds across just 12.8 minutes a night.