Golden State Warriors: Breaking down the signing of Marquese Chriss

The Golden State Warriors have signed former lottery pick Marquese Chriss to a non-guaranteed contract. Here is a breakdown of the training camp signing.

The Golden State Warriors are under two weeks away from kicking off their 2019 preseason. But before they take the floor in the brand new Chase Center, the team had to first finalize their 20-man training camp roster with the signing of Marquese Chriss.

Chriss is one of the more notable training camp additions that the Warriors have made this year. The 22-year-old was selected No. 8 overall in the 2016 NBA Draft by Golden State’s NorCal rivals, the Sacramento Kings.

The Kings subsequently dealt Chriss’ draft rights to the Phoenix Suns for a package including the rights to Bogdan Bogdanovic. Unfortunately, Chriss would spend just two seasons in Phoenix before overstaying his welcome.

Despite his immense potential, the 6-foot-10 power forward would gain a reputation for lackadaisical play and would get into numerous disagreements with the Suns’ coaching staff.

Before long, Chriss’ coaches would grow tired of his antics and his playing time dipped in his second NBA season as he would lose his full-time starting role.

The Suns traded Chriss to the Houston Rockets prior to the start of last season but he would play in only 16 games — averaging just 6.5 minutes per game — before being shipped to the Cleveland Cavaliers at his own request.

He would see a little more playing time with the subpar Cavaliers averaging 14.6 minutes in his 27 games with the team. However, his production just simply wasn’t there for the most part.

And that’s the thing with Chriss. Coming out of Washington he was seen as a project player given his incredible athleticism but unrefined skill set.

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Unfortunately, partially due to his own shortcoming and partially due to his environment, Chriss just hasn’t been able to develop as an NBA player. At this point, he’s still more of an athlete than a true basketball player.

Chriss overstayed his welcome in Phoenix not only because of his attitude, but because his play simply didn’t warrant the team giving him any more time to develop. His defense was atrocious and he didn’t show enough offensive promise to make up for that.

As a result, the former lottery pick finds himself on his fourth team in three seasons.

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That said, there’s reason to be optimistic. After all, Chriss is still just 22-years-old and he has the athletic potential that most players could only dream of. But his worth ethic hasn’t been encouraging and neither has his development.

Fortunately, it’s not as if this is a key signing for the Warriors. Since the team is hard-capped, they don’t have to money to sign another player to a contract even with an open roster spot.

For that reason, the only chance that Chriss has of making the roster would be for the team to waive Alfonzo McKinnie‘s non-guaranteed contract of trade away a player like Omari Spellman or Jacob Evans.

And we could say with 99% certainty that none of those things are going to happen.