The (potential) answer to our back up woes just (potentially) fell into our (potential) laps. The Golden State Warriors just released second round draft pick Richard Hendrix, a guy I was absolutely salivating for in the draft. And by salivating, I literally mean I was spewing large volumes of spittle all over the place.
There were really only two bigs I loved this draft- Hendrix and Marreese Speights, who is now tearing it up in Philly. Hendrix finished 5th in NCAA in PER, 5th in WIN Score, and 8th in EFF before leaving before his junior season. So pretty much every system of analysis loved this guy. He finished second team SEC, before shedding 20 pounds of weight in the offseason and putting in a few dominating workouts. He's by no means the most polished scorer out there. But at 250 pounds, he's exactly the banger we gave up in Brandon Bass and that Utah has in Paul Millsap.
The Warriors, being the Warriors, have yet to use him in a single game this season. So Hendrix has been toiling around in the D-League. Well, toiling may not be the right word. 31 points, 14 boards in 32 minutes to open the season. 16 boards in his most recent game. He's averaging around 14 points on 10 shots a game. The icing on the cake is that he can shoot threes. Yes, I know this is the D-League, and Hilton Armstrong could probably average 10 points a game here.
Still, how can you not take a flyer on a guy projected by many to be the next Paul Millsap when your bench woes are as bad as ours? That's right, you can't. Please, please, please let's capitalize on this. I don't know what other teams' interest in Hendrix will be, but it's obvious ours should be high.