Dub Nation is eagerly awaiting the return of second-year center James Wiseman. The 20-year-old is recovering from a meniscus tear in April and has been limited to individual work, 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 so far in his lengthy rehab.
As the 2020 No. 2 overall pick approaches the eight-month mark since his injury, Anthony Slater chronicled Wiseman’s comeback Tuesday for The Athletic. Slater joined 95.7 The Game’s “Steiny & Guru” Tuesday to share his thoughts on Wiseman’s recovery, Jordan Poole’s contract situation, the upcoming Portland Trail Blazers matchup and more. Listen to the full interview below:
“I think we’ll probably see James Wiseman in January at some point – I don’t know if that’s early, mid, or late, but that seems to be the trend line of this,” Slater said. “January 15 would be the nine-month mark and that would be on the back-end of what you would expect his return timeline to be.”
The Warriors are 33-9 in the 42 games Wiseman has missed dating back to last April. As it stands now, Kevon Looney is the lone traditional big man, while Draymond Green has done incredible work as an undersized center this season.
“While he’s been waiting, they’ve developed such an identity as a smallball group,” Slater said. “The read-and-react doesn’t really fit his style of play. Once he does come back, I think they’re going to give him a test run, probably mostly with the second unit. Running pick-and-roll with Jordan Poole and then their hope is he shows enough growth that they can continue to give him more and more minutes, and by playoff time maybe he can be your center of the rotation to give you big minutes against big centers. But that seems ambitious at this point, considering we’ve never really seen him play winning basketball in the NBA.”
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Host Matt Steinmetz asked Slater if the Warriors would consider using 2021 first-rounder Jonathan Kuminga at the center spot if Wiseman doesn’t pan out. The 6-foot-7, 225-pound Kuminga has been an explosive athlete during his limited floor time so far this season and looks like he could body up bigger opposing players.
“The problem is, Kuminga is the type of 5 they already kind of have – a smallball one,” Slater said. “That’s Draymond, that’s JTA, that’s Iguodala, that’s Otto Porter. The appeal of James Wiseman is he’s a 5 that they don’t have, which is a true 5. The 7-footer that physically should be able to hold up against the [Deandre] Aytons, the [Nikola] Jokics of the world. The problem is, the deeper we go into the season, the more time he’s not integrating into the season. They’re just not learning anything about him. His development is just on pause and it’s remained on pause.”
