With a strong top eight players – Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Andrew Bogut, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes and Shaun Livingston – and a mandate to improve on last season’s playoff berth, the Warriors could use a little more back-end depth.
It hasn’t been a banner few days for Golden State’s reserves. Marreese Speights was arrested for DUI, and Nemanja Nedovic fractured his foot.
So, the Warriors will seek a boost from another source.
Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News:
Golden State had only a minimum contract to offer, which is all the undrafted Craft could have commanded anyway. That partial guarantee is key, a real signal the Warriors plan to keep him. With Hilton Armstrong getting waived, they now have 14 players under contract.
Craft, who spent four years at Ohio State getting praised for his leadership, was a lockdown defender in college. But it’s unclear whether his clutching and grabbing will fly in the NBA and how well he can defend without those tactics.
The bigger question: Can Craft contribute at all offensively? He’s a notoriously shaky shooter, and at 6-foot-2, he needs to show point-guard skills he never did with the Buckeyes. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Craft spend a lot of time in the D-League, but fortunately for him, he’ll be doing so on an NBA salary.
