The Golden State Warriors hit what seemed like home runs on back-to-back second round picks in 2016 and 2017. They may end up robbing themselves of both.
The script may not be identical, but it is certainly fraternal.
The Golden State Warriors, out a second round selection, buy the No. 38 pick from a sympathetic Central Division rebuilder. They take a player that many pegged for the first round, who slipped due to some combination of character concerns, age and perceived lack of upside.
The league nonetheless kicks its collective self instantly, seeing how perfectly this guy fits into the Warriors system. That kick turns into a gut-punch when he shows out weeks later at NBA Summer League, and into greater self harm that I will not analogize throughout a productive season. Finally it turns into resignation, when the rookie plays major minutes in championship-deciding affairs that spring.
While the league commiserated over passing on Patrick McCaw and Jordan Bell, the Warriors celebrated.
Adding talent of any sort is hard enough with their luxury tax concerns, and the players that are willing to take discounts to win are generally on the back-end of their careers. Hitting on late draft picks is virtually the only way for Golden State to acquire quality young players, and doing just that two years in a row was one of general manager Bob Myers’ greatest victories.
However, even these successes cannot exist separate from the team’s financial situation. As a second round pick, McCaw hit restricted free agency after just two seasons, and the same will be true of Bell this summer.
McCaw was so impressive as a rookie that there seemed to be conflicting feelings regarding his sophomore season. While Golden State certainly wanted to see growth, it did not want its young wing to command too much on the open market. Without ever stating this publicly (no team ever would admit to this approach), the proof was in Myers’ 2017 signings: Nick Young and Omri Casspi. Both profiled as 3-and-D wings, and both infringed on the minutes McCaw had seemingly earned as a rookie.
Not surprisingly, he struggled in Year 2. His confidence went down along with his minutes, and when he hit free agency last summer, his value was at a nadir. This seemingly played into the Warriors’ hands, as McCaw received no reported substantial offer sheets. Part of this is the nature of being a restricted free agent, as teams don’t want to tie up cap space for up to 48 hours while the team with match rights contemplates its decision.
But as disadvantageous as restricted free agency is, it is free agency nonetheless. McCaw made this abundantly clear, as he refused to accept the qualifying offer or sign any offer sheet he expected Golden State to match.
Something was broken in this relationship. We may never know what it was, but it’s hard to imagine that the way his second season was handled from an acquisition and playing time perspective didn’t play a part in the falling out. This is especially likely if McCaw read it as I — and many others — did: That these decisions were, in effect, made to cost him money.
The Warriors clearly lost the battle. While they succeeded in keeping McCaw’s value down, they failed in keeping him — which was the entire point. Nonetheless, they seemingly doubled down on this strategy with Bell.
After an impressive start to his rookie season, a midseason ankle injury set Bell back. However, he was playing crucial minutes again by the Western Conference Finals, and looked to be the team’s starting center of the future.
With Young and Casspi gone, a wing was the obvious Mid-Level Exception target entering last offseason. DeMarcus Cousins becoming unexpectedly available is a more-than-plausible reason to change course, but it did set the stage for a squeeze in frontcourt minutes.
Of course, until last week, Cousins was not playing. In that sense, his signing — and the departures of JaVale McGee, Zaza Pachulia and David West — should have opened the door for Bell wider than it was to begin last season.
And yet, Kerr started Damian Jones, a far more raw, less proven commodity. Again, there was plausible deniability — they needed to see what they had in the 2016 first round pick before the Oct. 31 deadline to pick up his fourth year option.
But if curiosity and information acquisition trumps merit when it comes to Kerr’s early-season rotations, it’s curious why Kevon Looney and Jonas Jerebko took the bulk of the backup center minutes initially, and continued to play over Bell with Jones out, and now with Cousins in.
Bell is not faultless in this. His performance has regressed in Year 2, both statistically and in the eye test. His true shooting percentage is 53.9 (64.1 percent as a rookie), and his per-minute scoring, rebounds, assists and steals are all down.
His one real improvement since last season is in the viability of his mid-range jumper, which in and of itself is not a viable option for Golden State’s offense outside of garbage time. He’s still positionally unaware on defense, indecisive on offense, and less dynamic a lob threat than someone with his leaping ability should be. He makes the sort of mental errors that you expect out of a second-year player, but are tougher to swallow when said player went to college for four years and is already 24 years old.
In another way, those errors are tough to pin on Bell. A player who feels he has to battle for minutes that he’s already earned is more likely to struggle with focus and decision-making. Bell thrived on aggressiveness as a rookie, but Kerr’s repeated bouts of public frustration with him seem to be playing a role in his increased passivity.
Most recently, he appeared to berate Bell on the sideline during the fourth quarter of a blowout win against the Los Angeles Lakers.
With Cousins becoming re-integrated, Bell’s window to force his way into the rotation may have already closed. How is he going to react this summer, knowing that window may have been locked from the outset?
There are multiple prices to pay for building a team of superstars as Golden State has. There’s the financial price of the massive luxury tax bills, and the roster-building price of finding fewer and fewer ways to acquire and retain young talent.
By perhaps trying too hard to mitigate the first cost, Golden State has increased the second.