Now that we’ve reached Dec. 15 on the calendar, trade season is officially underway, as contracts signed in the summer can now be included in deals. To tip off the 2024-25 trade season, the Golden State Warriors and Brooklyn Nets have officially reached an agreement. The Warriors are acquiring Dennis Schröder in exchange for two players and three second-round draft picks.

De’Anthony Melton was an important signing in the offseason for the Warriors, but he tore his ACL back in mid-November. Golden State needed to bring in another guard to replace him and has decided Schröder is the guy.

What’s in it for both teams? How does this trade shake out? Is there a winner?

We can determine that by grading it for both sides! It’s time to bust out the red ink!

Golden State Warriors acquire Dennis Schröder

Melton only played in six games for the Warriors before injuring his knee and being lost for the season after surgery. The Warriors signed him to be a guy who could run a little offense and play some defense in the backcourt — kind of like a suped up version of what Gary Payton II gives them but with more scoring. The early returns for the signing were great. The Warriors were dominant with him on the court (plus-10.9 net rating) and gave up just 97.4 points per 100 possessions. But we’re talking about only six games, and, once he was out of the lineup, the Warriors struggled to find that same role with anybody else on the roster.

Since the injury, the Warriors have really struggled to score the ball. In fact, the Warriors have the 28th-ranked offense in the NBA since the Melton injury back on November 12. Some of that is not having him in the lineup anymore, and some of that is regression to the mean for a team that is set up to play great defense and hope Steph Curry bails everyone else out with enough offense. Acquiring Schröder to fill that role should help quite a bit. He was having a great year in Brooklyn up until this trade.

The 31-year-old Schröder is averaging 18.4 points and 6.6 assists with 45.2/38.7/88.9 shooting splits. That could change with him now on the Warriors, but he can still carve out an important scoring and playmaking role. This season, the Nets had a 113.3 offensive rating with Schröder on the court, and it dropped to 108.8 without him. Some of that is the structure of the Nets, but other aspects definitely show how good Schröder is.

This is his seventh team in eight years, which includes two stops with the Lakers. However, he can be extremely valuable attacking with the ball. We know how good Curry is off the ball, so they’re going to be able to play together in a lot of lineups. This means guys such as Brandin Podziemski, Lindy Waters III and Jonathan Kuminga don’t have to create as much team offense as they’ve been asked and can slide back into more natural offensive roles. Schröder should coexist with Curry well, but more importantly, he should also be able to keep things rolling when Steph needs a rest. The Warriors’ offensive rating with Curry on the floor is an impressive 119.1 and drops to 101.7 when he’s on the bench. That is the difference between ranking fourth or outright last this season.

Even cutting that difference in half could get the Warriors back on track and would help them move on from the 4-8 stretch they’ve endured in their last 12 games. This trade didn’t cost them much and is a great step if Schröder just turns out to be a rental for this season.

Grade: A

Brooklyn Nets acquire De’Anthony Melton, Reece Beekman, and three second-round picks

The Nets are off to a 10-15 start, which may not sound crazy impressive, until you’re reminded they had a 19.5 win total over/under going into this season. With having ownership of their first-round pick in 2025 again, many of us expected Brooklyn to tank hard. That didn’t happen in the first 25 games of the season. The Nets were forced with a decision: either ride this out and try to compete for a Play-In Tournament spot (they’re currently 10th), or trade off some veterans for to embrace the tank.

It looks as if they’re going with the latter.

Losing Schröder and not replacing him with anybody could lead to their offense cratering. They’ve been hanging strong at 13th in offensive rating, but this thing should drop into the bottom-10 pretty quickly. Melton is on a one-year deal, as was Schröder, meaning they’re not going to have him at all in a Nets uniform.

So, why do this trade? Maybe they are like our John Hollinger and love Virginia-alum Reece Beekman. He’s a two-time ACC Defensive Player of the Year who has only played four minutes over two games this season. Or maybe acquiring the three second-round picks was the real haul for them. I suspect that was the latter, as well.

They’re getting a second-round pick from Atlanta in 2026, another one from the Hawks in 2028 and the Warriors’ 2029 second-round selection. Accumulating second-round picks to either use or sprinkle into deals is a good way of using your draft capital when it’s not just first-round picks to throw around because the Thunder have all of those future firsts. It would have been great to get a first for Schröder, but that wasn’t immediately on the table. Getting three future seconds is a solid haul.