Kurtenbach: My official Warriors draft guide? Get weird, Mike Dunleavy

This is usually the column where I pretend I’ve unlocked the secrets of the sporting universe.

An annual tradition where, after countless hours of grinding the tape and texting with a dozen people who watch all of college basketball (and not just the Missouri Tigers, which have almost no application here), I proffer a suggestion as to who the Golden State Warriors should draft on Tuesday - this year at No. 11.

It’s a tedious exercise in feigned certainty. Every pundit on the internet is currently screaming about wingspans and pick-and-roll efficiency.

But this year, I have a new suggestion for the Dubs: Go to town.

Take whoever you want. Get weird with it, even.

Because I can’t differentiate much of anything between the half-dozen, hell, dozen prospects that are in the Dubs’ range to select at No. 11.

It’s a glorious, chaotic spot to occupy. The pressure of landing a generational franchise savior doesn’t exist because those guys are long gone.

Instead, you’re shopping in the NBA’s discount aisle of future potential. It’s a crapshoot dressed up as science.

You want to take a point guard like Arizona’s Brayden Burries, Alabama’s Labaron Philon, or Houston’s Kingston Flemings? Go for it.

This team desperately needs someone to run the point when Steph Curry is off the court.

Seeing as that’s a more-frequent event these days, you’d best have someone who can really turn into a player.

The local basketball heroes are aging, and the miles are piling up on those dynastic legs.

I like all of these young guards to help ease the burden. Put their names on a dartboard, close your eyes, and let it fly.

Want to go for a true big, seeing as you don’t actually have one? Great idea!

Aday Mara from Michigan is 7-friggin-4.

He just won a national title, and you simply can’t teach that kind of absurd, terrifying height.

His teammate, Morez Johnson, might only be 6-foot-10, but he’s 250 pounds. That stuff matters in the league. Mass moves mass.

The Warriors have been playing small-ball for a decade, and frankly, they’ve been bullied in the paint lately.

Even glass-cleaning big man Hannes Steinbach from Washington makes sense to me here.

Less sense than the kids from Ann Arbor, but sense nevertheless.

And then you could also do the sharp, prudent thing and take a wing.

You can never have too many good wings in today’s NBA. They’re the currency of the realm.

You can go with an old wing who can play right away, in Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg, whom I will always credit to UAB.

Frankly, we don’t have nearly enough Yaxels in our lives. I’m rooting for the kid based on the name alone.

Or you can swing for the fences with the too-young Karim López.

You can ride with the maybe-3-and-probably-not-D of Nate Ament, who at least looks the part of a modern basketball player.

You can even talk me into Santa Clara’s Allen Graves, who started four whole games in the WCC.

Why not? It’s the 11th pick. The world is your oyster, provided you prefer mid-tier oysters.

If you really wanted to press me, I’d find a way to take Stanford guard Ebuka Okorie.

He is going to be a bucket, and absolutely nothing else, at the NBA level.

But pick 11 is entirely too rich for selecting him. (Or is it? OK, fine, it is.)

So that’s a trade-down scenario, which is something else I am completely open to.

Trade the pick for a veteran. Trade it for future assets.

Hell, trade it for some guy I never heard of in the Uzbek league.

I’m open to nearly everything right now.

Because amidst the droning non-answers Mike Dunleavy sent our way earlier this week, he did say something exceptionally true:

“We need everything,” he confessed.

He isn’t wrong. The current roster is a patchwork quilt of aging legends and unfinished projects, as well as some finished products that won’t sell.

And when you’re picking No. 11, you get to go in any direction you want.

Just so long as you weren’t setting your hopes on anyone who went in the top 10.

The Warriors might come out of this draft with a rotational player, and perhaps even a definitive direction.

But they won’t be cheating off my homework to make the selection.

At long last, here he is, positive Dieter: I think all these guys can play.

Just make sure to make a pick.

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This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 12:21 PM.