- Anthony Slater of The Athletic makes a case for why Spurs veterans Rudy Gay and Patty Mills could be logical trade targets for the Warriors this offseason. Gay will make $14MM, while Mills will earn $13.3MM, so either player would fit in Golden State’s $17MM+ trade exception.
- John Hollinger of The Athletic questions whether the Warriors really need to prioritize acquiring a center this offseason and explores how the Timberwolves might address their shooting guard and forward spots.
The NBA has moved up its 2020 draft lottery by five days, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, who reports (via Twitter) that the event, previously tentatively scheduled for August 25, will now take place on Thursday, August 20.
The eight teams with the best odds in this year’s lottery are the same eight teams that weren’t invited to participate in the resumption of the 2019/20 season in Orlando. The Warriors, Cavaliers, and Timberwolves each have a 14.0% chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick, followed by the Hawks (12.5%), Pistons (10.5%), Knicks (9.0%), Bulls (7.5%), and Hornets (6.0%).
The other six teams that will be part of the 2020 lottery will be determined once this season’s 16 playoff teams have been set, which will happen a few days before August 20. The six clubs in Orlando that don’t make the postseason will occupy the bottom six spots in the lottery standings — their order will be determined by their records as of March 11.
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The tentative 2020 NBA draft lottery odds, assuming the Grizzlies, Magic, and Nets all hang onto their playoff spots, can be found right here. This year’s draft will take place on October 16.
- Ethan Strauss of The Athletic identifies the wings in this year’s draft class that he thinks would fit best with the Warriors, including Isaac Okoro, Aaron Nesmith, and Saddiq Bey.
The Warriors will need to consider free agent backup point guard candidates during their upcoming offseason. Since Golden State will be stretched thin due to some exorbitant contracts to the team’s top four players, The Athletic’s Anthony Slater makes the case for 28-year-old injury-prone non-shooter Michael Carter-Williams, an unrestricted free agent, on a league minimum.
- Despite their historic five-year run, the Warriors‘ stars still feel like they have something to prove, Damion Lee said this week on the Runnin’ Plays podcast (hat tip to Kerith Burke of NBC Sports). “Steph (Curry) revolutionized the game,” Lee said. “But if you look at him, Klay (Thompson), Draymond (Green), a lot of guys on this team, we’re all guys that have a chip (on our shoulders).” He explained that all three players had doubters when they came into the league.
- Appearing this week on David Aldridge’s “Hoops, Adjacent” podcast at The Athletic, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr discussed a bevy of topics. Among them: His desire to conduct offseason team activities and the Warriors’ plan for Stephen Curry to make sure they’re “not wearing him out” going forward.
- Oubre, who will be an unrestricted free agent in the 2021/22 season, could be an appealing trade target for the Warriors, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Slater assesses the Suns forward’s fit with Golden State. The contracts would line up nicely: Oubre is owed $14.2MM in 2020/21, and the Warriors have a $17.2MM trade exception on their books as a result of their Andre Iguodala trade last summer.
- Appearing on the Envergure podcast (French video link), agent Yann Balikouzou indicated that his client Killian Hayes will interview with the Timberwolves and Warriors, but doesn’t expect to talk to the Cavaliers, since they’re unlikely to draft a guard (hat tip to Darren Wolfson).
- Arizona forward Zeke Nnaji had an interview with the Rockets and is meeting with the Warriors this week, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News.
4:14pm: Within her full ESPN.com story on the proposed Chicago campus, MacMullan writes that most of the bottom eight teams would prefer to hold mini-camps in their own markets, but commissioner Adam Silver and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts – who have repeatedly expressed that they believe the Orlando campus will be safer than teams’ own markets – want to create a similar environment for the non-Orlando teams before they approve group workouts and scrimmages.
Seven of the bottom eight teams – all except the Knicks – were on a call today with the NBA to discuss the issue, with the league seeking assurances that teams would send their players to Chicago, per MacMullan. There’s a belief that veterans like Stephen Curry and Blake Griffin may not travel to Chicago for the event, but that younger players would be more inclined to participate.
Participation would be voluntary and the cost of setting up the campus would be split among the NBA’s 30 clubs, sources tell ESPN. MacMullan notes that some of the bottom eight teams want to wait a couple weeks to see how the Orlando plan plays out, while others are in favor of moving forward with a plan as soon as possible, since they don’t believe there’s a ton of time to work out the details.
There’s still work to be done before the NBPA signs off on the plan, tweets K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago.
3:56pm: The NBA is close to signing off on creating a second campus location in Chicago for the league’s bottom eight teams who weren’t invited to Orlando, sources tell ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan (Twitter link via Adrian Wojnarowski).
As MacMullan reports – and Woj relays – the eight clubs not invited to Orlando would be permitted to hold mini-training camps and inter-squad games in Chicago. The goal would be for the event to take place in September.
The news comes as a bit of a surprise. Many of the clubs whose seasons are over have been pushing the NBA to allow some sort of offseason team activities along these lines, in the hopes of keeping their young players engaged and active during a nine-month gap between games. However, a report earlier this week suggested that the NBA wasn’t expected to approve mandatory OTAs, and there was skepticism that the league would go to the effort of creating another “bubble” without its massive TV deals – and its 2020 postseason – at stake.
We’ll have to wait for more details on the NBA’s Chicago plan, but it seems safe to assume there would be more player opt-outs among the bottom eight teams than there have been among the top 22. As Bobby Marks of ESPN points out (via Twitter) that approximately 40 players on the non-Orlando teams could reach free agency in October, limiting their incentive to participate in a September mini-camp for teams they may be leaving a month later.
The Warriors are the only team without any pending free agents on their roster, but Anthony Slater of The Athletic notes (via Twitter) that their preference has been to hold a controlled mini-camp in the Bay Area — not to participate in a de facto Summer League across the country.
The Warriors, Timberwolves, Hornets, Bulls, Hawks, Knicks, Cavaliers, and Pistons are the eight teams not playing in Orlando this summer who would be invited to the Chicago campus, assuming the NBA and NBPA finalize an agreement.