Golden State Warriors’ bizarre 2022 offseason now looks even worse

It’s unusual for any NBA team, right on the back of an NBA championship, to double-down on the idea of building a young core in the hope it would sustain success for the next decade or longer. But that’s what the Golden State Warriors’ vision was last offseason, one that’s now largely been tossed aside in spectacular fashion.

The Warriors entered last offseason full of optimism and joy after a triumphant title win against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Yet what followed through the summer was an unserious effort to try and re-tool for a crack at back-to-back championships.

The front office and ownership believed in impending improvement from the team’s recent lottery picks — James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody — as well as another youngster in Jordan Poole who in fairness had contributed heavily to their championship. However, rather than finding some insurance in case things went awry, the Warriors went back to the draft yet again.

The Golden State Warriors drafted Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Ryan Rollins in last year’s NBA draft, only for the pair to depart the franchise 12 months later.

Golden State took an upside play with the 28th overall pick last year, selecting Patrick Baldwin Jr. after one underwhelming and injury-plagued college year in Milwaukee. Not content with that, they literally spent money on acquiring the 44th overall pick in the second-round which they used on Ryan Rollins.

The result? The Warriors entered the 2022-23 season with six players 23-years-old or younger, used a roster spot on veteran Andre Iguodala who unsurprisingly was out practically the whole season, and kept the 15th roster spot open vacant till the last possible point in the season. Looking back, it’s no surprise this team was never able to repeat the heroics of the previous season.

But if the season was wasted from a winning perspective, surely the growth of their youngsters would give reason for optimism next year and in the future? Instead, all the Warrior youngsters aside from Poole saw sporadic minutes, even Jonathan Kuminga who was a bright light until being completely axed from the rotation come the postseason.

Fast-forward to now and Golden State have just traded Poole and last year’s draft picks — Baldwin and Rollins — as part of a deal for 38-year-old Chris Paul. It comes after they moved Wiseman for Gary Payton II at February’s trade deadline. It’s not an horrific situation by any means, but it does open up further questions on what the heck they were doing last offseason.

They ultimately drafted Baldwin and Rollins for no real reason, moving them onto the Washington Wizards 12 months into their career. Sure, that’s the risk you take with later draft prospects, but the franchise shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place.

They clearly thought their was potential in Baldwin and Rollins, perhaps quite rightly given the former showed some impressive signs as a stretch forward/big in his limited minutes this season. But it wasn’t their time to take flyers on unproven prospects, and now they’ve wasted a year with little in return. Perhaps you could argue Baldwin has yielded them Trayce Jackson-Davis — the 57th overall pick in Thursday’s draft — but even that is more for financial reasons.

Ironically, part of the Paul trade was to send Rollins out to open up a roster spot come free agency, one they would have had last season too if they hadn’t have paid up to get him in the draft. The only positive here is that the front office, under the new leadership of Mike Dunleavy Jr., is finally seeing the light in re-writing the wrongs of last offseason and focusing more on the Warriors’ championship core.