Generously seems like there are 3-5 NBA players/yr from draft position 26+, meaning that if one only has one pick, and a late 1st rounder at that, the expected value is to hit every 7-11 picks. Add in a couple of high second round picks and maybe the expected value is to hit every 6-9 years. I’d say at worst Bob is above average.
Aug 4, 2022·edited Aug 4, 2022Liked by Eric Apricot
The McCaw situation was a huge lose-lose. What a waste. I'm surprised that the Cavs didn't get investigated/disciplined for their role in that one, as it seems like they were just in it to hurt the Ws.
Bell is a waste of a different kind -- a promising young athlete who didn't seem to have the head/character for the game. Actually, maybe they're not so dissimilar. It's too bad; I still think he could play and contribute under different circumstances.
Jones was what he was: a project who didn't really pan out for the Ws but eventually made himself into an NBA player. Good for him.
In retrospect, the Warriors FO has drafted pretty well. It's almost like Bob Myers knows what he's doing.
Yeah, pretty much any 2nd round pick is going to come with some major question marks, whether they be around age, athleticism, size, maturity, motor, etc. Each pick is a gamble that they'll be able to overcome their question marks and become a productive NBA player. Most don't.
Looking at the lists of players below our picks, the conclusion I draw is that picking late in the first/or in the second round is worse than a crap shoot. It’s a miracle that we ever got a decent player with these draws. To expect, nay demand, better outcomes is to ignore the reality that the quality difference drop off from the top picks to the middle picks to the later picks is a fall off a huge cliff, a bounce off the edge ala Homer Simpson, and then a vastly longer plunge into a rocky swirling tidal surge crowded with starving sharks. In other words: blood everywhere.
Do the UDFAs count? For instance 2016 had VanVleet as a UDFA (not to mention other guys who are obviously better than Jones like Caruso, DFS, GP2, etc).
I saw Rick Adelman hanging around the Oakland CitySports basketball court in the late 90s and asked him if he needed any old (>40), slow(iso), white guys to play during the basketball strike. I think he thought my time had passed......but I thought there might still be a chance....
Well analyzed. The Brogdon and Dillon Brooks missed opportunities really hurt but hindsight is 20-20 and I'm sure I wouldn't have had any more chance at identifying those guys as the FO. The only thing I'll say is looking at those I wonder if the FO was just a smidge too conservative in those years in not trying to duplicate Steph and Klay's roles. Is there an extent to which we under-prioritized quality guards at that time? I do see that since then we've gotten Poole and Moody, and second rounders but maybe a couple years earlier the FO was looking for more depth at say center or wings like McCaw? (By the way my beef with McCaw and Bell was seemingly not improving. Good starts are good starts, but some keep improving and some don't really. #PooleToGLeague )
Based on apparent attitude and my somewhat irrational sports hatred of Brooks, I'm not sure I'd actually call that a missed opportunity, as I'm not sure he would have fit what the Warriors seem to have.
Maybe in the alternate universe where they pick him up he ends up in a different space, but right now I prefer him stay with his current dynasty.
I think that Bell was overly cocky and self assured compared to his actual talent level. Esp. in his rookie year. I would guess that his player development process was hindered by his arrogance and lack of self awareness. Thus, IMO, only some, but not most of the reason he did not develop falls on the coaching staff.
Yeah, it was fun for us but the other team could see it that some young punk who hadn't proven he belonged in the league (actually, he still has not proven that) was trying to show them up. He's lucky he didn't get screened into the nosebleed seats at their next opportunity.
I think Jordan Bell was just immature. He did a lot of stuff (the Mike Brown hotel incident, throwing money around the room when he was drafted) that made him seem very much like a young teenager.
That said, he seems like a decent enough guy. I remember him doing a Warrior community service event at a school. As I recall (I couldn't find the story) someone had stolen a piece of equipment from the school. He was so moved by it, he replaced the equipment out of his own pocket. And, he wasn't making all that much money.
I would attribute the 'not improving' to the lack of young player development for the Warriors at the time. It was more a sink or swim approach as opposed to what they are doing now with the youth movement.
Wednesday morning mental gymnastics. Pick a six-man core group for your team using 2 players from 3 separate groups of three. It's one thing to pick the player you would lose from each group in isolation. But you have to consider the makeup of the 6-man group you have remaining.
Group 1: Steph, Klay, Dray
Group 2: Wiggins, Looney, Poole
Gtoup 3: Wiseman, JK, Moody
You're welcome. haha
ps. everyone is under contract for the same number of years, so contracts or salary cap won't be a part of this exercise.
Best 6-man group with the best reasoning/response gets a cookie.
I think my question here would be Looney and Dray together. I think you absolutely have to have one of them, but both leaves you with a 6-man group that is composed of 33% guys with nearly zero offensive game. This is certainly the best defensive group, but limited offensively and passing/play-making. Defensively, its a monster.
They were both in the most used playoff lineup of a championship team (and that lineup had a +18.7 net rating), I'm not concerned about that. There is no way to pick a 6 man team given the parameters you have laid out and not have some issues.
JK, Klay, Dray and Poole to stay in the backcourt and argue with the refs. Wiggins and Moody to rebound, shoot, play defense, and win the game. Passing is not needed since only one of them is on the court at any time.
Extremely explosive offensive talent with defensive upside as jk and wiseman being part of the core meaning more reps to meet there clear abilities to be great defenders. Wiggins and klay on the wings defending and then you have Poole coming off the bench which I think people seem to not realize that was extremely key for the warriors having a guy besides Steph who can actually create his own shots and others shots when the system isn't working and Steph is on the bench.
Ok, so this leads me to a group I was trying to think of that didn't have Dray. I agree, Steph, Klay, Poole, Wiggs, JK. That is a good defensive team but not great. You wouldn't take Looney over Wiseman in a vacuum, but I think I would put Looney here because you have enough scoring and Looney can guard inside and on the perimeter, and do the dirty work.
Opposite my response to Beli, I think no Dray or Loon removes all the defensive IQ in the lane. There could be upside with JK & Wise, but no one left to teach them. No doubt this can score in bunches. Best offensive group.
This is one of my top two. (I'm waiting to be swayed). As you said, you addressed all areas to create about the most balanced team, capable of competing against any style. Have a drink and chill near the podium.
I think pretty much all of these ratings are spot-on with my perceptions, with the exception of Damian Jones whom I would probably bump up to a solid C. Sure, his most impactful minutes at this point in his career were with other teams than the Warriors, but I think that speaks to the separate question of how good is the FO at determining which players to keep year-to-year as opposed to how well they drafted, which seems to be the specific focus of this series. Since Damian Jones has shown himself to be a useful rotation center with a little bit of value over the last couple of years, I think that deserves a C grade relative to where he was drafted. Even if most of his development didn't come with us, I think he has shown himself to be a pretty decent player for a #30 pick. I think DJ is different from McCaw in this way because Pat did NOT become a better player after his Warriors tenure.
I would love to see a continuation (or expansion?) of this series that looks to compare Warriors drafting under Myers to all other teams in the league during the same time period, as opposed to comparing the Warriors drafts to the drafts of other dynasties in the last several decades. It would be cool to gauge how well Bob and this FO has done against their direct contemporaries using some kind of system to equalize draft value so that you could make some rudimentary measurements. Maybe something like this already exists? Without looking closely, I would be willing to bet that Bob is in the upper echelon of getting good value out of the draft when we normalize for draft position.
I second the solid C for the DJ pick. He was a youngster with us, and developing bigs often takes time. We fans tend to be impatient. He can be a serviceable backup. For a #30 pick, that doesn't suck.
A quick search did pull up this, which I have not had time to digest but you can check it out. It does put the GSW and Myers in particular right around average though, so I'm not sure about that!
Does this put it in the context of drafting from say #25 to #35 ... or #20 to #40? Because if you're including all of the teams with lottery picks, it obviously doesn't relate very well to where the Warriors are typically drafting.
You will need to read the article to get the more full description, but yes at a high level it is putting everything in context, and essentially saying based on who else was available, was it a good pick or not (kind of like Apricots manual method here). It seems actually pretty complex as it factors in things like expected draft position, so that Cleveland for example would get no positive credit for picking LeBron, because any team would have picked him, so it wasn't a particularly positive decision. And on the flip side, a team isn't dinged for picking Wiggins with the #1 pick in 2014 instead of Jokic, because it is not reasonable that anyone would have picked Jokic with the first pick. Anyway, Toronto ends up faring by far the best in the analysis, and many of theirs are late picks -- if anything I think this methodology can give too much credit to those picking later, because there isn't much chance of getting a negative rating on the pick (as an extreme example, the #60 pick or an undrafted guy can never be judged as a negative, but could be very positive).
As I read more about how he set it up, it is pretty interesting actually and overall seems like the methodology makes sense given what he is trying to do. Of course there are always going to be some things that look questionable on an individual basis, and I wouldn't use it as a definitive ranking of best drafters, but at a high level it checks out. The dashboard he links to with all of the details is pretty interesting to look around on. Overall these are some of my observations as it relates to the Warriors:
-the only GSW picks that make the threshold for "good" or better, are Curry, Klay (both before Myers), Green, Looney, and Poole. At least this matches who one would say our really good picks have been.
-Myers makes a lot of picks (buying into low second round, not trading away too many picks, etc), and most of these turn out to be roughly average (like Bell, McCaw, Jones mentioned here). This brings down his average a bit since it is diluting the good picks.
-I think his score will be on an upward trajectory, as Poole and Looney are likely to become even better relative picks as time goes on, and Wiseman basically can only go up from his current status of 3rd worst pick in 12 years. Additionally, no 2021+ picks count on the record yet, so it will be interesting to see how Kuminga and Moody end up faring.
-The way credit is assigned to a team ends up being a bit awkward at times, like undrafted Boucher and Lin are very high positives credited to the Warriors, but it seems kind of questionable that they should get positive credit for them. So actually if you remove those guys, the Warriors end up really being close to a net 0 middle of the pack in this analysis.
-When you look at enough individual examples, there are certainly some weird quirks. Like, how can 2020 Denver picking RJ Hampton with the #24 pick be the 19th worst pick over the 12 years, at -0.98 value. That just doesn't pass the eye test -- I see there were some decent guys picked in the next 6 picks of that draft, but it should not be possible for any #24 pick (a pick where on average the guy is probably going to have a short career) to have that much of a negative impact on your score. Similarly with the opposite way -- Kuzma at pick 27 and Klay at pick 11 have pretty similar scores, both being around +1. In a vacuum perhaps this makes some sense in terms of how much they have outperformed their draft position, but as a team outperforming on your 11th pick is going to have a lot more impact on building a good team than outperforming on the 27th pick. So to apply it back to actual team success, you would probably need some sort of weighting added.
It feels like the common thread here is that the Warriors often drafted guys who were talented enough to play in the NBA, and certainly more talented than their draft position - they just didn't develop them very well. Given the amount we've got invested in JFK, JW, and MM, let's hope that our focus on development coaches has turned this weakness into a strength.
One final thought: given the near apocalyptic commentary about the Warriors salary cap issues (for example, I just listened to the Ringer podcast about the Warriors offseason, and they didn't talk about DDV or JMG at all - just about Draymond's future contract extension), can you imagine the choices they would have had to make if they did end up with Brogdon, etc.?
Kuminga and wiseman are naturally way more gifted then those other drafted guys who didn't develop and moody seems to be a guy who will just be solid but already fits the system because he is a spot up shooter. Im not sure how the coaches work with the young guys but for 1 I'd like to see the system develope towards there strengths especially when Steph is off the floor but mainly I'd like to see or hear that wiseman and kuminga are constantly sitting down with coaches and watching film 1 on 1 and explaining the small things like timing on cuts and screens to get easy baskets. I believe they would be unstoppable if they ever get kuminga and wiseman to just understand the system in the roles of Draymond and Looney. Just hope they don't take the young talents for granted, sometimes special attention is needed to get guys to reach there potential. A perfect example is Wiggins....while he was still very good with the warriors it took something simple as Draymond, dre and Steph talking about how he doesn't rebound much for him to realize how all these years he could of been doing it at a much higher clip and that was a huge part of us winning the finals. If you can convince jk and wiseman they can average 30 just by knowing when to cut and play off Steph and Poole it would be elite
The investment in coaching really only can be fully realized if the FO is committed to keeping the good young guys for awhile, which either means that one of Klay/Dray/Wiggins is gone in the next couple years, or the FO is willing to absolutely demolish the bank.
Or the salary cap goes way up, or the CBA eliminates luxury taxes for home-grown players. I think Lacob was willing to part with the half-million dollars to get out his point, and potentially get that tax waived in the future.
Aug 3, 2022·edited Aug 3, 2022Liked by Eric Apricot
For your last point, that is kind of the silver-lining on the Evans mishap. Although it shouldn't factor into an analysis on how well they drafted, imagine if they had taken Brunson instead of Evans. Then later they probably either they don't take Poole, or they still take Poole but his development suffers because Brunson takes more of his minutes. And then Brunson leaves anyway because we can't afford him. So in a butterfly-effect way it all worked out.
This also helps me accept the possibility of Wiseman being a bust (though still of course hoping that isn't the case!). Like, what if they had taken LaMelo... maybe then Poole or GP2 or whoever gets less playing time in the playoffs, and LaMelo does worse than they did do and the dubs don't end up winning it all. Of course, maybe they still win it all, but I guess it's just the whole "championship cures all" idea. Now that it's happened, you don't want to re-write the past and risk the butterfly burning it all down!
Yeah, though Duarte context a little difference since he was seen as a lottery talent, so you could be fairly certain he'd be a rotation player at least.
With these late 1st/2nd rounders, it's successful if these guys are still in the NBA after their first contract.
I’d be pissed if we had taken Duarte over Moody, both now and at the time of the draft. And based on Lacob’s pouty body language when Duarte went off the board, it sounds like they probably would have grabbed him had he been there at #14. Thanks, Indy!!!
Totally agree on this. As it is, I think Moody is underrated. If you look at the game logs for his season, he was pretty terrible until end the of January, and then it was like somebody flipped a switch and he became an NBA player. In the 23 games he played in from 1/31 to the end of the season, he shot 46% from 3. That's ... really good, and those were mostly important games as well with the Warriors trying to hang on to the 3rd seed despite Curry being out for most of those games. Aside fro that, he played pretty darn good individual and team defense. I don't know what more you could ask from a 19 year old.
I am curious what would've happened if both Moody and Duarte were there at 14.
But yeah, big ooof if they had Duarte over Moody on their big board. Hopefully they thought Moody would be gone by 14 so they were selling Lacob on Duarte lol
I agree with the assessment as well, they were all nice picks given the drafting position, other than Jacobs.
For McCaw, it seems like a case where Iguodala's mentorship backfired. As you mentioned, he quickly proclaimed McCaw was going to be his successor. Knowing Andre, he probably hyped up to McCaw how much money he was going to get, and that he should strive to get what he deserves. I remember in an interview McCaw said he wanted to be the best basketball player in the world. Now, most NBA players may need to initially have that mentality to get where they are, I would expect at some point the goal becomes more realistic depending on your trajectory, like become an Iguodala or Klay.
In the end McCaw took a kind of unprecedented risk that didn't work out well for either him or the team, so I think it's ok to be irritated still, though at this point of course there isn't the feeling like "wow I wish we still had McCaw"
On vaca, so this rough from memory. From 2013-2019, a 7 year window, if you added up all of the Warriors picks (not including Bell/McCaw beacause those picks were purchase) and got an average number, the Warriors ended up with the 37th pick for 7 years straight. Now, this was done assigning pick values using Tankathons pick value system, which is comparable to most pick value systems out there. Thus, it is a weighted system. Now mind you, this isn't 2 picks each draft. Over 7 years, using 'pick value', the Warriors averaged out getting a single player only each year at pick 37.
And out of that 7 years, we got a starting Center who played 104 games last year and who was instrumental in a Championship (let's face it, Looney saved our bacon on multiple occasions) and a young up-and-comer who is everyone's 2023 favorite to win 6th man of the year award (who is a two-way player, by that I mean, regular season AND playoffs).
For Bob Meyers, this is like being on Iron Chef, and instead of a well stocked pantry, you have to dumpster dive a 7/11 for the rest of your ingredients.
Did we miss out on some players. Yeah. Just like 29 others teams missed out on Loon and Poole, both of whom are top 6 rotation guys on a dynastic championship team.
There are certainly some swing-and-misses in this 7 years, and let's not forget Nemanja Nedovic. But Bob has 2 Panda like dingers, home runs hit on balls way out of the strike zone, in this window of time.
For comparison (again from memory) in this same 7 year window, the PHI 76ers averaged out on pick value to the tune of drafting 3rd AND 27th EVERY YEAR for 7 straight years (they had 35 picks in that time frame). Their 2nd player average 10 spots higher than the Warriors single average pick.
Just wanted to point this out, because when we look at the misses, we fail to appreciate the larger view, ie, the pitches we had to swing out vs the other teams in the league.
But awesome article and detail on that pick history. Just did Monterey Bay Aquarium with kids yesterday. Incredible stuff. Wahoo. Have a great Wednesday everyone.
Thomas Bryant was stuck at the end of the Wizards bench because he tore his ACL [I believe it was] so didn't play for big chunks of 2 seasons & just began playing again last season.
And Jacob Evans [and Omari Spellman] were part of the D'Angelo Russell trade to get Wiggins & the 1st round pick that became Kuminga to make the $$ work. GRIII & Alec Burks were traded to Philly to get under the salary cap.
Ah, that’s good context for Thomas Bryant’s situation. I have added it to the article.
Wiggins ($27.5m) and Russell ($27.3m) could have been traded straight up (if teams are over the cap, you have to get within 25% of salary to allow a trade), hence it was not necessary to include Evans and Spellman. In fact this was not desired by MIN and they later attached a 2nd rounder to get rid of them. GSW insisted as part of the move to get under the tax.
Thanks, I updated the article. There are so many other players I mentioned, I didn't want to go through and update all their current whereabouts, but I'll make updates requested in the comments...
Generously seems like there are 3-5 NBA players/yr from draft position 26+, meaning that if one only has one pick, and a late 1st rounder at that, the expected value is to hit every 7-11 picks. Add in a couple of high second round picks and maybe the expected value is to hit every 6-9 years. I’d say at worst Bob is above average.
The McCaw situation was a huge lose-lose. What a waste. I'm surprised that the Cavs didn't get investigated/disciplined for their role in that one, as it seems like they were just in it to hurt the Ws.
Bell is a waste of a different kind -- a promising young athlete who didn't seem to have the head/character for the game. Actually, maybe they're not so dissimilar. It's too bad; I still think he could play and contribute under different circumstances.
Jones was what he was: a project who didn't really pan out for the Ws but eventually made himself into an NBA player. Good for him.
In retrospect, the Warriors FO has drafted pretty well. It's almost like Bob Myers knows what he's doing.
Yeah, pretty much any 2nd round pick is going to come with some major question marks, whether they be around age, athleticism, size, maturity, motor, etc. Each pick is a gamble that they'll be able to overcome their question marks and become a productive NBA player. Most don't.
Looking at the lists of players below our picks, the conclusion I draw is that picking late in the first/or in the second round is worse than a crap shoot. It’s a miracle that we ever got a decent player with these draws. To expect, nay demand, better outcomes is to ignore the reality that the quality difference drop off from the top picks to the middle picks to the later picks is a fall off a huge cliff, a bounce off the edge ala Homer Simpson, and then a vastly longer plunge into a rocky swirling tidal surge crowded with starving sharks. In other words: blood everywhere.
