Previously, I talked about Giannis and the upcoming NBA Draft, thinking about the Warriors possibilities in both.
If I’m honest, however, if I were the Warriors, I wouldn’t go for Giannis and I wouldn’t simply make the pick.
Giannis is still great, but he is no longer the easy “trade everything and figure it out later” bet. He turns 32 this year, would handicap the Warriors in both salary cap and future assets, and likely turns the trade into some version of Butler for Giannis plus most of the remaining draft capital. That may raise the ceiling, but it also narrows every other path.
Making the pick has the opposite problem. The No. 11 pick is valuable, but the realistic good-case version of that player probably joins the rotation right away. That is useful, but it does not necessarily boost the Warriors back to contention. The Warriors do not just need another young player. They need another 16-game player: someone who can stay on the floor in a real playoff series.
Instead, I would use that pick, and potentially others, to bring in a young, good-contract player who might have a Nickeil Alexander-Walker unlock in him.
That means the ideal target is already a 16-game player, or close enough that the Warriors are not betting on a totally new player. In the right role with the Warriors, he could become a premium starter.
This would allow the Warriors to keep their core players and add more talent. They need to add more 16-game players, not just swap existing ones for better ones. Butler for Giannis is still a swap. It makes the top better, but it may not make the whole playoff rotation good enough.
The better question is where being aggressive has the best expected value.
Using No. 11 on a rookie keeps the asset cheap, but it asks an old team to wait. Even if the pick hits, the most likely timeline is Year 2 or Year 3. The Warriors need playoff minutes now.
Trading everything for Giannis is the opposite problem. Giannis is good enough, but the cost may solve one problem while creating several others: no depth, no flexibility, no future picks, and very little margin for age or injury.
That leaves a third path: use the pick(s) as currency for a player who is already closer to playoff usefulness than the average rookie, but still young enough to have another level.
This is an optionality strategy, not just a talent strategy: the Warriors are trying to add a player who can help now without closing off the next move.
If the Warriors trade one or two picks for the right young player, they can still keep most of the roster intact, retain existing talent, and give themselves time to see whether the player scales in a bigger role. If he does, they found a premium starter before the market fully priced him. If he does not, they still have a movable player, some remaining draft capital, and a path to the next deal.
That is very different from the Giannis path. With Giannis, the Warriors may get the best player in the trade, but they also lose most of their optionality. The assets are gone, the cap is tied up, and the team becomes dependent on an aging superstar staying healthy and drama-free deep into a max contract.
That is why the price matters. One pick is a bet. Two picks is an aggressive bet. Three picks is only for someone with a real chance to become a premium starter. Four picks is only for someone who already looks close to that level.
The process was:
Start with contract value. The player had to be under roughly $20 million, young enough to still improve, and ideally controlled (including restricted rights) for at least two more seasons. I removed players who are restricted free agents this summer because they are harder to acquire cleanly and likely require sending real salary back.
Look for a reason the other team might say yes. A good young player on a cheap deal is not available just because the Warriors want him. There needs to be a forcing function: apron pressure, a coming extension crunch, a position logjam, a roster reset, or a larger star-trade scenario.
Filter for playoff utility. I did not want bad-team stat producers or prospects who need three things to improve before they matter. The player needed at least one bankable playoff skill today: defense, shooting, size, decision-making, rim protection, or real secondary creation.
| Rank | Player | Upside rank | Contract | Why Their Team Says Yes | Price – First Round Picks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthony Black | 3 | $10.1M in 2026-27; extension eligible; 2027 RFA path. (Spotrac) | Orlando is expensive after building around Banchero, Wagner, Bane, and Suggs. Black is the next extension decision, and No. 11 plus another pick asset may help them reset cost/control. | 2 |
| 2 | Zaccharie Risacher | 4 | Rookie-scale deal; $13M-ish in 2026-27 with team control after. (SI) | Hawks have positional/role congestion and may consider using Risacher as a trade-up or roster-balancing piece. This is more “lost conviction” than cap pressure. (Yahoo Sports) | 1 |
| 3 | Deni Avdija | 1 | $13.1M in 2026-27, $11.9M in 2027-28; elite surplus deal. | Portland only says yes if it needs pick capital for a Giannis/star package. | 4 |
| 4 | Cason Wallace | 2 | $7.4M in 2026-27; 2027 RFA path. (Spotrac) | OKC is the apron-pressure case, but picks are not naturally attractive to them because they already have too many. They say yes only if this is part of broader consolidation. | 3 |
Ask whether the role is suppressing the talent. The Nickeil Alexander-Walker lesson is not just “find a young player.” It is “find a player who already has NBA-ready skills, but whose current team context does not fully reveal them.” That is different from betting on a raw prospect to become a new player.
Price the bet. I treated this year’s No. 11 pick as the baseline price. From there, the question is how far the Warriors should be willing to go: one pick for a buy-low swing, two picks for a cleaner young playoff player, three picks for a high-confidence unlock, and four picks only for someone who already looks like a premium starter.
The final group is where the player, contract, team pressure, and Warriors asset structure could plausibly line up.
Price is my rough estimate of draft-capital cost, with 1 meaning this year’s No. 11 pick and 4 meaning an aggressive multi-pick package.
The names split into different types of bets.
Anthony Black is the cleanest Nickeil Alexander-Walker-style target. He is not a pure upside swing. He already has size, defense, passing, and enough handle to imagine a bigger role without inventing a new player. The question is whether the shot solidifies. If it does, he could move from useful playoff guard to premium starter.
Zaccharie Risacher is different. He is not a NAW-style player yet. He is more of a distressed former No. 1 overall pick. The case is that Atlanta may have lost some conviction while the original wing-size, shooting, and defense foundation still exists. That is a one-pick bet, not a multi-pick bet.
Deni Avdija is the cleanest player on the list. The issue is not whether he is a 16-game player, it’s whether Portland would ever move him. The only reason this becomes plausible is if the Blazers are trying to make a bigger star move, such as Giannis, and need to convert Deni into pick capital. Four picks is aggressive, but it is coherent because Deni is already close to premium-starter level on a bargain contract – he was an All Star this year who can be a physical, primary scorer and passer and hold his own defensively.
Cason Wallace may be the best true NAW analog after Black. He is on a loaded team, playing a compressed role, with real defense and enough offense to imagine more. The pre-draft case always suggested there might be more guard skill than his role showed. At Kentucky, he shared the ball, played in cramped spacing, and still showed passing, defensive pressure, and enough shooting to project as more than a defensive specialist. Oklahoma City probably knows exactly what it has, and picks are not naturally attractive to a team that already has too many of them.
The distinction between these names is confidence level.
Risacher is a one-pick swing because the upside is real, but the proof is not. Black is worth more because he already has a clearer 16-game foundation and a plausible role unlock. Wallace costs more because the defensive floor is already playoff-grade and the offensive upside may simply be hidden by Oklahoma City’s depth. Deni costs the most because he is not really an unlock bet anymore. He is already the kind of premium starter the Warriors would hope one of these other players becomes.
The framework: the Warriors pay more only when they are buying more certainty, chasing the highest-probability path to adding another 16-game player before the Curry window closes.
If the No. 11 pick stays a pick, the Warriors are betting on development speed. If it becomes part of a Giannis package, they are betting almost everything on one star solving the whole roster. If it becomes the centerpiece for someone like Black, Wallace, Deni, or another young 16-game player, they are making a different bet: that the draft pick is more valuable as a shortcut through the development curve.
That is the middle path I prefer. It’s still aggressive, but it does not require the Warriors to gut the roster, and it does not ask them to wait three years for the pick to matter.
I Spit Hot Fire 