2022 NBA Draft: Warriors trade up to get Toledo's Ryan Rollins in the second round
The Warriors kept the small program theme going in the second round, trading up to add a pick and roll guard. With their final pick, they made what seems to be a draft-and-stash selection.
Updates
Apricot: Holding out hope that Baldwin might play in Vegas, but sounds like a real long shot to me.
Apricot:
I take PBJ to be in a line of Dubs dynasty picks -- Looney and Damian Jones were lottery type talents who dropped all the way to the end of the 1st due to injury issues. And a dynasty can afford to wait for a guy to heal for a year (or two plus, in Looney's case)
Ryan Rollins and Gui Santos
The Golden State Warriors rounded out their 2022 NBA Draft by trading up to acquire Toledo’s Ryan Rollins with the 44th pick before selecting Gui Santos with their 55th pick.
Adrian Wojnarowski @wojespn
The Warriors are targeting Toledo's Ryan Rollins at No. 44, per source.Rollins is a 6-foot-4 sophomore combo guard who ESPN’s Jay Bilas considered a second round sleeper in this draft. For those who liked Gonzaga’s Andrew Nembhard as a pick-and-roll guy, Rollins seems to offer a similar dimension to the Warriors’ roster with the added bonus of 6-foot-10 wingspan. The big question for Rollins, according to DeanOnDraft, is, “…does he have enough offensive skill to get excited over at 6’3?” That could be part of the reason why Rollins didn’t get much traction in our draft tournament.
Although he wasn’t a great shooter in college (31% in his sophomore season), he did shoot 80% from the free throw line. You can hope that he’ll develop as a shooter and combine that with the craftiness he showed in college to eventually earn some run on the Warriors.
Santos of Brazil has all the markings of a draft-and-stash type pick — prior to making the pick, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that the Warriors were looking to trade it. The MavsDraft blog suggested he was a draft-and-stash candidate over a week before the draft. But here are some highlights because it’s always fun to dream!
Patrick Baldwin Jr
In the first round, the Warriors selected 6-foot-9 Milwaukee Panthers guard Patrick Baldwin, Jr. with the 28th pick.
Baldwin’s strength is unquestionably his picture-perfect jumper despite poor numbers in the 11 games he played in his lone year of college in the Horizon League. And that form on his jumper is pretty much what the Warriors and their development staff seem to be betting on. Statistically, there doesn’t seem to be much in Baldwin’s profile that will translate to NBA success, which is compounded by the fact that his numbers came against a low level of competition. What the Warriors can hope for is that a guy with length and good shooting mechanics — in addition to a strong 3.2% block rate for a wing — can develop into a serviceable player as an off-ball shooter which is something that Coach Spins pointed out in his video scouting report for The Box and One.
One of The Ringer’s NBA comps for Baldwin was Harrison Barnes and you can absolutely squint and see how that makes sense: with his height and potential scoring ability, yeah, maybe he could play the Barnes role.
But in case you’re wondering, yes, Baldwin was absolutely a surprise.
In the DubNation HQ big board (s/o void), Baldwin was ranked 17th. Santa Clara’s Jalen Williams was the top prospect by a decent margin while Ohio State’s E.J. Liddell, Arizona’s Dalen Terry, Wake Forest’s Jake LaRavia and Duke’s Wendell Moore rounded out the top five. With Williams, Terry, LaRavia, and Moore, all picked ahead of the 28th pick, Liddell seemed like the obvious choice. And s/o to Steph’s Ankle for finding this gem from Eleven Warriors that made a Liddell selection much more likely.
Liddell has worked out with the Cavs, Hawks, Nuggets, Bulls, Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors before the draft, per HoopsHype.”
Once all those other teams had already drafted and everyone from Jay Bilas to Tim Kawakami thinking Liddell was the best guy left on the board who the Warriors had actually worked out, it really did seem like that was the direction the Warriors would go in. So Baldwin was definitely a surprise to DubNation.
If you’re looking for an alternative perspective on that though, definitely read Matt Norlander’s draft profile on Baldwin from before the draft — the anonymous scout saying he was miscast in Milwaukee as Batman when he’s actually more of a Robin is encouraging, especially when you consider the totality of his skillset.
The draft actually started out with a bit of a surprise as the Orlando Magic opened things up by drafting Duke’s Paolo Banchero. From there, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets drafted Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren and Auburn’s Jabari Smith, respectively, to round out the expected top three.
Totally unrelated to anything substantive, Draymond Green is still on the rampage and I’m here for ALL. OF. IT.
Listening to Timpf's season ending takeaways, and he loves the Dubs. He talks about their free agents, and in the middle of talking about Looney, he drops this bomb:
"There's a lot of intel with Wiseman that he doesn't even like basketball all that much."
https://youtu.be/yQUrMG-hQdI?t=497
I mean, WTF? This is the first I've heard this rumor. Has anyone else heard it?
Minutes.
My hope for the iCore is not just more minutes, but more consistent minutes. The Warriors were all over the map with rotations last year and admittedly that probably helped them make seamless adjustments in the playoffs. But for development, you want the young guys to have some regular rotation minutes. To know that they are coming in every game at the same time, that they will have a baseline for minutes such that they know they will be allowed to play through some mistakes. If JFK has a bad run in the first half, he should expect to have a chance to redeem himself in the 2nd half. (or not miss the next 3 games to boot).
It's going to be easy to load manage Steph and Klay all year. They take a game off, Poole starts and Moody, D Lee (and Rollins) pick up rotation minutes. No problem here. The tricky one is Draymond. If anyone needs load management it is him and him being out impacts the way the Dubs play more than anyone else. If Steph DNPs on a back to back, I'm sitting Green, too. I would tie those two together on Load manage DNPs. Otherwise, I would like to see Green get down to 28-30 minutes a game. We have to think long term and not burn this guy's tread in the regular season. Honestly, I have always felt that the best plan for Draymond is to transition to be the new (old) Andre. Ultimately come off the bench, close, average 28 min, be the vet in the second unit at times. Not quite yet, but once JFK & Wiseman can tie their own shoes, Dray can transition to full Vet mode and this could extend his career.