Warriors still confident in Alex Toohey, Will Richard after summer league games originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Late July typically marks the real start of the NBA offseason, with an emphasis on off.
The draft has been wrapped up for nearly a month, free agency is saved for small signings and summer league is over. This year hasn’t been a typical summer for the league, though.
Free agency has never been dragged out this long. The new CBA has restricted free agents waiting around like they’re high-priced baseball players looking for Scott Boras to get a deal done before spring training. Jonathan Kuminga’s situation has the Warriors handcuffed, keeping them from literally doing anything up to this point.
For Warriors fans, the draft and summer league gave them plenty to digest. Maybe with a microscope too zoomed in from their annoyance over lack of moves and what’s going on with Kuminga and his camp. People had plenty to say about their first impressions of the Warriors’ two picks, Alex Toohey and Will Richard.
Below are their final stats between the California Classic and Las Vegas Summer League.
Toohey (6 games): 21.5 mpg, 6.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 0.7 apg, 1.2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 26.2 FG% (11 of 42), 23.5 3P% (4 of 17), 71.4 FT% (15 of 21)
Richard (6 games): 23.8 mpg, 11.5 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 1.5 apg, 1.8 spg, 0.3 bpg, 42.5 FG% (25 of 59), 20.7 3P% (6 of 29), 92.9 FT% (13 of 14)
Stats and the eye test show Toohey struggled at times shooting the ball, as well as adjusting to NBA length and athleticism after playing the last two seasons professionally in Australia. He also is only 21 years old and the last game he played was Feb. 28 for the Sydney Kings before having to then go through the draft process, sit the first two games of the California Classic and try to learn a new system and essentially a completely new style of play on the fly.
“First couple games were rough, but he adapted well and started finding his footing,” Warriors summer league coach Lainn Wilson said to NBC Sports Bay Area. “The story’s not written right now. If it were, there’d be plenty of other players that would have been cast off for summer league performances.”
Why the Warriors were intrigued and impressed by Toohey going into the draft remains the same after six summer league games. Toohey is 6-foot-8 and plays even bigger because of his 6-foot-11 wingspan. He’s very unselfish offensively and is always moving without the ball, versatile defensively and shows his basketball smarts by consistently talking on the defensive end to help his teammates.
Coaches and teammates alike also loved that he didn’t back down. Stoic by nature, Toohey went right after Kyle Filipowski against a talented Utah Jazz team and took on many challenges that wouldn’t usually be presented to him in an NBA environment.
“We’re basically banking on his versatility a little bit and then his IQ and work ethic to see can we get a little more with our performance staff that is pretty top-notch,” Wilson said. “Then he works more and understands he’ll need to work out at a different speed and all these other things.
“But overall, we had a guy who was out there that a lot of guys tried to push around, and he wasn’t backing down from anybody. You’re banking on those kinds of intangibles to be the core of a player and how they can get better.”
There’s a strong possibility – almost a guarantee – Wilson coaches Toohey and Richard in Santa Cruz for the Warriors’ G League affiliate throughout different parts of the season. Richard, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard taken No. 56 overall and four spots behind Toohey, does look more ready for the NBA game right now. And understandably so.
He’s a year and a half older than Toohey and was a four-year college player who won the national championship this past season for Florida. His senior season lasted 40 games and went into early April. Richard played 141 college games, including 76 games the last two years, which is 19 more games and 1,060 more minutes played than Toohey over that span in the NBL.
While Toohey played a total of 1,266 minutes in his last two seasons in Australia, Richard played 1,265 in his final year at Florida.
Nobody in the organization has concerns over Richard’s low 3-point percentage from six summer league games. His college track record and free-throw percentage has them confident he’ll be fine from long distance. Richard is an extremely aggressive defender with an eye for steals. Between the way he helped the national champions and his solid showing this summer, Richard might be another late pick that can help the Warriors as a rookie.
“Yeah, he absolutely has that potential,” Wilson said.
“Both he and Alex fit in that mold of impacting the game without scoring,” he continued. “He can already shoot it a little bit, which is great. There were a few games where he was coming up with offensive rebounds. He obviously has pretty good length for a defensive player and can be a little bit of a disruptor. Those are going to be more critical pieces for him moving forward.”
Which is why the Warriors remain high on Toohey and Richard. They believe both are mature players who will understand their role early on and expand their game as they develop.
There have been young players Steve Kerr has shied away from using in previous seasons. There’s a reason he has placed more trust in someone like Gui Santos over time as a former second-round pick that has gotten better and better, but more importantly, always is going to do the small things in the few minutes he might get.
Doing the dirty work is only going to open more doors. With Toohey and Richard, the Warriors feel like they added two players who get the process of being a pro.
“If we’re throwing you in for four or five minutes, it’s like, what are you going to give us? Is it going to be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t get any open threes, so I’m not going to give you guys anything else?’ That’s a tough life to live as a second-round pick that’s starting out,” Wilson said.
“That’s my message to both those guys. It’s really the other things. If you’re going to get a small stint, you need to make your impact felt elsewhere. If you go in and miss two threes, is that it for you? That’s the work and good thing with those guys.”
Look past the stats. Warriors people love to use Brandin Podziemski as an example of someone who struggled shooting in summer league but still showed his intangibles and already grew into a starter. There’s no telling yet if Toohey and Richard will be on a similar path.
What is evident is the Warriors were happy to maneuver themselves in a position to select both players last month, and those same feelings hold strong after summer league.
