Warriors pay a hefty price to acquire Corey Maggette

July 8, 9:30 PMGolden State Warriors ExaminerMatt Steinmetz

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Corey Maggette: a Warrior 

Apparently Corey Maggette is going to sign with the Warriors for five years and $50 million. That would make him the highest-paid free agent the Warriors have ever signed. Let’s go from there …

If those numbers are correct, it’s too much for Maggette, a small forward with no history of winning and no reputation as a game-changer.

Maggette would have been a great signing if the Warriors could have gotten him for the mid-level exception, and if Baron Davis were still on the roster. Under that scenario, Maggette would have been a significant upgrade over the Warriors’ threesome of Kelenna Azubuike, Matt Barnes and Mickael Pietrus.

But Davis is no longer a Warrior, and unless he has a monumental change of heart, blows off the Clippers and decides to give Golden State another look, Maggette’s signing doesn’t stand much of a chance of having a lot of impact on the bottom line.

Yes, Maggette is one of the most aggressive players in the NBA. He goes to the bucket hard and with consistency. He’s a very good foul shooter, goes to the line a lot and last year averaged 22 points per game, a healthy number in any league.

But Maggette has yet to prove he can be a big-time scorer, let alone a reliable role player, on a winning team. He’s gone to the playoffs just once during his nine-year career. He gets hurt a lot on top of everything else.

Clearly, Maggette came to the Warriors to be a starter, not a sparkplug off the bench like he’s been much of the time in the past. In Golden State’s uptempo system, he’s going to score a lot of points, no doubt.

But it’s hard to imagine him being a difference-maker in terms of getting the Warriors back into the Western Conference playoffs. And if you’re paying him $10 million per, isn’t that what you’d like him to be?

The Warriors now have Maggette, Stephen Jackson and Monta Ellis (assuming he re-signs), which on the one hand is a nice complement of versatile perimeter guys but on the other are three players who complement each other very little.

This team still needs a point guard desperately. But not just any point guard, mind you, a point guard with a personality strong enough to manage that ball-hungry trio. And one talented enough to earn their respect.

Unless that point guard somehow turns out to be Baron Davis, the Warriors still have a ways to go before they get back to where they were … which was 48 wins.