Golden State Warriors NBA Draft Rumors: Team prefers Deni Avdija over LaMelo Ball
Deni Avdija isn’t the most well-known star, but he may quickly become one as the Golden State Warriors are apparently big fans of the Israeli forward.
The Golden State Warriors, a few weeks ago, learned they’ll officially have the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.
While they didn’t necessarily win the lottery as the Minnesota Timberwolves claimed the top-overall spot, the Warriors did much better than the Cleveland Cavaliers who were stuck with the fifth-overall pick.
That said, what Golden State does with the pick before the draft will be one of the most intriguing stories of the short offseason. Many league insiders still believe the Warriors will trade the high-value pick.
It would make sense for Golden State to put all their pieces in right now.
Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are coming off several months of recovery and should enter the 2020-2021 season at full strength. Both over 30, their window is closing. It may not be about putting together the most-talented team right now though but rather planning for the future.
If they do the latter, the Warriors could actually use their top-three pick. With the Timberwolves ahead of them and already currently rostering a top-tier point guard and center, they’re expected to go with the best wing available — Anthony Edwards.
That would leave the Warriors with the options of Deni Avdija, LaMelo Ball, Tyrese Haliburton, James Wiseman and many other highly-touted prospects. The answer to who among those four may already be in though.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau reported that the Warriors are “higher on” Avdija than they are on high-profile prospect LaMelo Ball. He also added that they are “possibly” higher on the 6-foot-9 than James Wiseman as well.
Avdija is a raw prospect that played 26 games with Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv. With Tel Aviv, he averaged a mere 4.0 points per game. The bigger deal was his three-point shooting that didn’t quite eclipse 30%.
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His savviness and basketball IQ would be what Golden State would bring him in for. But, it’ll be a few years before we tell if that outweighs his lack of athleticism compared to prospects like Edwards.