JaVale McGee: Low Risk, High Reward, and a Whole Lot of Fun

JaVale McGee should have the best chance to make it out of training camp and onto the Golden State Warriors roster.

Amongst all the crazy off-court antics centered around a certain undersized but incredibly versatile point forward/small ball center this summer, one of the most shocking news stories concerning the 2015 NBA champion Golden State Warriors this offseason was ESPN’s Marc Stein’s report that the team had signed two-time Shaqtin’ A Fool MVP JaVale McGee to a make-good contract, giving the 7-foot center a chance to make the regular season roster out of training camp.

As Blue Man Hoop editor Carlos Murillo wrote a couple days ago, McGee, 28, doesn’t have a guaranteed spot on the team, but he does have a chance, and he will competing for that final roster slot against a number of other NBA guys like 2015 NBA D-League Finals MVP Elliot Williams, whom many Warriors fans may remember from his time playing with the Santa Cruz Warriors.

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While Williams is certainly an intriguing name to consider taking the 15th and final roster spot on the Warriors, the fact of the matter is Williams — a scoring guard — would end up joining a crowded backcourt of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Patrick McCaw, Ian Clark, and Shaun Livingston, each of whom are solid scorers in their own right.

Although many would have casual fans believe that a team could never have too many scorers, in the thoughtful words of James Harden: “…there’s only one basketball.”

It’s only fair to mention Klay Thompson‘s rebuttal, in which he says “There’s one ball. Guess what we’ll do — we’ll put in the hoop. And the open man will do it, or the hot hand.” Still, it’s difficult trying to see a need for scoring outside of Curry, Thompson, and the new guy on the wing, Kevin Durant.

One look at the Warriors’ big man rotation of Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia, David West, Kevon Looney, Anderson Varejao, James Michael McAdoo, and the injured Damian Jones, and it’s clear that Golden State is without a proven shot blocker after the departure of Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli, which makes the addition of McGee all that more plausible — and necessary.

Sporting a per game career average of 1.7 blocks — not to mention a per 36 career average of 3.2 blocks — McGee fills a role that the Warriors so desperately need filled. He could use a bit of fine tuning with his ability cleaning the glass, but the Warriors can work with what they have.

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Though some may get caught up in the electrifying, sharpshooting, fast break offense that the Warriors are so famous for displaying on a night-to-night basis, others forget that it was the defensive upgrades the team made in the paint that really put them over the top.

While McGee doesn’t at all replace what both Bogut and Ezeli did for the team defensively, he sure as hell has the length and athleticism to protect the rim better than any of the other options on the roster.

Surrounded by the Warriors’ personnel and embedded into their winning culture, this is McGee’s best route to unlocking his potential and/or building a positive name for himself in the NBA.

Barring any kind of health concerns, if McGee can find a way to center his focus on JUST the defensive end, then it’s entirely possible he earns a ring as everyone’s favorite rim protector — not to mention, the cheapest — on the best team in the league.

And if he doesn’t learn to do any of that, then DubNation gets front row seats to one of the silliest, goofiest, most bizarre players in the league, which is an awesome consolation prize if you ask me.

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