On April 14 last year — the final day of the 2023-24 regular season — the Golden State Warriors signed Usman Garuba to a standard contract.
Few may remember that because the Warriors were quickly eliminated in the first game of the Play-In Tournament, with Garuba unsurprisingly not featuring in what concluded as a season where played just 18 total minutes with the team.
Golden State are now likely to do a similar thing this time around, having officially signed Kevin Knox as their 14th player with just 11 games left in the regular season. The Warriors are very likely to sign a 15th player on the final day of the season, theoretically giving them another body in the playoffs where two-way players are ineligible to participate.
Should the Warriors put significant thought into their 15th roster spot?
As was the case with Garuba last season, it’s likely Golden State simply convert the best candidate among their three two-way contracts. If so, Braxton Key is arguably in the strongest position given his recent G League form where he’s averaged 23.1 points, 9.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.6 steals across his eight games with Santa Cruz.
Throw in the fact Key is 28-years-old and has previous NBA experience, and you can see why he’s a more prominent option than Jackson Rowe or Taran Armstrong, the latter of who is yet to make his NBA debut at all.
Yet with the Warriors just signing a 6’7″ forward in Knox to their 14th spot, do they really need another similarly-sized forward at the end of the roster? Perhaps this is all a pointless discussion because the 15th player almost certainly won’t have any playoff impact, but from a purely positional depth standpoint it could be a mistake.
If you take Gary Payton II out of the mix because he’s colloquially known as ‘the little big man,’ Golden State has very little guard depth beyond Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Buddy Hield and the rarely used Pat Spencer. Moses Moody can slide down to the two-guard spot, but is otherwise going to be a three or four in most lineups. The same can be said for Jimmy Butler.
Speaking of the two forward spots, the Warriors have all of Butler, Moody, Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga, Payton, Gui Santos and now Knox. What room is there for Key even if there were a few injuries?
In case of injuries or other concerns, the lack of guard depth means addressing that is probably more important than a forward like Key. Again, whoever is signed to the 15th spot will almost assuredly have no impact anyway, but surely the Warriors should be considering all possible scenarios.
