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Did Golden State attempt to land another Gators guard?

On3 imageby: Keith Niebuhr06/29/25On3Keith
NCAA Basketball: Final Four National Semifinal-Florida at Auburn
Apr 5, 2025; San Antonio, TX, USA; Florida Gators guard Walter Clayton Jr. (1) shoots the ball against Auburn Tigers forward Chaney Johnson (31) during the first half in the semifinals of the men's Final Four of the 2025 NCAA Tournament at the Alamodome. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

The Golden State Warriors landed one Florida Gators guard—Will Richard—during the NBA Draft. Did they also try to get another?

Tim Kawakami of The San Francisco Standard has an interesting piece this weekend about how Golden State approached the first round of the draft. Wrote Kawakami: The Warriors had a player spotlighted somewhere in the mid-teens they figured would fit perfectly with Stephen Curry & Co. right away; of course, they tried to jump into the first round to get him; and of course, I could mainly detect this just by watching [owner Joe] Lacob’s courtside seat during Wednesday’s Valkyries game at Chase Center, which he didn’t get to until after halftime — and the end of the draft’s first round.

Kawakami then quoted Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy as saying this to him during his Thursday podcast: “There was a player that we liked in the middle of the first round that we made some offers to try and move up to get. I think the thought was a guy that probably could’ve helped us this year coming up, and that’s pretty rare coming in the draft. It wasn’t a wide range of players; it was one guy. We tried to get in for it, didn’t work out.”

So, who was that player?

Kawakami speculated it was Florida Gators All-American point guard Walter Clayton Jr., the star of UF’s national championship team.

Wrote Kawakami: I asked around after Dunleavy confirmed the attempt and that led me to the most-lauded Florida guard, Walter Clayton Jr., a dynamic scorer who won Final Four Most Outstanding Player earlier this year and ended up going 18th to Utah.

It doesn’t sound like the Warriors got too close to a deal, even as Clayton fell a little lower than expected. It’s tougher to move into the first round these days than it used to be and it’s likely that it would’ve either hard-capped the Warriors at the second apron or cost a future first-round pick that might be pretty important for the Warriors to keep.

Clayton was picked by Washington at No. 18 overall in the first round of the NBA Draft, then traded to Utah.

Clayton was the first player in program history to earn first-team All-American honors and finished his 2024-25 season with 713 points — UF’s single-season scoring record. He earned Final Four and West Regional Most Outstanding Player honors as well as SEC Tournament MVP. He scored a career-high 34 points against Auburn — becoming the first player with back-to-back 30-point games in the Elite Eight and Final Four since Larry Bird in 1979 — and 11 second-half points vs. Houston with the game-winning defensive stop.

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