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After winning the 2022 NBA championship, the Golden State Warriors entered the 2022-23 NBA campaign with one goal in mind: repeat as NBA champions. But fast forward to the current day, and it's clear that the Warriors fell very short of their goal.
The Warriors finished the regular season with a mediocre 44-38 record (including a ghastly 11-30 road record), just the sixth-best in the Western Conference, and barely avoided the play-in tournament. And after upsetting De'Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings in the first round of the playoffs in seven games, the Warriors were eliminated by LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the second round.
The Golden State Warriors 2022-23 season was certainly underwhelming, but a solid NBA Draft could have helped fans forget about the season that was. And the Warriors did have themselves a solid NBA Draft, to be frank.
The Warriors owned two picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, the 19th pick and the 57th pick. At 19, they selected Santa Clara guard Brandin Podziemski, and at 57, they selected Indiana forward Trayce Jackson-Davis. But the Warriors made a big mistake by selecting one of these players. With all of that said, let's look at one big mistake that the Golden State Warriors made in the 2023 NBA Draft:
1 big mistake by Warriors in 2023 NBA Draft
Drafting Trayce Jackson-Davis with the 57th overall pick
A 6'9″ forward, Trayce Jackson-Davis flat-out starred on the offensive end of the floor in his senior season with the Indiana Hoosiers and did a little bit of everything on that end. He averaged 20.9 points (on 58.1% shooting from the field), 2.8 offensive rebounds, and 4.0 assists per game across 32 appearances.
But while Jackson-Davis may be best known for his offensive versatility, he was effective on both sides of the ball with the Hoosiers. Jackson-Davis functioned as an elite rim protector as a senior, as he averaged a whopping 2.9 blocked shots per game (the fourth-highest in the nation among all qualified players) and 3.3 per 40 minutes.
Although for all that Jackson-Davis did well on both ends of the floor in his senior season with the Hoosiers, there's one hole in his offensive repertoire that should have made the Golden State Warriors decide against drafting him.
For the entirety of his four-year college career, Jackson-Davis was a non-threat to score the ball from behind the three-point arc. He attempted a mere three three-point attempts across his stint with the Hoosiers, less than one attempt per season.
At this juncture, it's hard to imagine Jackson-Davis evolving into an effective floor-spacer for the Warriors' offense, or even a league-average one, to be frank.
All in all, Jackson-Davis' ability to score efficiently from inside the line, rebound the ball, make plays for his teammates, and block shots are alluring, and he would make sense as a second-round pick for a team whose offense isn't so three-point heavy. But on a team like the Golden State Warriors, whose offense is predicated on the three-point shot, his fit doesn't make much sense.
The Golden State Warriors picking Jackson-Davis wasn't necessarily a risky move, as he fell all the way to pick 57 after many had him going late in the first round. But considering three-point shooting is his biggest weakness as a player, it's unlikely that he will play an important role for Golden State next season or anytime soon.
