Warriors sending James Wiseman to G League, where he will remain for 'an extended period'

The Golden State Warriors are in a sticky spot with James Wiseman. First and foremost, they're trying to win a championship, but they're also deep in the Business of trying to develop Wiseman, whom they drafted No. 2 overall in 2020. They would love to allow Wiseman the freedom on the court that he needs to grow, but the fact is he's not good enough to get on the court in the first place for a team with Golden State's aspirations. 

The solution, for now, is to send Wiseman down to Golden State's G League affiliate in Santa Cruz, which Steve Kerr confirmed the Warriors will, in fact, do starting on Tuesday. And it sounds like he could be down there for a while. 

"He's going to go to Santa Cruz [Tuesday], and we will keep him there for an extended period," Kerr told reporters after the Warriors' win over San Antonio on Monday. "It's not going to be one game and bring him back. We want to give him maybe 10 straight days, something like that, and then [he'll] come back. We all know things happen in this league, and he's going to find his way back to the rotation at some point. But the best thing for him is to play a lot of minutes and get a lot of reps."

If Wiseman is looking for advice on how to handle, and make the most of, what could be interpreted as a demotion, he doesn't have to look far. Jordan Poole, who wasn't a lottery pick like Wiseman but was a first-rounder, spent his first few years trying to find some sort of stable footing with the big club while bouncing back and forth to the G League, and now, in his fourth year, Poole is a major part of a championship team with a $140 million contract. 

To that point, this is good news from inside Golden State's locker room, via The Athletic's Marcus Thompson:

For his part, Wiseman is saying the right things. 

It's good that Wiseman is looking at this as an opportunity rather than a demotion, but in fact, it is a demotion. The Warriors certainly didn't intend for Wiseman to be in the G League in his third season. They didn't expect that he wouldn't even be good enough to be in the regular rotation. 

There are extenuating circumstances here. Wiseman has battled injuries, and he was extremely raw coming into the league in the first place having played just three college games. He needs time, and the Warriors can't give it to him. That said, those excuses won't be good forever. This is professional basketball, and if you're not up to the task, you're gone. 

Wiseman, depending on who you ask, has big potential, and long term he just might not be the right fit for Golden State's system. But right now he just needs to get better if he wants to have a chance of becoming a productive, starting-caliber player in the NBA, let alone the future All-Star the Warriors envisioned him being when they used their highest pick since 1995 to take him.