Tyrese Haliburton Was a Huge What-If For the Warriors

As the five-year anniversary of the 2020 NBA Draft approaches (originally scheduled for June but pushed back five months due to the pandemic) it’s hard not to think about what could have been for the Golden State Warriors.

And yeah, it’s pretty obvious now who slipped through their fingers.

Tyrese Haliburton is definitely the one who got away.

Trying to rewrite history won’t do much for the Warriors now, but it’s still a wild “what if.” After a brutal 15-win season , no KD (he had just gone to Brooklyn), Klay out with a torn ACL, and Steph limited to five games with a broken hand, Golden State somehow landed the No. 2 pick. It was a huge opportunity, but also a total minefield.

“I was disappointed that they (had) the No. 2 pick because I felt like if they were anywhere out of the top three, I felt like I was going to be the pick,” Haliburton told Tim Kawakami back in December 2023.

The Warriors were definitely intrigued. Steve Kerr, Joe Lacob, and Bob Myers all flew out to Vegas for a private workout with Haliburton. And he brought it.

“The best workout probably of my life,” Haliburton said.

Myers remembers it just as clearly: “He did what he does. He made a ton of shots and we looked at each other and said, ‘He might be pretty good.’ Different kind of shot, kind of a set shot, but he made them all.” (via NBA Countdown)

But what really stuck with Myers wasn’t the shooting.

“What bothers me more than anything was… when we met with him after, I should have known then… how smart he is and how confident. It’s not fake, it’s not arrogant, it’s confidence.”