The Warriors got their man.

No, not Jordan Poole, their first-round pick (and No. 28 overall) in Thursday’s NBA draft.

Nice pick. Yawn. Conservative. At least they picked a player who can shoot, unlike last season.

The Warriors’ big score, though, was their second pick, Alen Smailagic, a 6-foot-10 teenage forward they have been stashing for more than a year, hoping the rest of the league wouldn’t notice.

It was the kind of move that defines a team that considers itself light-years ahead. Seriously.

“It’s really next-level thinking on (the Warriors’) part, to be honest,” a Western Conference scout told The Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau this year, referring to the Warriors discovering Smailagic and then keeping him mostly off the NBA radar while hoping to snag him in this draft.

Their hard work worked. The Warriors gave New Orleans two future second-round picks and money to move up to No. 39 to pick Smailagic.

He is not a sure thing. You don’t get sure things at No. 39. But he’s surely an interesting thing, and interesting is good on many levels.

For one thing, the allure of Chase Center will wear off gradually, like by the second game of this coming season, and then the Warriors will need to start offering entertainment on the court.

Smailagic is only 18, and his experience is thin. Best case, the Warriors will bring him along slowly, he’ll spend a lot of time in the G League, but he could play himself into an interesting role with the team, and even fill a couple of needs.

He could become enough of a presence on the Warriors, and around Chase Center, to infuse some energy, and hope, into the fans. ... And maybe into the team itself.

Smailagic could develop into a Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets All-Star who averaged 20.1 points, 10.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists.

Smailagic rode out the entire pre-draft process in Serbia, a million miles away from the NBA combine and individual team workouts.

Crazy story. Warriors team owner Joe Lacob considers himself a judge of talent, and he might be, but it was one of his kids, Kent, who discovered Smailagic on a scouting trip, as a 16-year-old playing in a third-level league in Belgrade, Serbia, that has not produced an NBA player in its 33 years.

In October of last year, the Santa Cruz Warriors of the G League, general managed by Kent Lacob, traded up in the G League draft to get Smailagic from the South Bay Lakers.

The youngster arrived in Santa Cruz speaking zero English, but he’s a willing learner, on the court and off, and he fit right in, the youngest player in G League history.

The Warriors limited his exposure, but he played well in limited time. In his third game, coming off the bench, he scored 16 against the Clippers. Not long after that, he had a 25-point, 12-rebound game against the Lakers.

He’s a floor-spacer who can guard multiple positions and can shoot the 3. At least he can at the G League level, which at age 18 makes him intriguing.

That’s why the Warriors worked hard to keep Smailagic under-exposed, but they needed some luck, too, to land the player they discovered and have groomed. Smailagic wasn’t totally unknown to the league’s scouts, and the Warriors’ work at trying to keep him secret should have alerted the other teams.

Hey, maybe it won’t work. Who knows if the lad will develop. But the risk is minimal, and the potential reward is great.

Until the Warriors grabbed Smailagic, I was disappointed.

I was hoping they would snag Bol Bol with their first pick. That would have been much riskier than Poole, but much more intriguing, with a bigger potential payoff.

I get it, the Warriors didn’t want to take a wild swing with their first-round pick, they really want someone who might help them next season, and Bol is a risk. Also a fascinating project, a 7-2 stick who can run and shoot 3s.

As the Athletic’s draftnick Sam Vecenie wrote, “Bol is unlike any player we’ve seen in the NBA before, with a 9-foot-7 standing reach, the ability to take and make above the break 3s. ... and even some ability to grab and go on the break. ... Fascinating tools for the modern game.”

Interesting, and fun.

But Bol’s work ethic and health (foot surgery cut short his freshman season) are questionable.

Smailagic, on the other hand, is solid as a rock. A very young rock.

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler