Golden State Warriors: A Look Back At First-Round Picks
By Ben Woodward
As the Golden State Warriors head into training camp anxious and ready to get cracking on what should be an exciting season, the jump ball on opening night still seems like it’s way too far off in the distance.
The promise of new head coach Steve Kerr is tangible. There’s anticipation of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson reuniting for more Splash Brothers adventures after winning gold in the FIBA World Basketball Cup. Even a healthy David Lee/Andrew Bogut combination should have fans teeming with excitement.
With all the anticipation and possibility that lay ahead for the Golden State Warriors in the 2014-15 season — and still an entire calendar month to wait — I choose to occupy my mind in a number of ways.
Sometimes I’ll watch highlights from last season. I may even watch entire games on NBA TV’s Hardwood Classics; it’s always cool to tune in and be taken back to 1991 where Mitch Richmond and Tim Hardaway’s Golden State Warriors are taking on Jerome Kersey’s Portland Trail Blazers on what looks like VHS-quality video.
Here’s my personal favorite time-killer during the offseason; looking back on past NBA drafts and either criticizing teams to death or wondering what would have been if Team A drafted Player X instead of Player Y.
Today I chose to revisit three of the Golden State Warriors first-round draft picks, while also playing everyone’s favorite draft analysis game: What Could Have Been? If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to keep your NBA mind active during the offseason, I highly recommend this exercise.
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Starting us off, we’re taken back to the 2012 NBA Draft in Newark, New Jersey. Making history for being the first draft in which the first two picks were from the same school (Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist from Kentucky), this draft was full of potential talent but lacked the effect of a LeBron James-type pick.
The Warriors, coming off a 23-43 season, had about a three-percent chance at the No. 1 overall pick. The ping pong balls didn’t exactly bounce their way, landing them the No. 7 pick in Harrison Barnes. The young swingman has been a bit of a project thus far, proving he can play at the NBA level but seemingly not comfortable in his skin thus far with the Dubs.
So here’s the fun part. Who could the Golden State Warriors have had with the number seven pick in 2012? At the time of their pick, UConn center Andre Drummond was still on the board. As a Dubs fan, would you rather have established yet injury-prone veteran Andrew Bogut, or promising young seven-footer coming off a dominant collegiate season? The Dubs passed on Drummond, who was drafted two picks later by the Detroit Pistons where he carved out his place as the starting center.
In the same draft, the Golden State Warriors held the 30th overall pick via the San Antonio Spurs; the last pick in the first round. They went with the extremely high-potential pick in Festus Ezeli, a center out of Vanderbilt. Think they thought maybe they knew something about him, thus passing on Drummond?
Ezeli hasn’t panned out just yet, but no one is counting him out. He missed last season due to injury and appears ready to do work on the court this year. Probably the best available player on the board, the Golden State Warriors made the right choice with this one. Especially because they were able to grab the next best available in Draymond Green in the second round with the 35th overall pick.
Rewinding now to the 2011 NBA Draft, the Golden State Warriors were coming off a 36-46 season and poised for a pick in the first half of the opening round. In what is described as a generally weak draft in terms of talent, the Dubs came away with possibly one of the best players on the board. With the 11th overall pick, the Golden State Warriors took Klay Thompson, a three-point specialist out of Washington State.
There are a lot of players in this draft that are just finding their niche in the NBA. Guys like Enes Kanter, Tristan Thompson and Jonas Valanciunas are all coming into their own, three years later. Kawhi Leonard was a major factor in the San Antonio Spurs’ Finals victory over the Miami Heat in 2013. Kyrie Irving will probably see a ring on his finger soon, and I’m not talking about a wedding band.
So what would the Golden State Warriors have looked like if they used that No. 11 pick on the aforementioned NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard? They probably wouldn’t have needed to go get Andre Iguodala to play the lockdown defensive forward role. But that would mean they wouldn’t have been able to clear the ridiculous contracts of Richard Jefferson and Andris Biedrins and eventually pay Stephen Curry, so all is well.
As the season approaches, Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry and the rest of the Dubs open camp on Tuesday and we can finally start looking forward to the 2014-15 NBA season and all it has in store for the Golden State Warriors.