This is the correct conclusion. A careful look at the options shows that it is damned hard to get someone who sticks on the roster when you pick late.
[SteveKerr’sdoghouse] would make a mean username
Do the UDFAs count? For instance 2016 had VanVleet as a UDFA (not to mention other guys who are obviously better than Jones like Caruso, DFS, GP2, etc).
No, we don't compare undrafted players because we don't know who had what deals and what motivations, and also it would be 7 billion people. :)
"So you're telling me there's a chance?!"
I saw Rick Adelman hanging around the Oakland CitySports basketball court in the late 90s and asked him if he needed any old (>40), slow(iso), white guys to play during the basketball strike. I think he thought my time had passed......but I thought there might still be a chance....
Kudos for putting yourself in the unofficial player strike draft 🙌🏽 If it had been an official thing, who knows?!
Well analyzed. The Brogdon and Dillon Brooks missed opportunities really hurt but hindsight is 20-20 and I'm sure I wouldn't have had any more chance at identifying those guys as the FO. The only thing I'll say is looking at those I wonder if the FO was just a smidge too conservative in those years in not trying to duplicate Steph and Klay's roles. Is there an extent to which we under-prioritized quality guards at that time? I do see that since then we've gotten Poole and Moody, and second rounders but maybe a couple years earlier the FO was looking for more depth at say center or wings like McCaw? (By the way my beef with McCaw and Bell was seemingly not improving. Good starts are good starts, but some keep improving and some don't really. #PooleToGLeague )
Based on apparent attitude and my somewhat irrational sports hatred of Brooks, I'm not sure I'd actually call that a missed opportunity, as I'm not sure he would have fit what the Warriors seem to have.
Maybe in the alternate universe where they pick him up he ends up in a different space, but right now I prefer him stay with his current dynasty.
I think that Bell was overly cocky and self assured compared to his actual talent level. Esp. in his rookie year. I would guess that his player development process was hindered by his arrogance and lack of self awareness. Thus, IMO, only some, but not most of the reason he did not develop falls on the coaching staff.
That self alley-oop off the backboard 😳
that was cool & fun
Yeah, it was fun for us but the other team could see it that some young punk who hadn't proven he belonged in the league (actually, he still has not proven that) was trying to show them up. He's lucky he didn't get screened into the nosebleed seats at their next opportunity.
I am pro showboating
teams that feel salty about showboating in a blowout should consider not getting blown out
Exactly.
100
I think Jordan Bell was just immature. He did a lot of stuff (the Mike Brown hotel incident, throwing money around the room when he was drafted) that made him seem very much like a young teenager.
That said, he seems like a decent enough guy. I remember him doing a Warrior community service event at a school. As I recall (I couldn't find the story) someone had stolen a piece of equipment from the school. He was so moved by it, he replaced the equipment out of his own pocket. And, he wasn't making all that much money.
So, in my book, a good guy.
I would attribute the 'not improving' to the lack of young player development for the Warriors at the time. It was more a sink or swim approach as opposed to what they are doing now with the youth movement.
Wednesday morning mental gymnastics. Pick a six-man core group for your team using 2 players from 3 separate groups of three. It's one thing to pick the player you would lose from each group in isolation. But you have to consider the makeup of the 6-man group you have remaining.
Group 1: Steph, Klay, Dray
Group 2: Wiggins, Looney, Poole
Gtoup 3: Wiseman, JK, Moody
You're welcome. haha
ps. everyone is under contract for the same number of years, so contracts or salary cap won't be a part of this exercise.
Best 6-man group with the best reasoning/response gets a cookie.
Steph, JP, Moody, Wiggs, Dray, JK
Curry/Dray
Wiggins/Looney
Moody/Kuminga
I think Curry and Draymond are better than Klay and both are irreplaceable.
I think Wiggins and Looney play more valuable roles than Poole for a team with Curry.
I think Kuminga and Moody are better prospects than Wiseman.
I think my question here would be Looney and Dray together. I think you absolutely have to have one of them, but both leaves you with a 6-man group that is composed of 33% guys with nearly zero offensive game. This is certainly the best defensive group, but limited offensively and passing/play-making. Defensively, its a monster.
They were both in the most used playoff lineup of a championship team (and that lineup had a +18.7 net rating), I'm not concerned about that. There is no way to pick a 6 man team given the parameters you have laid out and not have some issues.
I picked my team for all your same reasons, except I picked Poole over Wiggs because he’s the only point guard that can run the team when Curry rests.
Klay Dray Wiggins Poole JK Moody
JK, Klay, Dray and Poole to stay in the backcourt and argue with the refs. Wiggins and Moody to rebound, shoot, play defense, and win the game. Passing is not needed since only one of them is on the court at any time.
I'm gonna have to make some more cookies. You created the All-Wings team, cutting out the shortest and tallest guys. Great switch-ability.
Er …….. Wardell?
If he can argue with the refs better than Klay, sure!
It's possible I wasn't taking this thought exercise that seriously. :)
Doing this before looking at other answers: Steph, Dray, Poole, Looney, Moody & Kuminga
Steph, klay, Wiggins, Poole, Wiseman, jk.... ....
