SAN FRANCISCO — Guard Kelly Oubre is joining the Golden State Warriors to give the team backcourt depth in the wake of Klay Thompson’s latest injury, with Oubre acquired Sunday in a trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Warriors will send a conditional 2021 first-round draft pick and a 2021 second-round selection — via Denver — to Oklahoma City in the swap.
Thompson will miss the season after suffering a torn right Achilles tendon playing a pickup game in Southern California on Wednesday. He already sat out the coronavirus-shortened season recovering from surgery for a torn ACL in his left knee that he hurt in the Raptors’ clinching Game 6 victory of the 2019 NBA Finals.
"We’ve got to look hard and look fast," Warriors general manager Bob Myers said Thursday when Golden State introduced No. 2 overall draft pick James Wiseman and second-rounder Nico Mannion at Chase Center. "But I’ve got some great guys I work with that are working right now on what we can do. And so we’ve got to fill that position and give our fans and our organization and all the people that support us the best chance to win next year that we can."
The 24-year-old Oubre is coming off a season in which he averaged career bests of 18.7 points and 6.4 rebounds over 56 games — 55 starts — for the Phoenix Suns. He also added 1.5 assists and 1.27 steals in 34.5 minutes. Oubre ended up with the Thunder on Monday night in the trade that sent Chris Paul to Phoenix.
The Warriors drafted Arizona guard Nico Mannion in the second round of the draft before knowing all the details of the injury to Thompson, who underwent an MRI exam Thursday that revealed the severity.
"We got this news and we found ourselves with a hole at a position that we can’t find many better guys to fill than a Klay Thompson," Myers said. "We read our board up and under the two guard position we have a blank space. After processing that, like you mentioned, the league’s not waiting for us. We’ve got to do what we have to do. We’re exploring a lot of things. "
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