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Golden State Warriors officials introduced Alen Smailagic, Jordan Poole and Eric Paschall, the team’s 2019 draft picks, during a news conference Monday at Rakuten Performance Center in Oakland.
Bob Myers, the Warriors president of basketball operations and the team’s general manager, offered words of encouragement for the NBA rookies.
“We’ll give you every chance to meet all your goals and expectations. But most of it will be the work you put in,” he said, adding that the team will ensure the right culture and investment in fostering their growth.
Eric Paschall
Paschall, who will be 23 in November, is 6-foot-7, 250-plus pounds and plays with a 7-foot wingspan that allows him to guard four positions (5 through 2). He shot 37 percent on 2-point jumpers and 34 percent on 3-pointers last season. In all, he averaged 16 points, six rebounds, and two assists per game in his redshirt senior season.
Jordan Poole
Poole, a former University of Michigan guard who just turned 20, is 6-foot-5. He averaged 12.8 points this past season at Michigan, but made 37 percent of his 3-point shots and 83 percent of his free-throw attempts. Poole shot 311 3-pointers in his two seasons at Michigan, with nearly one third of them coming from between 24-35 feet (the NCAA 3-point line was 20 feet, 9 inches). He made 36.5% of his deep-range shots with an average distance of 26.2 feet on those 3-pointers.Myers said he likes Poole’s playmaking, his shotmaking, and his versatility.
Alen Smailagić
Smailagić played for the Warriors’ G-League team in Santa Cruz last season. At 6-foot-10 and 218 pounds, the 18-year-old Serbian big man averaged 9.1 points and 4.0 rebounds in 17.4 minutes. He averaged 9 points per game last year.
“It’s rare to get that much opportunity to watch a guy play,” Myers said of Smailagić. “In a lot of these situations you do bet on the player but you also bet on the person and having had the opportunity for [the Warriors] to watch him practice, watch him work, watch him grow — that stuff really matters. Whoever we draft, they all have to get better and how you get better is usually through working hard.”
