Mannion working his way into Warriors’ future
Warriors guard Nico Mannion was riding shotgun to his parents’ house in Phoenix three weeks ago when he told his father, Pace, that his chance to prove himself in the NBA finally had arrived.
In the 31⁄2 months since Golden State had taken Nico 48th overall in the draft, Pace spoke often with his son about the importance of capitalizing on opportunities. Pace, a former shooting guard whose pro career spanned six NBA teams in six years and more than a decade in Italy, knew as well as anyone that secondround picks might only get a couple shots to show that they belong at the sport’s highest level.
Over the next several days, while some of his teammates spent the AllStar break vacationing in tropical locales, Nico toiled through rigorous workouts with his longtime personal trainer in Phoenix. By the time he rejoined the Warriors, Mannion felt ready — both mentally and physically — to make his case for the backup point guard job.
Last week, when Golden State traded guard Brad Wanamaker and a 2022 secondround pick to the Hornets for a 2025 secondround pick, it left little doubt: Mannion had impressed enough to warrant a regular place in the rotation. Some in the Warriors’ organization view him as a potential longterm answer as Stephen Curry’s primary backup.
With two 15man roster spots now available, Golden State has considered converting Mannion’s twoway deal into a standard minimum contract. This would allow the franchise to put him on a multiyear deal and avoid letting him become a restricted free agent this summer.
“It gives me a lot of confidence knowing coach (Steve Kerr) believes in me,” said Mannion, who is averaging 7.4 points, 3.2 assists and 18.8
minutes in 11 games this month. “I know he said something the other day about the young guys getting reps. He’ll live with a couple of mistakes we make just because that’s what we need to gain experience and get better. That’s comforting knowing that’s there.”
The Warriors were ecstatic that Mannion was still available so late in the November draft. He’d been projected just a year earlier as a top10 selection and if not for a plodding doublepost offense at Arizona that afforded him little room to operate he might have made good on his fivestar pedigree and gone in the lottery.
But as much as the Warriors might have liked him, hearrived at training camp in the same situation as many late secondrounders: facing long odds to even get meaningful minutes. Wanamaker had signed a oneyear, $2.25 million contract to be Curry’s backup. In the Warriors’ first 19 games, Mannion made just six appearances, averaging 1.5 points and two assists in six minutes.
Being out of the rotation allowed him to study Curry from the bench. Though Mannion’s playing style differs in many ways, he had spent hours in the leadup to the draft dissecting each facet of Curry’s shooting motion on YouTube: how he receives the ball low, quickly raises it above his head and releases it with such a high arc that almost no one can block it.
Mannion met Curry at Curry’s SC30 Select Camp in Walnut Creek in 2018, and he
considered him a sort of mentor. What Mannion didn’t realize until he shared a roster with Curry, however, was that the twotime NBA MVP was the Warriors’ most diligent worker. One morning in late December, Mannion arrived at the training facility hours before practice and found Curry lifting by himself.
The two quickly bonded over a shared background: In addition to being born on the same date 13 years apart, Curry and Mannion both have mothers who played highlevel volleyball and fathers who played in the NBA. Recognizing that Mannion had a desire to be great, Curry started pull
ing him aside after workouts to school him on the nuances of pickandroll coverage, helpside defense and offball movement.
Mannion could see in how Curry spoke to him that Curry expected the rookie to execute those talking points in games. In the few opportunities Mannion got early in the season, he flashed enough poise and court vision for Kerr to call him the team’s thirdbest passer behind Curry and forward Draymond Green.
“Nico sees that it’s not just because of Godgiven talent that Steph is where he is,” Pace Mannion said. “He’s put in hours and hours of work, and he needs to do that to stay sharp. It’s good for a young kid to see that and think, ‘If he can still do that at 33, and I’m only 20, how much work should I do to get to those levels?’”
In early February, the Warriors sent Mannion to the G League bubble near Orlando, where he committed a combined 15 turnovers in his first two games. But as weeks passed in that lowerstakes environment, he came to grasp the subtleties of playing point guard against pros: when to kick out to shooters, how to dictate tempo, when to switch off screens.
Kerr tracked Mannion’s progress closely. Three weeks ago, with Wanamaker struggling to make the reads and shots Golden State’s system demands, Kerr decided to give Mannion an extended opportunity running the NBA club’s offense. After shooting 3for10 from the field with three fouls and five turnovers in his first career start March 4 at Phoenix, Mannion talked to his dad about the urgency of the moment.
A few more bad performances, and he could be relegated back to the bench with no guarantee of getting another chance in the NBA. What the Warriors have seen from him since those AllStar break workouts in Phoenix, however, should at least ensure that he has a rotation role for the rest of the season.
As far as solidifying a spot in Golden State’s longterm plans? That will require more opportunities seized.
“He’s not backing down from anybody,” Curry said of Mannion. “He has that competitive fire that’s going to carry him a long way.”