Warriors assign seemingly everyone to the G League

In recent years it’s become a little popular for NBA teams to assign players to their G League affiliates simply to practice. The Golden State Warriors were one of the first teams to catch headlines for this, opening eyes when they assigned four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins to the Santa Cruz Warriors while he was rehabbing an injury.

Some eager folks got excited at the thought of Boogie playing in the G League, but he was only there to get caught up to speed at practices. G League teams have a much more serious practice schedule than NBA squads, which only practice lightly, and only when there are consecutive off days.

The Warriors are taking that route pretty strongly this year. On Wednesday, the team assigned rookies Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody to the G League — not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time.

While it’s certainly possible that Kuminga (who has only played about seven minutes in the last four games) and Moody (who’s only appeared in one of the last four games) will stick in Santa Cruz long enough to play a game, they’re likely just there to practice. Both Golden State and Santa Cruz are off until Friday, and chances are the squad will reunite at Chase Center then.

This comes following news earlier in the week that the Warriors assigned Klay Thompson, Damion Lee, and James Wiseman to Santa Cruz. Those three certainly never planned on playing games there, but got in some valuable practice time while the Dubs were on the road.

We even got something we’ve sorely missed out of it: Klay highlights.

It’s a good strategy, assigning players to the G League for some practice time. But it sure makes for some funny and frequent press releases.