September 19, 2024

Warriors’ Bob Myers: ‘I Have No Idea’ What Trade Value for No. 2 Pick Is Yet

Warriors #Warriors

Ben Margot/Associated Press

Less than an hour apparently isn’t enough time for the Golden State Warriors to map out their entire plan for how they intend to use the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 NBA draft.

“We don’t really know anything at this point,” Warriors general manager Bob Myers said after the team received the second pick in Thursday’s draft lottery, per 97.5 The Game. “… I have no idea what the value is for that pick. … We don’t entirely control the draft, but all we have to like is two guys to be happy.”

Keeping the pick is clearly the most straightforward route.

One silver lining from the Warriors’ dreadful season is that they’d get the opportunity to land a young player on a reasonable contract. That latter feature is important for Golden State given how much money it has tied up with Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.

The issue with that plan is that Curry, Green and Thompson are 32, 30 and 30, respectively. By the time a 2020 first-round pick starts to bear fruit, the Warriors might start to get slowly diminishing returns from their three best players.

And there’s no guarantee that the player they’d pick would ever be a significant contributor to their next team with realistic title chances. One critique of this year’s draft class is that it lacks a true standout talent such as Zion Williamson or Ja Morant.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Thursday during the lottery broadcast that Golden State plans to gauge the trade market with its first-round pick, and that was before the team knew it would be selecting second overall.

Flipping the first-rounder for one or more veterans would make sense, but the problem would be finding a deal that’s actually worth it. The aforementioned questions about the upper tier of prospects could limit what the Warriors can reasonably expect to get.

Whatever Myers decides, he has until Oct. 16 to make up his mind.