2026 NBA Draft Needs: Golden State Warriors

At 38 years old, Steph Curry is still one of the top 20 players in the NBA. However, Father Time comes for everyone, and the Warriors, despite trading for Jimmy Butler, should look to future-proof. If the Warriors are healthy, they are playoff contenders. They may not be championship contenders anymore, but they can’t waste any year of Curry on the roster. This year’s draft presents several paths forward to address both the present and the future.

State of the Team

Retooling. One last hurrah.

Positional Strengths and Weaknesses

Guards

The Warriors’ guard corps is Steph Curry, Brandin Podziemski, and De’Anthony Melton.

Curry is the dictionary definition of a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He is a Warriors legend and, despite his age, is still the best shooter in the NBA. His off-ball movement is teaching tape, and while Father Time is slowly chipping away at him, his game is built around feel, IQ, and finesse, not athleticism. He has one or two more years left before his banner is raised in the Chase Center.

Brandin Podziemski is entering his fourth season and has steadily improved year after year. He won’t be able to fill the gargantuan shoes Curry will leave, but for this coming year and the post-Curry era, he will be an offensive engine. De’Anthony Melton is the two-way backup guard the Warriors need if they are going to make a run this coming year. He can start if needed, but his lack of playmaking and average handle cement him in the bench sparkplug role.

Wings/Forwards

The Warriors’ wing and forward corps is Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Moses Moody, Gui Santos, and Will Richard.

Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green are on their last legs. Both are 36. Jimmy is coming off a right ACL tear, and Green’s offense has fallen off a cliff. Both can still be top-50 players on any given night. A healthy Butler can be a top-10 scorer and take over games. Green can still dominate the defensive end and spend plenty of time as a small-ball center. But the Warriors need the stars to align and both to be healthy and turn back the clock.

Moses Moody is entering his sixth season and has shown he has acclimated to Steve Kerr’s motion offense. He’s hitting threes, flowing with the offense, and can solidify his spot as a starter if Jimmy Butler is load-managed for the playoffs. Gui Santos is entering his fourth season and, like Moody, has shown he is comfortable in Kerr’s offense. His threeball is improving with more volume and efficiency. Second-round pick Will Richard stepped up his rookie year, playing 69 games with 21 starts. He is a rising wing scorer with a knack for generating steals. Moody, Santos, and Richard will all be 24 in the coming season. They can add a lot of value for Curry’s last few runs, but they haven’t shown they can be contenders without a cornerstone like Curry on the team.

Bigs

The Warriors’ big corps is Al Horford, and hopefully Kristaps Porziņģis.

Al Horford is 40 years old and is likely in his last season. He can still provide a decent threeball and will fight in the paint on defense, but he needs to be used sparingly to keep him fresh. He is an ideal rotational piece on a competing team. Kristaps Porziņģis came back in the Kuminga trade and was hoped to add much-needed floor stretching and defense. However, Porziņģis has been hampered by injuries for years. Even on the Boston team that won in 2024, his availability in the playoffs was unreliable. He’s entering free agency, and the Warriors need to re-sign him on a cheaper contract than his previous $30 million deal. If he leaves in free agency, the Warriors will have given up young talent for 17 injury-riddled games. Porziņģis can still be valuable on a contending team but needs extended rest to ensure he's healthy for the playoffs.

Draft Needs

The Warriors could start a rebuild, but even a chance at another prime Curry season requires them to compete. Their roster is a strange mix of aging stars and solid borderline starters. They don’t have any upcoming stars, and once Curry retires, they will plummet to the bottom of the league. There are few prospects in any draft who can both produce immediately and have potential to be stars later, but the Warriors need someone like that. If not, they need to target pure production and find someone to help them squeeze out one more Curry Finals appearance for the good of the team’s legacy and for the world to enjoy.

Prospects Who Fit

The Warriors have the 11th and 54th overall picks.

