The Warriors have built one of the greatest teams in NBA history by striking gold time and time again in the draft.
Six players famously heard their names called before Stephen Curry in 2009. The Warriors paired him with Klay Thompson two years later with the No. 11 pick. The franchise then made one of the greatest second-round picks of all time the following year in Draymond Green.
Curry, Thompson and Green aren't the only homerun picks the Warriors have made, though. He doesn't get as much attention, but Kevon Looney has become an integral piece of Golden State's dynasty after slipping to the end of the first round.
What's interesting is that Looney was once seen as one of the best prospects in his draft class, to the point where he was drawing comparisons to one of the greatest scorers in NBA history.
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Kevon Looney NBA Draft scouting report
Kevon Looney comparisons
The most famous comparison for Looney was Kevin Durant.
In 2012, Looney's high school coach, Tom Diener, explained to MaxPreps why he thought he had the ability to impact the game in ways similar to Durant.
"I think he's going to be one of those guys that can play all over the floor," Diener said. "More and more, the great players are the ones that can play all over the floor. … He's a lot like Durant in the way that he plays where he can go inside and he can play facing the basket, 20 feet from the basket. He's going to be pretty versatile."
Diener reportedly heard from Division 1 coaches "all the time" about how much Looney reminded them of Durant.
Closer to the 2015 NBA Draft, Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal wrote that he thought Looney had the potential to be a "poor man's Kevin Durant" not because of how he produced in college, but because of his playing style.
"Looney is a lanky forward who's comfortable handling the ball and settling in on defense," wrote Fromal. "He can dribble out on the perimeter comfortably and often ran sets for the UCLA Bruins, which should help him become somewhat of a matchup nightmare at the next level."
Other sites compared Looney to Antawn Jamison and Al-Farouq Aminu ahead of the NBA Draft. RealGM had him as a mix of Jeff Green, DeMarre Carroll, Elton Brand and Luol Deng.
Kevon Looney strengths and weaknesses
Here's how Jonathan Givony of Draft Express summarized Looney's game following his season at UCLA:
As a scorer, Looney just wasn't all that prolific this year, especially against better competition, where he simply struggled to make his presence felt in the half-court, scoring 13.9 points per-40 on a paltry 43% from 2-point range against BCS teams over .500. Overall, his 14.4 points per-40 minutes pace adjusted ranks 74th among the 82 college players currently in our Top-100 prospect rankings, and he wasn't very efficient to compensate for that, ranking 70th in true shooting percentage.
Looney doesn't possess any type of post-game, lacking the strength or footwork needed to score with his back to the basket, as he hit just 8 of his 32 attempts on the year. He is just an average ball-handler when forced to create a shot for himself as well, struggling to get by power forwards due to his underwhelming first step. Most alarming is his inability to finish plays around the basket, as he converted just 52% of his shots inside the paint this year in the half-court, which is fairly poor for someone with his size and length. His lack of quickness and explosiveness limits his upside as far as the NBA is concerned, as he may be relegated to somewhat of a one-dimensional role in turn.
Looney is still very young, only turning 19 in February, which means he still has plenty of time to develop as a prospect. He has a nice feel for the game, posting a positive assist to turnover ratio, and his length, rebounding prowess and developing shooting range gives him some nice things to fall back on. Some of his limitations are fairly worrying, though, and could certainly limit his potential to develop into a starting caliber player in today's hyper-athletic NBA, so continuing to develop his perimeter game and trying to maximize his frame and explosiveness will be imperative moving forward.
Kevon Looney college stats, accolades and highlights
Looney spent one season at UCLA. He earned Second-Team All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Freshman Team selections with averages of 11.6 points and 9.2 rebounds per game.
Looney flashed potential as a shooter, knocking down 41.5 percent of his 1.5 3-point attempts per game.
| PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | FG% | 3PT% | FT% | |
| Kevon Looney at UCLA | 11.6 | 9.2 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 0.9 | 47.0 | 41.5 | 62.6 |
Why Kevon Looney fell in the 2015 NBA Draft
The Warriors selected Looney with the No. 30 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft.
Once seen as a potential lottery pick, Looney fell in the draft due in part to concerns about a hip injury he suffered while at UCLA. Looney's agent denied a report claiming he had surgery on his hip, but an NBA executive told Givony that he was "red-flagged" with a hip and degenerative back issue.
"Oh there’s no question, and I think that he definitely dropped because of that," UCLA coach Steve Alford said about Looney's injury concerns around the draft. "Fortunately, he dropped into a great situation with this franchise."
On Aug. 20, 2015, the Warriors announced that Looney underwent right hip arthroscopy to repair a torn labrum. Less than a year later, he underwent left hip arthroscopy to repair a torn labrum.
Since those early-career hip injuries, Looney has become one of the NBA's ironmen.
