https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/warriors/article/Warriors-mull-NBA-Draft-options-while-trying-to-17259428.php

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr and general manager Bob Myers conducted exit interviews with the media Wednesday morning at Chase Center. “Exit” or not, they had a variety of pressing new topics on their minds, starting with Thursday’s NBA draft, free agency and the franchise’s projected luxury tax next season.

With multiple key rotation players set to hit free agency in coming weeks, all of whom have expressed interest in returning to the Warriors next season, there have been some suggestions that the team might be looking to trade the No. 28 pick Thursday night.

Doing so would make sense on paper, considering the team’s sizable payroll, depth and existing commitment to further integrate the young players already on the roster into the regular rotation next season. But the Warriors have been in this position before. Myers called it a “high-class” problem.

He doesn’t think the money will be the determining factor in the team trading the pick or staying put. If there’s a player left on the board who makes sense and fits the culture, the Warriors won’t hesitate to make a selection.

“We’ve got like 15, 20 people up on the ninth floor right now watching film and getting the draft order and getting our board aligned,” Myers said. “So we’ll be ready.”

Golden State has had recent success picking late in the first round, finding Jordan Poole at 28th overall out of Michigan in 2019 and Kevon Looney at 30th overall out of UCLA in 2015. But those two players’ success stories are more of an exception rather than the norm.

Drafting is an inexact science. The Warriors’ selection of Jacob Evans late in the first round of the 2018 draft is proof of that. Teams are less likely to find top talent the deeper into the draft they go. And despite the best of scouting efforts, there’s still plenty of room for error.

Nevertheless, finding diamonds in the rough — such as Poole and Looney — is still possible. And let’s not forget that the Warriors found a future Hall of Famer in Draymond Green at pick No. 35 in 2012.

“When you’re picking 28th or 30th, there’s such a low chance of hitting, and the reality is our guys upstairs have hit for a really high average,” Kerr said. “You just look at the Finals, drafting Jordan and Loon — if you look at the numbers, I think guys at 28 and 30, there’s about a 10% chance that they make the league for an extended period of time.”

Myers said the Warriors aren’t zeroing in on a specific position at No. 28, but he did acknowledge the value of having depth on the wing in the NBA. If a point guard or big makes the most sense in that slot, then the team won’t reject the notion. Assuming Golden State keeps the pick, it likely will take the best player available regardless of position.

“If we find that we’re unbalanced at a position, then let’s try to recover in free agency,” Myers said. “Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. … But these are all things we try our best to accomplish, but I think in the draft, we usually land on the best player available.”

Myers said because of improved staffing, player-development methods and structure, the Warriors are in a better position to take on young players now than in years past. But if the team does make a selection Thursday night, that player obviously will have to wait his turn.

“I don’t think we’ll draft tomorrow and say, ‘Well, that guy is going to play 20 minutes a night,’” Myers said. “I don’t believe we will do that. We might look ahead two years, three years and say, “Maybe in three years he can help us.’”

Money season: Myers doubled down on his desire to bring back as many of the Warriors’ free agents this offseason as possible, but he understands that the situation isn’t entirely in the team’s control. The unrestricted free agents are Looney, Gary Payton II, Otto Porter Jr., Nemanja Bjelica, Andre Iguodala, Damion Lee and Chris Chiozza. Retaining all, any or many of those players comes down to their market value, the budget and the offers they get.

“You might get a chance to match something, although they don’t owe it to us, and we’ll have to react,” Myers said. “But sometimes the money doesn’t line up for us or them, and then you move on. But our goal, our hope, is to bring all those guys back and try to do it again.”

All of this means more money the Warriors will have to spend this offseason.. Myers isn’t sure of how high the team’s tax bill might go..

“We’ve blown through kind of these budget thresholds before,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’ll do it again. It’s pretty case-specific. ... So it’s just dependent on if we think we can get value in free agency for some of these guys. We’re not just going to spend to spend. We didn’t do that last year. ...

“We’ll look and see what we can do and I’ll ask (owner Joe Lacob) what he would authorize, but there is a limit. It’s not limitless. I would like it to be limitless, but trust me, it’s not. You’ve got to have some constraints on a salary.”