The Warriors stayed at No. 11 in the NBA Draft Lottery on Monday night, preserving the pick they will use next month in the NBA Draft. Before the drawing, they had a 90% chance of either staying where they were or falling to No. 12, and the ball bounced exactly to the middle of that range.
Washington won the first choice in the 2025-26 NBA Draft, while the Kings slid from the fifth-best odds to seventh and the Clippers landed Indiana’s pick at No. 5 after their midseason Ivica Zubac trade. For Golden State, the result was not a windfall, but it was not a setback either. The Warriors will pick 11th in next month’s NBA Draft, giving them a first-round asset in a class widely described around the league as deep and loaded.
That class is headlined by AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Darryn Peterson, with Peterson among the prospects drawing the most attention. One name that fits the range Golden State could consider is karim lopez, although the Warriors are not limited to one path with the selection.
Mike Dunleavy has built a strong reputation in the draft, and that matters here because the pick can be used in more than one way. Golden State could make the selection and develop a player, or package it with other assets in a trade for a proven star. That flexibility is the point of staying in the lottery without moving up: the Warriors did not get the elite slot some around the league had spent weeks predicting, but they did keep a chip that can still matter in different markets.
The speculation that Golden State was headed into the top four never matched the odds in front of it. There are no frozen envelopes in the ping-pong ball era, and the Warriors’ night proved it. They came in with a 90% chance of staying at No. 11 or dropping to No. 12, and they left with the same pick they started with, only now the choice carries a little more weight because the class behind it is so strong.
That leaves the real question in front of the team now, not in the lottery room but in the weeks ahead: whether the Warriors keep No. 11 and make a bet on youth, or use it as part of a larger move that changes the roster immediately. In a draft this deep, the pick has value either way.