Extremely explosive offensive talent with defensive upside as jk and wiseman being part of the core meaning more reps to meet there clear abilities to be great defenders. Wiggins and klay on the wings defending and then you have Poole coming off the bench which I think people seem to not realize that was extremely key for the warriors having a guy besides Steph who can actually create his own shots and others shots when the system isn't working and Steph is on the bench.
Ok, so this leads me to a group I was trying to think of that didn't have Dray. I agree, Steph, Klay, Poole, Wiggs, JK. That is a good defensive team but not great. You wouldn't take Looney over Wiseman in a vacuum, but I think I would put Looney here because you have enough scoring and Looney can guard inside and on the perimeter, and do the dirty work.
Opposite my response to Beli, I think no Dray or Loon removes all the defensive IQ in the lane. There could be upside with JK & Wise, but no one left to teach them. No doubt this can score in bunches. Best offensive group.
For this season, I gotta go with Steph, MM, Wiggs, Dray, Moody, JK.
Best defensive lineup with Steph. Best +/-, as well.
JP still needs to take steps to firm up his D, as do JK and JW. Leaving Klay out was the hardest decision.
You picked Moody twice. He ain’t THAT good.
Hey, I had Moody at all five positions!
Steph, Dray, Wiggins, Poole, Wiseman, JK.
Shooting, playmaking, defense, size, and athleticism are all accounted for in one form or another.
This is one of my top two. (I'm waiting to be swayed). As you said, you addressed all areas to create about the most balanced team, capable of competing against any style. Have a drink and chill near the podium.
Hope that drink was milk, 'cuz you got a cookie. ;-)
Steph, Dray, Wiggins, Poole, JK, Moody.
Mine were the same, except I picked Looney instead of Poole.
I picked Looney instead of Wiggins.
I think pretty much all of these ratings are spot-on with my perceptions, with the exception of Damian Jones whom I would probably bump up to a solid C. Sure, his most impactful minutes at this point in his career were with other teams than the Warriors, but I think that speaks to the separate question of how good is the FO at determining which players to keep year-to-year as opposed to how well they drafted, which seems to be the specific focus of this series. Since Damian Jones has shown himself to be a useful rotation center with a little bit of value over the last couple of years, I think that deserves a C grade relative to where he was drafted. Even if most of his development didn't come with us, I think he has shown himself to be a pretty decent player for a #30 pick. I think DJ is different from McCaw in this way because Pat did NOT become a better player after his Warriors tenure.
I would love to see a continuation (or expansion?) of this series that looks to compare Warriors drafting under Myers to all other teams in the league during the same time period, as opposed to comparing the Warriors drafts to the drafts of other dynasties in the last several decades. It would be cool to gauge how well Bob and this FO has done against their direct contemporaries using some kind of system to equalize draft value so that you could make some rudimentary measurements. Maybe something like this already exists? Without looking closely, I would be willing to bet that Bob is in the upper echelon of getting good value out of the draft when we normalize for draft position.
I second the solid C for the DJ pick. He was a youngster with us, and developing bigs often takes time. We fans tend to be impatient. He can be a serviceable backup. For a #30 pick, that doesn't suck.
The stories of Bell and McCaw really underscore why Bob tried to sign RR to a 3-year with the TPMLE.
A quick search did pull up this, which I have not had time to digest but you can check it out. It does put the GSW and Myers in particular right around average though, so I'm not sure about that!
https://towardsdatascience.com/which-nba-teams-are-best-at-drafting-20070ccd1702
Does this put it in the context of drafting from say #25 to #35 ... or #20 to #40? Because if you're including all of the teams with lottery picks, it obviously doesn't relate very well to where the Warriors are typically drafting.
You will need to read the article to get the more full description, but yes at a high level it is putting everything in context, and essentially saying based on who else was available, was it a good pick or not (kind of like Apricots manual method here). It seems actually pretty complex as it factors in things like expected draft position, so that Cleveland for example would get no positive credit for picking LeBron, because any team would have picked him, so it wasn't a particularly positive decision. And on the flip side, a team isn't dinged for picking Wiggins with the #1 pick in 2014 instead of Jokic, because it is not reasonable that anyone would have picked Jokic with the first pick. Anyway, Toronto ends up faring by far the best in the analysis, and many of theirs are late picks -- if anything I think this methodology can give too much credit to those picking later, because there isn't much chance of getting a negative rating on the pick (as an extreme example, the #60 pick or an undrafted guy can never be judged as a negative, but could be very positive).
As I read more about how he set it up, it is pretty interesting actually and overall seems like the methodology makes sense given what he is trying to do. Of course there are always going to be some things that look questionable on an individual basis, and I wouldn't use it as a definitive ranking of best drafters, but at a high level it checks out. The dashboard he links to with all of the details is pretty interesting to look around on. Overall these are some of my observations as it relates to the Warriors:
-the only GSW picks that make the threshold for "good" or better, are Curry, Klay (both before Myers), Green, Looney, and Poole. At least this matches who one would say our really good picks have been.
