The Golden State Warriors shooting guard room will look far different next season

At the very least, the Golden State Warriors will get a new starting shooting guard with five-time All-Star Klay Thompson returning. Well, to be fair, we also hoped he’d return this past season around this time last year.

Let’s just cross our fingers and hope for the best this time around. Assuming Thompson does return as planned, the Warriors will more than likely lose 25-year-old starting guard Kelly Oubre Jr.

The Golden State Warriors will finally get Klay Thompson back while their three other guards could all potentially be nixed.

It’s by far the more probable scenario that he’ll part ways with the team, and while they could manage a sign-and-trade that he’d have to agree to, anything revolving around his $20 million desired salary could be tough for the Warriors to pull off.

Oubre Jr. is a starting-caliber shooting guard, and when Thompson returns, he’d be relegated to the bench. That’s not going to happen. Given his energy and passion, it’d be great to see Oubre Jr. land in a big market like New York.

The other two shooting guards that may or may not be back next season are Damion Lee and Mychal Mulder. Both aren’t the most experienced nor have the highest ceiling, but they do know their role and make a good fit with the organization.

Veteran Kent Bazemore is another name to watch.

The Dubs shooting guard rotation was stacked last season. They had five shooting guards and just two centers, one of which started his career as a power forward.

The balance wasn’t necessarily there, but I’d expect them to re-think their strategy as February was a rough month with both Kevon Looney and James Wiseman sidelined for long periods of time.

Mulder and Lee are on non-guaranteed deals. If the team can’t get Bazemore back, who filled in when Oubre Jr. missed time and thrived with the starters, they’ll likely retain both their sharpshooters.

However, Mulder and Lee have similar styles of play.

Despite Mulder shooting over 40 percent from deep over the last few weeks of the season, Lee is still probably the preferred. He was the main two-guard threat when the team was at full strength.

Keeping both may hurt the Warriors in terms of depth at other positions.

The way the next few months pan out for the Warriors is that Oubre Jr. will likely sign elsewhere while the team looks to keep Bazemore and their two snipers. Despite the similarities, the Warriors may be too fond of their two bench guards to part ways with either.

At least one of the five won’t be back, and there could be far more change than just that in store for the Warriors this offseason.