Some draft day: Warriors get Wiseman, lose Klay

By Art Spander

Now the wait begins for the Warriors. To see how quickly Klay Thompson recovers from yet another injury.

To see if James Wiseman becomes the dominant player he’s supposed to be.

To see when and if, in this Covid-cursed time, they’ll be allowed to have crowds for home games at Chase Center.

A Wednesday that was supposed to be advantageous, Golden State able to utilize the second pick in the ’20 NBA draft — with which Wiseman was selected — became tumultuous.

Thompson, preparing for a comeback after the terrible injury that ripped his left knee and the Warriors' chances in the 2019 playoff finals, hurt his lower right leg during a workout in southern California, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the San Francisco Department of Health rejected the team’s plans to allow 18,000-seat Chase to be half-filled for games, setting a maximum of 4,500 because of Covid restrictions.

All this news and not a single jump shot since March. But certainly plenty of speculation, not unusual for any draft day, much less one as full of disabiltity — Klay’s injury — and possibility as this one.

ESPN had been touting the draft as the Warriors’ opportunity to rebuild a dynasty, Golden State having reached the finals five straight times, 2015-2019, and having won three of those.

If that record doesn’t quite fulfill the requirement of a dynasty, particularly compared to the Celtics of the 1960s and Lakers of the 1980s and 2000s, it was the best in basketball for a while, a long while.

You add a high pick, which turned out to be the 7-foot-1 Wiseman, put Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Thompson on the court with him and, well, maybe they wouldn’t win it all, but they’d at least remind us of what used to be.

Then we were reminded, but the wrong way, with Thompson’s injury, the severity of which remains in question until additional tests are made.

But as they say, when one of your stars returns after missing a season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament and then injures his other leg and hobbles off the court, it’s not going to be good news.

The early report is Klay has “a significant Achilles injury.” If so, the dynasty rebuilld will be stopped before it has started. Kevin Durant is proof that Achilles injuries take months to overcome.

The basketball fates smiled on the Warriors. Now they sneer. Curry broke his left hand several games into last season, and by the time he returned the team was headed for the draft lottery.

They did have a bit of good fortune, earning the No. 2 overall pick, but this second injury to Klay, who’s now 30, ruins everything.

As an undergrad at Memphis last year, his only year, Wiseman was burdened with his own problems.

In his first game as a freshman, he had 28 points and 11 rebounds. But two more games, and whop, Wiseman was suspended by the NCAA for accepting improper benefits, including $11,500 in moving expenses from Memphis coach Penny Hardaway.

Instead of trying to regain his eligibility, Wiseman, who was a one-and-done guy anyway, in effect said "the heck with it" and waited to enter the NBA draft. If he doesn’t have the last laugh, he’ll have plenty of money. And the Warriors will have a potential all-star at center.

“Going through adversity made me stronger,” Wiseman said after he was taken, following the selection of Georgia’s Anthony Edwards — the guard some observers say the Warriors coveted — and before LaMelo Ball, the guard who played around the world.

With Wiseman, the Warriors have the inside game they will need without Thompson joining Curry for the outside game.

Without Klay, the Warriors have a huge question.

Not the trade-off that anyone could wish.