-Myers makes a lot of picks (buying into low second round, not trading away too many picks, etc), and most of these turn out to be roughly average (like Bell, McCaw, Jones mentioned here). This brings down his average a bit since it is diluting the good picks.
-I think his score will be on an upward trajectory, as Poole and Looney are likely to become even better relative picks as time goes on, and Wiseman basically can only go up from his current status of 3rd worst pick in 12 years. Additionally, no 2021+ picks count on the record yet, so it will be interesting to see how Kuminga and Moody end up faring.
-The way credit is assigned to a team ends up being a bit awkward at times, like undrafted Boucher and Lin are very high positives credited to the Warriors, but it seems kind of questionable that they should get positive credit for them. So actually if you remove those guys, the Warriors end up really being close to a net 0 middle of the pack in this analysis.
-When you look at enough individual examples, there are certainly some weird quirks. Like, how can 2020 Denver picking RJ Hampton with the #24 pick be the 19th worst pick over the 12 years, at -0.98 value. That just doesn't pass the eye test -- I see there were some decent guys picked in the next 6 picks of that draft, but it should not be possible for any #24 pick (a pick where on average the guy is probably going to have a short career) to have that much of a negative impact on your score. Similarly with the opposite way -- Kuzma at pick 27 and Klay at pick 11 have pretty similar scores, both being around +1. In a vacuum perhaps this makes some sense in terms of how much they have outperformed their draft position, but as a team outperforming on your 11th pick is going to have a lot more impact on building a good team than outperforming on the 27th pick. So to apply it back to actual team success, you would probably need some sort of weighting added.
It feels like the common thread here is that the Warriors often drafted guys who were talented enough to play in the NBA, and certainly more talented than their draft position - they just didn't develop them very well. Given the amount we've got invested in JFK, JW, and MM, let's hope that our focus on development coaches has turned this weakness into a strength.
One final thought: given the near apocalyptic commentary about the Warriors salary cap issues (for example, I just listened to the Ringer podcast about the Warriors offseason, and they didn't talk about DDV or JMG at all - just about Draymond's future contract extension), can you imagine the choices they would have had to make if they did end up with Brogdon, etc.?
Kuminga and wiseman are naturally way more gifted then those other drafted guys who didn't develop and moody seems to be a guy who will just be solid but already fits the system because he is a spot up shooter. Im not sure how the coaches work with the young guys but for 1 I'd like to see the system develope towards there strengths especially when Steph is off the floor but mainly I'd like to see or hear that wiseman and kuminga are constantly sitting down with coaches and watching film 1 on 1 and explaining the small things like timing on cuts and screens to get easy baskets. I believe they would be unstoppable if they ever get kuminga and wiseman to just understand the system in the roles of Draymond and Looney. Just hope they don't take the young talents for granted, sometimes special attention is needed to get guys to reach there potential. A perfect example is Wiggins....while he was still very good with the warriors it took something simple as Draymond, dre and Steph talking about how he doesn't rebound much for him to realize how all these years he could of been doing it at a much higher clip and that was a huge part of us winning the finals. If you can convince jk and wiseman they can average 30 just by knowing when to cut and play off Steph and Poole it would be elite
The investment in coaching really only can be fully realized if the FO is committed to keeping the good young guys for awhile, which either means that one of Klay/Dray/Wiggins is gone in the next couple years, or the FO is willing to absolutely demolish the bank.
Or the salary cap goes way up, or the CBA eliminates luxury taxes for home-grown players. I think Lacob was willing to part with the half-million dollars to get out his point, and potentially get that tax waived in the future.
For your last point, that is kind of the silver-lining on the Evans mishap. Although it shouldn't factor into an analysis on how well they drafted, imagine if they had taken Brunson instead of Evans. Then later they probably either they don't take Poole, or they still take Poole but his development suffers because Brunson takes more of his minutes. And then Brunson leaves anyway because we can't afford him. So in a butterfly-effect way it all worked out.
This also helps me accept the possibility of Wiseman being a bust (though still of course hoping that isn't the case!). Like, what if they had taken LaMelo... maybe then Poole or GP2 or whoever gets less playing time in the playoffs, and LaMelo does worse than they did do and the dubs don't end up winning it all. Of course, maybe they still win it all, but I guess it's just the whole "championship cures all" idea. Now that it's happened, you don't want to re-write the past and risk the butterfly burning it all down!
Jacob Evans feels like the reason the Warriors don't buy into older high floor/low-ceiling types that can "contribute now" in the draft.
Agree, though I believe Chris Duarte was high on their list last year.
Yeah, though Duarte context a little difference since he was seen as a lottery talent, so you could be fairly certain he'd be a rotation player at least.
With these late 1st/2nd rounders, it's successful if these guys are still in the NBA after their first contract.
I’d be pissed if we had taken Duarte over Moody, both now and at the time of the draft. And based on Lacob’s pouty body language when Duarte went off the board, it sounds like they probably would have grabbed him had he been there at #14. Thanks, Indy!!!
