Anderson Varejao has been on the move quite a bit recently, but it looks as though he has finally found where he will finish out the season. On Sunday night Varejao reached an agreement with the Golden State Warriors, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports.
Before signing with the Warriors, Varejao had been traded from the Cavaliers to the Blazers in the deal that brought Channing Frye to Cleveland. The Blazers took on Varejao's contract because they had cap space, but they waived him before he ever played a game for them.
Varejao was out of Cleveland's rotation for the most part this season, so it decided to use his contract to help initiate trade talks. The 33-year-old forward/center has played in just 31 games this season and has averaged 2.6 points and 2.9 rebounds per game. Varejao had only played with the Cavs in his 11-plus year career until Monday night when he is expected to join the Warriors.
Despite the fact that the Blazers had no interest in holding on to Varejao after they acquired him, he was still a wanted man. Varejao drew a lot of interest from teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder, the San Antonio Spurs and the Warriors, the team he ultimately signed with, according to Marc Stein of ESPN. Varejao seemingly had his choice of all of the top contenders in the Western Conference, but the Warriors emerged as the "heavy favorites" on Sunday morning, according to Stein, and there are a couple of reasons why.
Not only do the Warriors give Varejao the best chance to win, but he also should be able to earn some playing time with them. The Warriors are banged up at the center position with Festus Ezeli out after arthroscopic knee surgery and Andrew Bogut missing the team's last game with an Achilles injury. It is unknown how long Bogut will miss, but Ezeli could be done for the rest of the regular season, so while one or both of them is out Varejao should get some minutes.
The Warriors like to go small with Draymond Green at the center spot a lot, and in fact he started there on Saturday, but they typically like to start a center. At the very least Varejao will give the Warriors some veteran leadership and a solid insurance policy in the frontcourt. Varejao hasn't made much of an impact on the court the last two seasons, but that was due to injury and lack of playing time. When he has been on the court he has been an excellent rebounder who can also score efficiently.
To make room for Varejao the Warriors cut Jason Thompson using the stretch provision, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN. Thompson was getting virtually no playing time even when both Bogut and Ezeli were out, so this is certainly a worthwhile move for the Warriors to have made.
