Warriors make roster move right before postseason

The Golden State Warriors are currently preparing for their final game of the regular season, at home against the Los Angeles Clippers, with playoff positioning on the line. If Golden State wins the game, they will be able to avoid the play-in and earn a matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.

Still, that isn’t stopping general manager Mike Dunleavy from making some last-minute moves as the regular season clock ticks down.

On Sunday, the team’s public relations account on X announced that it had converted forward Braxton Key to a standard NBA contract. Key is a defensive specialist who previously played in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets and has appeared in three games for Golden State this season.

Key won this year’s Defensive Player of the Year award for the NBA G-League, and recently, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr compared him to Golden State’s NBA Defensive Player of the Year candidate Draymond Green.

“Maybe it’s unfair to Draymond [Green] to compare the two, because Draymond’s a four-time champion and future Hall of Famer – Braxton has some Draymond qualities,” Kerr said, per Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area.

Santa Cruz Warriors head coach Nicholas Kerr also had high praise for the forward.

“This dude’s the best player we’ve seen in the G League this year,” he said before a game in March. “He’s a monster defender. He can get to the rim, and he’s made shots for us so far. You can tell that he’s a gamer, too.”

It wouldn’t appear likely that Key will see much, if any, playing time during the Warriors’ upcoming postseason run, but he does fill out their 15th and final roster spot and gives them a reliable defender off the bench if injury concerns were to mount.

The Warriors and Clippers are slated to tip off at 3:30 PM ET from San Francisco.