After Years of Draft Misses, Should Warriors Bother Keeping a High Pick?

After the Golden State Warriors have been so dominant over the last five years, it has been jarring to watch the start of their 2019-20 season.

"This is not a one-off. This is the reality. There are going to be nights like this, this year," head coach Steve Kerr told reporters after the season-opening defeat against the Los Angeles Clippers at Chase Center.

The broken hand Stephen Curry suffered Wednesday exacerbates things. With the way the season started, it looked like there was a good chance the Warriors were heading to the lottery even with a healthy Curry, but now they might be diving deeper into it.

The truth is Golden State's struggles have less to do with roster turnover and more to do with past mistakes coming home to roost. Drafting well late and developing players is a good way to keep the talent pipeline flowing and the costs down; that just hasn’t happened in Golden State. 

The Curry Injury and Warriors Crossroads

The fact that the Warriors didn't develop their young talent and draft well over the last few years will be highlighted even more after Curry's injury. The organization has to decide which path to forge.

With the way the contracts of Curry, Klay Thompson Thompson and Draymond Green are lined up, Golden State can keep the core together for two more years—longer if they extend Curry. These guys are still in their primes and not ready to rebuild.

The NBA implemented changes in 2019 that flattened out the draft lottery odds, which—combined with the Warriors' lack of young homegrown talent in recent years—makes tanking less appealing. Using a high lottery pick and D'Angelo Russell in a trade package could refurbish the bench and put the team in a position to contend for the 2020-21 season and beyond. 

Draft History

No team has a perfect record in the draft, and the further down a team picks, the harder it gets. Players who are available in the Nos. 25-30 range and beyond have a flaw or two, otherwise they wouldn't be available. 

The Warriors hit a home run in the 2012 draft by selecting Harrison Barnes (seventh overall), Festus Ezeli (30th) and Green (35th), who went on to win the 2016-17 Defensive Player of the Year award. Adding these players to Thompson and Curry laid the foundation for their championship in 2015.

Since then, Golden State's drafts have been up-and-down. 

From 2013-17, the Warriors selected five players: Nemanja Nedovic, Kevon Looney, Damian Jones, Patrick McCaw and Jordan Bell. Only Looney is still on the team after re-signing in 2019 free agency for three years and $14.5 million. 

The Nedovic pick in 2013 is particularly painful. The Warriors didn't have a first-rounder that year but acquired the No. 26 overall pick from the Minnesota Timberwolves. They traded down twice before acquiring the rights to Nedovic at 30th overall, and that 26th selection was Andre Roberson, who landed with the Oklahoma City Thunder.  

Also still on the board at No. 26 was Rudy Gobert, a two-time Defensive Player of the Year. 

McCaw looked promising out of the gate. 

"He's very savvy, so he always knows where to be," Green said of McCaw during the UNLV product's rookie 2016-17 season. Things turned sour when he was unable to come to terms with the Warriors on a new contract, and he ultimately ended up with the Toronto Raptors last season. 

NBA Twitter erupted when the Chicago Bulls sent the rights to second-round pick Jordan Bell to the Warriors for cash considerations in 2017. It felt like the rich had gotten richer, but Bell never panned out in Golden State. He held a permanent place in Kerr's doghouse for a variety of reasons and is now in Minnesota.

Swinging and missing in the draft is something every team goes through. Drafting well is even harder when a team has a run like the Warriors had the past five years. The first-round picks have been in the 28-to-30 range, and they haven't retained the rights to all of them.

This isn't a new phenomenon. During the Miami Heat's four-year run with LeBron James, they traded picks that were in a similar range. 

Drafting is hard; finding gems late is even harder.

Developing Young Talent vs. Winning

The Warriors have also struggled with the development of their young players. Time on the court is the key ingredient to a player's development. There is no replication for an NBA game, no matter how intense the scrimmage is in practice.

Finding playing time for young players while trying to contend on a nightly basis is the conundrum teams face, and Golden State is no exception. 

Besides their draft selections, the Warriors brought in several young players during their run, including Quinn Cook, Alfonzo McKinnie and Ian Clark, none of whom was able to carve out a role with the team. All three were gone within two years.

Young players need long leashes; they need to be able to play through their mistakes without looking over their shoulders. They can work to develop a lot of skills in practice but need game time to figure out how to bring that over when things count. 

Contending teams are normally veteran-heavy with a set rotation, system and culture. Patience is thin with young players who make mistakes, and coaches are quicker to yank them than they would be veterans. Few teams have found that balance to develop a young player while contending for a championship. 

Damion Lee has found his way onto the team's roster after playing most of the last two seasons for the organization's G League team, the Santa Cruz Warriors. He was a bright spot in Golden State's win over the Pelicans on Monday, scoring 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting with 11 rebounds. Using the G League to develop Lee seems to have paid off. 

But the Warriors also missed out on another promising prospect who was right under their noses.

The organization had a front-row seat to watch Kendrick Nunn; he was part of their training camp roster last season and played 49 games for Santa Cruz. He averaged 19.4 points per contest and shot OK from three at 33.3 percent on five attempts per game.

The Miami Heat sneaked in and signed him at the end of last season. Nunn has had a scorching-hot start to the 2019-20 campaign, averaging 22.4 points over five games on 48.4 percent three-point shooting. It is a small sample size, but he has proved he can score. 

B/R

Losing Nunn could come back to haunt the Warriors. 

They are living in a new reality this season. They are no longer the big dogs on the block, and teams will relish in their weakened state, evidenced by Clippers guard Patrick Beverley's taunting of fans as they were leaving their brand-new home arena. 

This year will be a new challenge for Kerr, who's used to coaching a veteran-heavy squad; he has eight players who are 23 years old or younger. How well this team does will depend on the learning curve of some of these young players and will help the Warriors decide what path to take. 

The results of this season will not erase what the Warriors have done the last five years, and it does not mean that the dynasty is over. This could just be a gap year—but their inability to find and develop young talent with their current core takes tanking off the table. 

Ownership surely envisioned a different team on the court of the $1.4 billion Chase Center and is in win-now mode. Retooling the roster around the core three Warriors seems to be the most logical road.

After moving across the Bay, they owe it to their fans, Curry, Thompson and Green to retool and try to contend next season.