Cam Boozer (PF/Forward, Duke)

The Warriors might have to mortgage a large part of their future, but if Boozer falls to three, they should heavily consider trading up. At 6-foot-8, 253 pounds, with a 7-foot-1 wingspan, Cam Boozer is an incredibly advanced player at 18 years old. At Duke, Boozer excelled at nearly every aspect of basketball, from scoring to rebounding to defense to the small details that edge out wins. He is held back by his athleticism being “just” very good and not elite.

Boozer is a tweener: he’s not tall or big enough to be a rim-protecting big man, but he doesn’t have the fast-twitch athleticism to switch onto guards or smaller wings. He has a rumbling big man playstyle, with dribble moves, post moves, and power honed over thousands of reps into a well-oiled machine. Being as young as Boozer is but knowing how to use the advantages, he has is something even some NBA players never fully realize.

The Warriors need youth, energy, and proven production in one package. Boozer can step in, providing all three. Steve Kerr’s offense often takes time to learn and gives rookies trouble, but Boozer has the IQ and instincts for the game to pick it up quickly. He has the passing touch to connect with the offense, he provides floor spacing, 39.1% on 3.6 three-point attempts per game, and he has active hands to pull down rebounds and pluck errant passes out of the air. Boozer would immediately take over as the most promising member of the youth movement at Golden State, potentially having more impact as a rookie than movement alumni Jordan Poole did on the 2022 championship season.

Winning Consensus College Basketball Player of the Year from all the major award committees, averaging 22.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.4 steals, 0.6 blocks, with 2.5 turnovers, on a 29.9% usage rate, and 65.3% true shooting percentage, screams generational prospect. Luckily for the Warriors, Boozer doesn’t have the elite athleticism of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Caleb Wilson, which places their potential ceilings in the top echelons of basketball. This causes people to question Boozer’s draft value. However, Boozer’s ceiling, if he continues to polish his game, has a much better chance of ending with him in an orange jacket than any of the other prospects mentioned.

Ebuka Okorie (PG/Guard, Stanford)

Okorie was one of the best guards in college this past year. He was the offensive engine and the best perimeter defender at Stanford, while only turning 19 in April. At 6-foot-1, 186 pounds, with a 6-foot-8 wingspan, Okorie is a sleeper in the draft. He is overlooked because of his height, his level of competition in the ACC, and because his athleticism jumps to the rim, not out of the gym.

Looking solely at his stat line for the year, 23.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.6 steals, 0.3 blocks, and 1.9 turnovers, with a 58.9% true shooting percentage, he sounds like a high-achieving volume scorer. But taking a step back, seeing the 31% usage rate, his low fouls, 1.4 per game, despite taking the top perimeter assignments, and being trusted as the focal point of an entire college program, you see the immense impact he provided.

Okorie isn’t the fastest or strongest guard in the draft. He is a true guard and can’t be turned into a wing. But his acceleration and speed are excellent, and his underrated strength lets him absorb contact and slide past bigger defenders for a layup. Despite his size, he loves driving to the rim. His handling is tight and filled with hitches. He passes out to the open man, orchestrates the offense, calls plays, and keeps defenses focused on him. Off-ball, he opens himself up for a kickout and three-point shot, catching defenders ball-watching. On defense, he can be matchup-hunted, but his disciplined hand usage and constant on-ball pressure should still trouble bigger attackers.

NBA teams have only seen Okorie as the primary ball-handler and are unsure if he can still thrive with lower usage or how well he can move entirely off-ball. The Warriors need an eventual replacement for Curry, and Okorie might be that replacement. In the immediate term, he would be a high-energy point-of-attack defender off the bench, but his long-term potential with the Warriors is scary. He would need to show off-ball IQ he didn’t have the opportunity to show at Stanford. However, giving Okorie time to learn Kerr’s offense, improve his floor general instincts, and focus on developing his off-ball movement could make Okorie look like a genius selection with the eleventh overall pick in a few years' time. He would never supplant Curry, but the Warriors’ next era could be called the Okorie era.