Totally agree on this. As it is, I think Moody is underrated. If you look at the game logs for his season, he was pretty terrible until end the of January, and then it was like somebody flipped a switch and he became an NBA player. In the 23 games he played in from 1/31 to the end of the season, he shot 46% from 3. That's ... really good, and those were mostly important games as well with the Warriors trying to hang on to the 3rd seed despite Curry being out for most of those games. Aside fro that, he played pretty darn good individual and team defense. I don't know what more you could ask from a 19 year old.
I am curious what would've happened if both Moody and Duarte were there at 14.
But yeah, big ooof if they had Duarte over Moody on their big board. Hopefully they thought Moody would be gone by 14 so they were selling Lacob on Duarte lol
I agree with the assessment as well, they were all nice picks given the drafting position, other than Jacobs.
For McCaw, it seems like a case where Iguodala's mentorship backfired. As you mentioned, he quickly proclaimed McCaw was going to be his successor. Knowing Andre, he probably hyped up to McCaw how much money he was going to get, and that he should strive to get what he deserves. I remember in an interview McCaw said he wanted to be the best basketball player in the world. Now, most NBA players may need to initially have that mentality to get where they are, I would expect at some point the goal becomes more realistic depending on your trajectory, like become an Iguodala or Klay.
In the end McCaw took a kind of unprecedented risk that didn't work out well for either him or the team, so I think it's ok to be irritated still, though at this point of course there isn't the feeling like "wow I wish we still had McCaw"
I just realized I called him Jacobs instead of Evans. Tricky double-first-namer!
On vaca, so this rough from memory. From 2013-2019, a 7 year window, if you added up all of the Warriors picks (not including Bell/McCaw beacause those picks were purchase) and got an average number, the Warriors ended up with the 37th pick for 7 years straight. Now, this was done assigning pick values using Tankathons pick value system, which is comparable to most pick value systems out there. Thus, it is a weighted system. Now mind you, this isn't 2 picks each draft. Over 7 years, using 'pick value', the Warriors averaged out getting a single player only each year at pick 37.
And out of that 7 years, we got a starting Center who played 104 games last year and who was instrumental in a Championship (let's face it, Looney saved our bacon on multiple occasions) and a young up-and-comer who is everyone's 2023 favorite to win 6th man of the year award (who is a two-way player, by that I mean, regular season AND playoffs).
For Bob Meyers, this is like being on Iron Chef, and instead of a well stocked pantry, you have to dumpster dive a 7/11 for the rest of your ingredients.
Did we miss out on some players. Yeah. Just like 29 others teams missed out on Loon and Poole, both of whom are top 6 rotation guys on a dynastic championship team.
There are certainly some swing-and-misses in this 7 years, and let's not forget Nemanja Nedovic. But Bob has 2 Panda like dingers, home runs hit on balls way out of the strike zone, in this window of time.
For comparison (again from memory) in this same 7 year window, the PHI 76ers averaged out on pick value to the tune of drafting 3rd AND 27th EVERY YEAR for 7 straight years (they had 35 picks in that time frame). Their 2nd player average 10 spots higher than the Warriors single average pick.
Just wanted to point this out, because when we look at the misses, we fail to appreciate the larger view, ie, the pitches we had to swing out vs the other teams in the league.
But awesome article and detail on that pick history. Just did Monterey Bay Aquarium with kids yesterday. Incredible stuff. Wahoo. Have a great Wednesday everyone.
Great cross sports code analogy #chefkiss
"The Panda Rule": Any analogy that brings up Pablo Sandoval increases the quality of a post by 50%.
Skidoosh!
I can't disagree with any of your assessments.
Just 2 minor quibbles:
Thomas Bryant was stuck at the end of the Wizards bench because he tore his ACL [I believe it was] so didn't play for big chunks of 2 seasons & just began playing again last season.
And Jacob Evans [and Omari Spellman] were part of the D'Angelo Russell trade to get Wiggins & the 1st round pick that became Kuminga to make the $$ work. GRIII & Alec Burks were traded to Philly to get under the salary cap.
Ah, that’s good context for Thomas Bryant’s situation. I have added it to the article.
Wiggins ($27.5m) and Russell ($27.3m) could have been traded straight up (if teams are over the cap, you have to get within 25% of salary to allow a trade), hence it was not necessary to include Evans and Spellman. In fact this was not desired by MIN and they later attached a 2nd rounder to get rid of them. GSW insisted as part of the move to get under the tax.
https://theathletic.com/2332989/2021/01/24/regrading-the-warriors-and-timberwolves-andrew-wiggins-dangelo-russell-trade/?redirected=1
Aaah OK.
Also want to point out that Bruce Brown is now in DEN
And I believe Bryant went back to the Lakers in free agency.
Thanks, I updated the article. There are so many other players I mentioned, I didn't want to go through and update all their current whereabouts, but I'll make updates requested in the comments...
Sorry, I misled you. I got the news completely wrong. It was not KD who said that.
He’s still a narcissistic artist