The fervor is already starting to build around the Bay Area sports scene: are the Golden State Warriors going to trade their top draft choice from this year, center James Wiseman?
It sounds crazy, since the Warriors are just months away from drafting Wiseman with the No. 2 overall choice in the draft. But with an NBA MVP finalist in guard Stephen Curry and a Defensive Player of the Year finalist in Draymond Green on the team — each at over 30 years of age — the correct play could be to forget about Wiseman’s future and trade him for a veteran.
So when Warriors general manager Bob Myers spoke to reporters on Monday, he was ready for the question. According to The Athletic’s Anthony Slater, here’s Myers’ response when asked about the idea of trading Wiseman for a more polished player.
“No,” Myers said. “I think he can help us. I expect him to be on the team next year. We don’t want to trade James Wiseman. I think he’s a tremendous talent and he was put in a position where, again, the guy is taking hopefully all of his lumps early in his career, but I think he can be very helpful to us in the future. I think he can be helpful in the present. We plan on him being on the team. We plan on him helping us.”
The Athletic
I’m guessing Myers prepared this statement. And he might as well have. He wants to leave no doubt about the Warriors’ plan to move forward with Wiseman, short-term goals be damned.
But this doesn’t mean the Warriors won’t trade Wiseman. It means that right now, that’s not the plan. Plans were made to be broken, however, and it’s still very early in the offseason. Watch this space for more Wiseman updates as they become available.
(Photo credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
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