No matter how the remainder of the 2020 NBA season plays out (if at all), the draft is more than likely going to take place some time this summer.
With the season on hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, teams are currently in a holding pattern. That has not stopped some squads from preparing for the offseason to come. This includes a Golden State Warriors team that entered the suspended portion of the season with a league-worst 15-50 record.
We’re now hearing reports about Golden State’s brass not being high on two potential top prospects in that of Memphis center James Wiseman and well-known guard LaMelo Ball.
“According to multiple league sources The Chronicle contacted in the past few days, the Warriors — contrary to what mock drafts might suggest — aren’t believed to be high on two of the three players being mentioned as possibilities at the No. 1 pick,” insider Connor Letourneau reported Wednesday. “Former Memphis center James Wiseman and point guard LaMelo Ball, who last played for the Illawarra Hawks of Australia’s National Basketball League. As one source put it, “I think they’d only take one of those two if they were trading down in the draft and taking them for another team.”
Golden State has been linked to both players at a near never-ending loop in recent weeks. Potentially set to boast the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, general manager Bob Myers and Co. now have a decision to make. Former Georgia guard Anthony Edwards is now favored to go at the top of the annual event.
Is that a position the Warriors might consider with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson set to return from injury? We’re not too sure.
It’s more likely that Golden State uses whatever pick is acquires at the top of the draft as an asset to acquire another star player to team up with Curry and Thompson down the road. Neither Wiseman nor Ball seem to be options under that theory.