Warriors workouts span the spectrum

OAKLAND — Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has said he wants his team to run more, so why not bring in a Runnin’ Rebel to do just that.

Roscoe Smith, who played at UNLV, was one of six prospects invited to the Warriors second pre-draft workout Friday.

The 6-foot-8, 215-pound Smith was fifth in Division I in rebounding averaging 10.9 a game, and was one of only 15 athletes in NCAA Division I basketball to average a double-double during the season.

Smith was the only Top 100 prospect in attendance, coming in at No. 77 on ESPN’s Chad Ford’s list and No. 80 on nbadraft.net’s.

But he doesn’t pay attention to those rankings:

“That’s false advertising, no one knows who’s going to get drafted, everyone wants to know but no one really knows.”

John Bohannon (UTEP), Rod Odom (Vanderbilt), Devon Saddler (Delaware), Okaro White (Florida State) and Chaz Williams (UMass) joined Smith in the Warriors workout.

Saddler led Delaware in scoring each of the past three seasons, averaging 17.9 points over his career, and helped them make the NCAA tournament this season for the first time in 15 years.

White was selected to the ACC All-Defensive team this past season averaging 13.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.1 blocks for the Seminoles.

At 6-foot-9 and about 200 pounds, White is trying to show off that defense in these workouts:

“I’m not trying to show over the course of a month or month and a half I’ve became a Kobe, I’m trying to show my set jump shot, which I think is pretty good, defense and running.”

Williams earned all conference honors for the third consecutive season, averaging 15.6 points per game. Despite standing only 5-foot-9, he led the surprising UMass team to a sixth-seed in the NCAA tournament before they were eliminated by Tennessee.

Williams’ height is something he knows teams focus on in the workouts:

 “My heart is the biggest thing on my body and you can’t see that, so I just go out there and play hard as I can. I am short but it isn’t going to stop me from trying to compete. It just gives me more fuel to my fire, and just go out there and prove a lot more people wrong because I know what I can do.”

Saddler, White and Williams are all ranked on draftexpress’ Top 100 seniors list, coming in at 85, 67 and 75 respectively.

Williams kept up with the Warriors throughout the year because his favorite player is Steph Curry and knows what he can bring to the team:

“I can be a pass-first point guard and allow Steph and Klay to do their thing. Scoring is a huge part of my game but I like passing the ball more and if coach wants me to come in and score that’s what I’ll do, if he wants me to come in and get 10 assists that’s what I’ll do.”

Friday was the Warriors second pre-draft workout in three days, after working out six other prospects on Wednesday. Like the Warriors, White said all the prospects have hectic schedules:

“You know a lot of people say the workouts but to me it’s the flying. I’ve been training out in Vegas, and just this past week I’ve flew from Vegas to DC, then DC to here and before that I went from Memphis to Vegas, so the flying really hurts the body, big guys cramp up on the plane.”

Even with the taxing workout schedule, Smith said the chance to play in the NBA is that light at the end of the tunnel:

“To be honest I don’t even care how my body deals with it, that’s something that I just got to do. It’s not tough at all because this is what I want to do, this is my dream.”