San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Young forward Smailagic vexed by basic concepts
Santa Cruz Warriors head coach Kris Weems pulled aside Alen Smailagic after a game at the G League bubble last month to offer a simple directive: “You can’t try to score every time you touch the ball.”
More than 11⁄2 years after Golden State moved up in the 2019 NBA draft to take him with the No. 39 pick, Smailagic still is struggling with basic basketball concepts. Few have proved more vexing than the idea that, to make his presence felt in games, he must do more than dunk.
The Warriors are well aware of the reasons behind Smailagic’s continued learning curve. The NBA is a tough transition for any 20yearold, but particularly one with only a rudimentary understanding of English who hadn’t played above the semiprofessional Serbian third division before his move stateside. It also hasn’t helped that injuries have interrupted Smailagic’s development.
All of that might not matter, however, when the Warriors decide this summer whether to bring him back. The last two seasons of Smailagic’s fouryear rookie contract are nonguaranteed, with his $1.8 million deal for 202122 becoming guaranteed early in free agency. Golden State won’t have the luxury of seeing how he fares in Summer League or training camp before it must choose whether to give him another season.
What makes the situation especially bleak is that Smailagic won’t have many more opportunities to show the front office he warrants a longer look. Warriors head coach Steve Kerr already has more rotationcaliber players than rotation spots, which is why Mychal Mulder, Damion Lee and Brad Wanamaker — all of whom have plenty of quality NBA film — are struggling to find minutes.
Barring a rash of injuries, Smailagic doesn’t figure to play the rest of the season outside of garbage time or the occasional cameo. His underwhelming showing at the recent G League bubble near Orlando might force him to look elsewhere for a contract this summer.
After sitting out preseason and the first two months of the regular season with a knee injury suffered in training camp, Smailagic joined Santa Cruz in midFebruary, several games into its 15game season in a bubble environment on the Disney campus. Two practices later, he scored 19 points in 17 minutes of Santa Cruz’s Feb. 17 win over the Canton Charge.
But after the initial adrenaline rush of his season debut wore off, Smailagic looked out of shape, wheezing his way through 12 uninspired minutes in the next night’s win over the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Over his final eight games with Santa Cruz, he rarely played more than four minutes at a time before grabbing his shorts in exhaustion.
In those short bursts, Smailagic had a hard time fitting into a team concept. On numerous occasions, he ignored open teammates, putting his head down as he attacked the rim. Video of one such sequence — a botched dunk attempt in a Feb. 28 win over the Austin Spurs — went viral.
Unable to get enough lift on his jump, Smailagic threw the ball into the side of the rim and fell to the floor. As an Austin player grabbed the rebound and led a fast break, Smailagic laid on his back in the key, a look of bewilderment on his face.
That blunder became the enduring image of his time at the G League bubble. Though he flashed the athleticism and ballhandling that compelled Santa Cruz to make him the youngest player in G League history in 2018 and prompted Golden State to draft him a year later, Smailagic’s pergame averages of 7.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.9 fouls and 2.1 turnovers in 17 minutes reinforced what the front office already knew: He’s a long way from contributing to the NBA club.
“He obviously wanted to play better and contribute more, but his conditioning just wasn’t there,” Weems said of Smailagic, who shot 15% from 3point range at the G League bubble — a troubling development given that Golden State sees him as a pickandpop forward in the NBA in the same mold as the Wizards’ Davis Bertans. “I know he was frustrated.”
When the Warriors took Smailagic with the ninth pick of the second round in 2019, they knew he was a longterm project. Unlike many international prospects, who at least have highlevel professional experience overseas before getting drafted, Smailagic’s most notable film from abroad was of him throwing down dunks over much smaller teens in a cramped gym with a soccer goal sitting along the baseline.
Video from his 201819 season with Santa Cruz showed a young big man who tried to score on older opponents almost every time he got the ball. The fact that he hasn’t figured out how to play off the ball and find his points in the flow of the offense is a result of setbacks in his development. Smailagic suffered injuries in training camp each of the past two years, which forced him to miss crucial practices and preseason games.
But in the NBA, such excuses mean little. There are numerous stories of prospects drafted as longterm projects who were waived when they couldn’t crack the rotation after a couple of years. Some go on to carve out niches on other NBA teams. Many spend the rest of their careers in the G League or overseas.
It remains to be seen whether Smailagic develops into the floorspacing big man the Warriors envisioned in him. But at this point, he almost definitely won’t be on Golden State’s 15man roster next season. His best chance of sticking would be clearing waivers and signing a twoway contract.
“He wants to be a contributor to something really good, but sometimes the timing doesn’t allow for that,” Weems said. “He probably does need at least another year of development.”