Golden State Warriors should benefit from the lottery being pushed back
The NBA Draft Lottery and Combine have been postponed indefinitely, and it should give the Golden State Warriors more time to scout.
Both scheduled in May, the NBA has announced that the draft lottery and combine will be postponed. This leaves most rebuilding teams in limbo, not knowing where their next top selection will come at in the NBA Draft, a mid-June even yet to be postponed.
For now, there’s no re-scheduled date for the two events and it’s expected the third event is also postponed.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Teams have yet to get back in the gym for any type of workouts after some were expected to volunteer for individual workouts that were scheduled to start back up on May 1.
That has been postponed to later this week as the coronavirus is seemingly halting its spread yet has truly not died down. The curve, for most of the United States, is being flattened, but many aren’t viewing this as the time to ramp back up workouts.
That made the mid-May lottery almost impossible to put on. While they could absolutely have done it remotely like the NFL did their draft, that doesn’t seem like something the league wants to do.
The NBA has seemingly been adamant about keeping the season though. They don’t want to cancel it. As of now, the plan could be to resume play late in the summer, have a shortened offseason, and then start the next season in December.
For Golden State, having a combine is important. Many of these players like LaMelo Ball, RJ Hampton, and James Wiseman (only 3 games at Memphis) may not have the most film given that they didn’t play at the collegiate level.
Being able to have more time to scout their prospects is of utmost importance. Getting their pick right is important, especially for a team destined to make a strong championship run this next season.
Pushing these back was always going to the play, so this report shouldn’t come as a shocker.