2024 NBA Draft, 1st Round today 5:00pm Pacific. Warriors draft Thursday in 2nd Round (unless a wild trade happens).

This could be a boring day for GSW

Apricot’s Live Draft Tracker

This is an experimental site which live updates the draft and also tells you the top remaining choices as ranked by (1) notable draft experts, (2) draft consensus restricted to players GSW worked out, and (3) the most important source, the DNHQ Draft Tournament voters.

It also calculates how premature (“What a reach!”) or late (“What a steal!”) a draft pick is compared to the rankings of draft experts.

• Apricot’s 2024 NBA Draft Tracker

How to watch the First Round, psychologically

This will probably be boring for Dub Nation. The things that would make it relevant to GSW would be:

• GSW is involved in a trade.

  • Seems unlikely that GSW will trade into the first round on purpose this year, as this is reputedly the weakest first round in many a moon.

  • It is conceivable that GSW could trade cash (up to $1.2M) and other considerations to get another 2nd round pick. I would love for GSW to have two swings at a long shot success.

  • The most painful possibility is GSW trades out of the draft entirely. This also seems unlikely, as GSW needs good cheap contracts for salary cap purposes.

  • Of course, other big trades are possible. Last year, our minds were blown on Draft Day by the Chris Paul - Jordan Poole trade.

• Players that GSW were targeting are taken in the first round.

  • My Draft Tourney was designed to avoid first round draftees, but every year there’s a surprise reach or two.

How to watch the First Round, literally

• Round 1: June 26, 5:00 Pacific | ABC/ESPN (Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.)

• Round 2: June 27, 1:00 Pacific | ESPN (ESPN’s Seaport District Studios in New York)

It’s honestly a bit old-fashioned to (only) watch this on TV. If you want to be 5-10 minutes ahead of the televised draft, follow Woj and Shams on Twitter, or follow this comment section.

So, if you don’t want spoilers, turn off Threads/Twitter and avoid this comment section. Everyone is encouraged to post news here as soon as you have it from a reputable source.

Before the draft

To know which player you hope will fall to GSW, check out the 2024 Dub Nation HQ Draft Tournament. This is also your last chance to put your rankings in writing. You are not allowed to complain in the future about the GSW draft if you don’t put your own opinions in writing in advance.

This will be in some sense the most unpredictable GSW draft since I started paying very close attention in 2020, simply because there are so many possible players to pick as you go further into the draft.

• 2020: it was pretty clear that GSW would try to trade down like everyone else and, failing that, take Wiseman.

• 2021: it was pretty clear that once Kuminga looked like he might fall to #7 that he would be GSW’s pick. #14 was less certain but we all liked Moody and he was mocked higher than #14, so once he was available, he seemed like the obvious pick.

• 2022: We knew we couldn’t predict anything at all with such a low pick or expect any great prospect. At #28 you would be delighted to get a role player. Also we were all ecstatic about the championship so there was no real time to worry about the draft.

• 2023: This was very unpredictable. Beforehand I wrote:

  • At #19, they will try to trade down (I’d be shocked if GSW trade up). If they can’t, they will probably take a more seasoned prospect (Jaquez? Kris Murray?) who can win now; or maybe a darling of statistics (Podz? Jackson-Davis?). Or… At #19 you can irrationally dream about whatever lottery prospect fell to you. If a hotshot Top 10 prospect falls to #19 (Nick Smith? Gradey D?) maybe take them; or maybe take the best shooter left (Hawkins, Howard, Bufkin); or maybe take a draft and stash flier (Nnaji?) or… And with a new GM, that makes things even more unpredictable…

• So, 2024 draft night will be interesting.

If you have time to kill

Instead of having a nervous breakdown, consider listening to one of my all-time favorite podcasts from a couple of years ago. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the draft room from someone who was with the Suns during the Devin Booker draft…

Among the revelations:

• there’s a special private chat with every team where the draft runs about 10 picks ahead of the broadcast, so there is time to pull off trades that depend on players being available. No, Woj is not in the chat; it’s ahead of even Woj.

• the value and non-value of workouts

• so by draft week, you’ve done your evaluations of prospects and have a Big Board. Your main work is evaluating trade offers, especially scouting current NBA players and projecting team success to properly value future draft picks

• on draft night, half the league sends last minute trade offers for your pick

• how he got Booker wrong (undervaluing him by overvaluing on-ball defense)

• how to put together a summer league around your draft pick

• and more