Yuta Watanabe went undrafted in the 2018 draft. He just graduated after four years at George Washington, finishing as the conference DPOY and among the top of his school’s all-time leaderboards for multiple stats.

Kleiman was promoted to AGM prior to the 2018-19 season and signed Watanabe to a 2-way. Kleiman took over as EVP of BO towards the end of that season.

Watanabe showed the value of older prospects that may have been overlooked because they played for a mid-major, were under-recruited, under-utilized based on system, or didn’t get exposure until their later years. He also showed the positional flexibility that has become so valuable. He can stroke it, is a decent ball handler, solid defensively, and low-usage.

Other players that fit this profile since Kleiman took the reins? Traded for Grayson, a 4 year player when he got drafted. Signed Kyle Anderson, the ultimate positional mindfuck. Jitty as a UFA, small school, “tweener”, “utility player”. Bane and Clarke, both players that were under-recruited and have outplayed their draft position. X and Tillie were basically both swings at an older player, and he went 1/2 in drafting a serviceable bench player. Santi is basically the Spanish Yuta with a little more size and less consistent shooting. Laravia, Roddy, and Lofton last year all basically fit the profile. Luke is similar as an older draft prospect that didn’t really pop until his later years and was not used properly in his prior teams.

This is basically a drunken rant as I’m watching the Suns/Assholes game and imagining if we had kept Yuta instead of letting him walk in 2020. He is a useful bench player, but part of me thinks Kleiman used him as a test case before going all-in on players that fit a similar profile.