Questions aplenty in Warriors’ offseason

No. 1 draft pick, trade for Pacers’ Sabonis possible

Warriors general manager Bob Myers has a lot to do though the NBA is idled by the coronarvirus.

In the coming months, he’ll use the information available to make draft picks and freeagency decisions that will determine whether Golden State vaults back to contention next season. Here are five questions the Warriors face in the extended offseason:

1. What will the Warriors do in the draft?

It seems unlikely the league will play the remainder of the regular season at a later date. Even if play resumes after the NBA’s planned fourweek suspension, the Warriors (1550) would have only three more games — not enough to avoid having a leagueworst record.

That would give Golden State a 14% chance to land the No. 1 pick and ensure it has no worse than the No. 5 selection in the draft scheduled for June 25.

With Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green all in their early 30s, Golden State needs a young player capable of leading it once those three decline in production or retire. But finding that man won’t be easy. Not only is this widely considered the weakest draft in more than a halfdecade, but the Warriors will enter it with less information than ever before because of disruptions in college and international basketball caused by the coronavirus.

Odds are high that the NBA’s draft combine, scheduled for late May, and predraft workouts also will be canceled.

Even if the European domes

tic league’s playoff games unfold as planned in April and May, NBA scouts almost definitely won’t be able to attend.

If Golden State isn’t confident it can take a differencemaker where it’s selecting, it might trade down or out of the draft.

2. Can Golden State find help in free agency?

Given that the Warriors are in line to open next season with more than a halfdozen players 25 or younger, they might want to use free agency to round out the rotation with established NBA contributors. That seems quite doable. Only five teams — Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Miami and New York — are expected to have salarycap space, which means even proven rotation players could have to settle for the $6 million midlevel exception.

Barring any major roster changes, the Warriors will try to use that contract on a center or backup small forward. One name that already has been mentioned as a possibility is forward Glenn Robinson III.

Before he was traded to Philadelphia at the deadline, Robinson was enjoying a career season with the Warriors, averaging 12.9 points on 48.1% shooting (40% from 3point range) and often guarding the opponent’s best scorer. He’d be an ideal backup to Andrew Wiggins at small forward. Depending on how much roster space it has left, Golden State also might want to bolster its backcourt.

3. How will the Warriors use their traded player exception?

A trade exception is created when one team moves more salary than it gets back in a trade. The team that dealt away the bigger salary receives a trade exception, which can be used over the next 12 months.

The Warriors can’t break up a trade exception in multiple deals, and they can’t get more than one player in return for a trade exception. Though Golden State can’t pair a contract with the trade exception, it can add draft picks to the trade exception.

This might be the Warriors’ best chance of landing a differencemaker this summer. By packaging a topfive pick in June’s draft with the $17.2 million trade exception from the Andre Iguodala deal with Memphis, Golden State would give itself a shot at a key player on a team looking to unload salary and move up in the draft.

A couple of intriguing possibilities under that scenario are Indiana forward Domantas Sabonis ($17.2 million in 202021) and Orlando forward Jonathan Isaac ($7.3 million, extension eligible). But given that picks in this draft don’t have the market value of past drafts, the

Warriors’ best option might be packaging their topfive pick with the trade exception to move down in the draft and bring back a rotationcaliber player.

Golden State has until July 7 to use its trade exception. According to a league source, the Warriors “almost definitely” will find a way to maximize it.

4. Will the extra rest help key players get healthy?

The Warriors have had players miss a combined 296 games because of injury, second only to the Wizards’ 311. Thompson (left knee surgery) already wasn’t expected to return until next season, but starting the offseason more than a month early could help Curry (60 games missed), Green (22 games missed) and others get fully healthy.

Perhaps no one could use the extended break more than Kevon Looney. After signing a threeyear, $15 million contract in July, Looney dealt with health problems that threatened to end his career. There was a neuropathic condition in

his leg that sidelined him 20 games, a sore left abdomen that sidelined him 18 and a sore left hip that sidelined him six.

5. Which players on nonguaranteed contracts will make next season’s roster?

The Warriors likely have 11 of next season’s roster spots spoken for: Curry, Thompson, Wiggins, Green, Looney, Jordan Poole, Alen Smailagic, Eric Paschall, a firstround draft pick, a player signed to the midlevel exception and someone acquired with the trade exception. That leaves, at most, four jobs for the five Golden State players under nonguaranteed contracts in 202021: Ky Bowman, Marquese Chriss, Damion Lee, Mychal Mulder and Juan ToscanoAnderson. Out of that group, Chriss and Lee are the only ones assured to make the roster.