I am pleased to announce will have a livestream tonight at about 7:15PM PDT, around when the 28th pick will be made by Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers. We are welcoming guest Doc Martin, Draft scout for BasketballNews.com, as well. We’ve had Martin on the last couple years. The livechat will also be in partnership with the Facebook Page “Warriors4Life” (nearly 70k followers), run by my friend Nick Haase. We’ll probably be doing more video stuff with them next season, kinda like what Draymond Green is to Colin Cowherd’s “The Volume” platform.
Unfortunately we won’t be on YouTube tonight, as is usually the norm. Their algorithm thought we were livestreaming Game 6 of the NBA Finals when we were, in fact, not. That mishap won’t have an update for another couple weeks, but we’ll still be live-streaming commentary and analysis on Twitch (just search “letsgowarriors” on Twitch or type in “twitch.tv/letsgowarriors” in your browser) and Facebook, as mentioned.
Any highlights from these live chats, we will make into an after-the-fact ten-minute video upload on YouTube, so you won’t miss anything. We actually have footage of our Andrew Wiggins discussion with his off-season trainer Reid Ouse, live from halftime of Game 6, queued up for an upload on YouTube as well. Good things still in the pipeline — we have tons of Warriors championship parade footage already on there and heretofore unannounced on this website, for example.
As for the 28th pick, as I mentioned in the previous post, there’s a lot of intrigue and mystery tonight. The further down you go on the Draft board, the more ways you can go, but as I said earlier, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the process and discovery of whomever Myers picks. We’ll discuss the pick with Doc and fans in the livechat, and most importantly, we’ll speculate on just what direction the franchise goes. For example, if a center is drafted, can we infer anything on James Wiseman? If the pick is traded, can we infer anything about free agency? This can be quite fun, especially as Bob steps up to the podium, presumably with his usual post-Draft Q&A with reporters, probably at Chase Center.
Speaking of “trade the pick”, Myers said yesterday at the pre-Draft media availability that money and luxury taxes wouldn’t be an issue as it pertains to keeping the pick. Here’s the rest of that session. We’ll post Steve Kerr’s availability sometime in the near future, as he spoke after Myers. Below the Myers notes & quotes are some predictions from renowned Draft reporters on whom the Warriors will pick at 28. I will not cover the two second round picks in this article, as anything can happen with those as well (those are not worth my time researching the predictions).
BOB
• Bob Myers: “I don’t think the money is going to be a factor as far as whether we trade out or keep the pick…It’ll be if it makes sense” on if the Warriors will trade their 28th, 51st or 55th pick on Thursday. (Mark Medina, Kendra Andrews, NBCSBA)
• On getting ready for the draft tomorrow right after winning title: “High-class problem. We’ve done this five times, this is six.” He says 15-20 people are up on the 9th floor of Chase Center watching film, prepping draft board. (Janie McCauley)
• Will James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody have big rotation minutes next season?: “If they earn it…there’s no mandate (to coach Steve Kerr on them getting more minutes next season)…Sure, we’ll like it. But if there are guys playing better, we’ll play those guys.” (Dalton Johnson, Mark Medina)
• On re-signing all their free agents: “We’ll try on all those guys…Our hope and our goal is to bring all of those guys back…Sometimes you find out through a Woj tweet that a guy is gone.” (Dalton Johnson, Mark Medina, CJ Holmes)
• On Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins’ potential contract extensions: “…big priority…We’ll make a big effort to keep those guys…We’re a long way from figuring out what (they) want. But I know what we want: to keep them.” Myers understands it may not happen right away with Poole’s deadline not until October and Wiggins not having one, albeit mindful that players may want that before season starts. (Mark Medina, Kendra Andrews, me)
• On James Wiseman: “He’s working out. No setbacks…He’s going to start doing live stuff.” Myers said it’s not clear which Summer League he will play, either in California Classic or Las Vegas Summer League, but the plan is for him to play in one of them. The plan also remains for Kuminga and Moody to get in some summer league work. (Mark Medina, Anthony Slater)
• On keeping the veteran core going as long as possible: “Until something changes…we would try to let these guys win for as long as they can.” (Janie McCauley video, me)
• On Kenny Atkinson staying on the Warriors’ coaching staff after changing his mind about the Hornets’ staff: “Kenny is a great coach. As long as we can keep him, he’ll help us.” (Janie McCauley)
• On this championship team compared to the others: “This one was different.” Some time before the playoffs, Steve Kerr told Myers he didn’t know if this is a championship team, and Myers kind of agreed. Myers said they had a good laugh about it after the championship, saying “what do we know.” (Kylen Mills, me)
• The Warriors haven’t formalized their coaching search for the vacancy left by Mike Brown, but Myers says there is a preference to promote internally, but remain open-minded to outside candidates as well.. (Kendra Andrews, Mark Medina)
• On the Warriors’ draft/roster decisions: “It’s a hard lineup to crack…Our goal, our hope is to bring all those guys back and try to do it again. They were all great in different ways and all fill different needs for us. A lot of our free agents had big moments in the NBA Finals, which means they’re pretty important.” (Dalton Johnson, Janie McCauley)
• On if Andre Iguodala wants to keep playing: “I hear he does want to play, he doesn’t want to play. I don’t think he knows…I don’t know if Andre is done.” Myers joked that Andre “will probably send a cryptic tweet out” about his future. (Kylen Mills, Mark Medina)
BASKETBALLNEWS.COM 28TH PICK
Doc’s colleague Matt Babcock thinks the Warriors will select a wing, Kendall Brown. Picking a wing is pretty much the staple of the NBA in this pace-and-space, 3&D era.
NBADRAFT.NET 28TH PICK
Our reclusive buddy Aran Smith, probably the Draft prognosticator with the most years of experience, has had Patrick Baldwin in this spot until recently when it was changed to Max Christie. Not sure what the reasoning there was, but I do have an inquiry into Smith.
DRAFTEXPRESS 28TH PICK
The explanation on Peyton Watson was actually slightly better from SportsIllustrated below than Jonathan Givony’s blurb — all paraphrased and, as I mentioned last week, it’s hard to add links on the Substack platform for mobile writers like me, so you’ll just have to Google these prognosticators, sorry — but goes along the lines of guessing the Warriors lean more on “best future wing prospect.”
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 28TH PICK
Jeremy Woo of SI originally thought the Warriors might trade the pick, then updated his pick to Watson. The thinking is that Watson was a highly touted wing player in high school and “struggled” at UCLA, so the former Lottery-projected prospect might still have that potential and be a safer-than-usual flyer Myers can take.
I don’t really think it’s worth the time delving past the top three or four Draft prognosticators. You go with the experience and the contacts that they have. It’s odd that, throughout the years, no one has graded any of these guys, so it’s still hearsay, but those are my top four at the moment, with Smith and Givony as my go-to’s and Babcock not far behind.
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