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OAKLAND–Joe Lacob’s Warriors went into this draft without a pick… and yet still ended up with athletic center/forward Jordan Bell, which is not a bad little magic act.

Financial magic, actually: For the fourth time in the Lacob ownership era, the Warriors purchased a pick, this time spending the maximum-allowed $3.5M to buy the 38th overall pick from Chicago, and use it on a player GM Bob Myers and Lacob both said they believed was a first-round value.

It’s hard to argue. Bell, a 6-foot-9 shot-blocker/rebounder who had an amazing NCAA tournament run for Oregon, is the kind of player the Warriors don’t really have–and who can bother them when he’s playing against them.

An attack-the-rim, crash-the-offensive-glass, switch-all-screens big forward whose ideal role for the Warriors probably is as a small-ball center behind Draymond Green.

“We had him in the first round, as one of our ranked guys,” Myers said. “I’m lucky to work with a great owner that’s aggressive, willing to spend.

“Not a lot of people allow their front office to pursue things like this, spend that kind of money… and that’s been the case with our team since I really got here.”

In fact, Lacob said that Bell was one of his two favorite second-tier players in this draft (full Lacob interview below) and that if you do the math it’s pretty easy to see the true value of buying picks in a salary-cap league.

Just last year, the Warriors landed Patrick McCaw for $2.4M, also with the 38th pick, and now McCaw looks like he’s ready to become a main-rotation player for the defending champions (after delivering huge minutes in the title-clinching Game 5 as a rookie).

All it costs is money. That doesn’t count on the cap. It’s all value. Pure value.

Of course, Bell hasn’t been much of a jump-shooter, which is why he slipped out of the first round and would seem to limit how quickly and how much he can play for the Warriors.

But as a 2nd-round purchase? Bell is an extraordinary value even if he’s only a back-bench guy for a year or two; and if he’s an immediate contributor, it’s just a straight up steal.

“I actually was not optimistic that we would be able to get him, but somehow it came to fruition,” Myers said.

One thing the Warriors wanted last summer: More athletic big men. They got it with JaVale McGee and still might get even more with 2016 first-rounder Damian Jones.

And now they’re adding Bell.

At this point, I’ll guess Bell is targeted for Kevon Looney’s roster spot, if they can off-load Looney’s final guaranteed year. If they can’t unload Looney, then Bell might take the spot of either James Michael McAdoo or Matt Barnes.

* In a related note, I heard tonight that even with only nine home playoff dates this year, the Warriors racked up the second-highest cumulative playoff gate in NBA history.

The No. 1 highest cumulative playoff gate, of course, was the Warriors in 2016 (with 14 home playoff dates), which just about doubled the previous record.

So the Warriors have the cash.

But to Lacob and Peter Guber’s credit, they’ve spent this kind of money for extra picks from the outset of their ownership.

* Previous Warriors’ pick-purchases in the Lacob era…

-2011: Jeremy Tyler at the 39th pick, purchased for $2M from Charlotte.

-2013: Nemanja Nedovic at the 30th pick (last pick of the first round), purchased from Phoenix at the end of a series of moves that cumulatively cost the Warriors $600,000.

-2016: Patrick McCaw at the 38th pick, purchased from Milwaukee for $2.4M.

That’s a total of $8.5M, counting Bell

The Warriors got nothing out of Tyler and Nedovic, but McCaw already paid off in his rookie season and could be a really valuable player soon, and we’ll see with Bell.

And remember, this costs nothing but money, which Lacob is always ready to pay.

—JOE LACOB interview transcript/

-Q: This is the fourth time you’ve bought a pick, the first two didn’t work out so great. How easy is it for you to just keep doing this?

-LACOB: Easy.

We want to always be incredibly aggressive and get better. We only have a few players under contract, as Bob pointed out.

We tried really hard. It was really hard this year. Harder than it sounds.

-Q: Did you try to get into the first round?

-LACOB: Yeah, of course. It’s just really hard to do.

But amazingly, through a tremendous amount of work and being on the phones constantly, these guys were able to pull it off. We all were able to pull it off.

And it was… I’m ecstatic. Ecstatic.

-Q: How high on your overall list was Bell?

-LACOB: I don’t know if Bob has said how high, but I will tell you… a lot higher.

Very, very similar to where we were last year (with McCaw).

-Q: There are some similarities to McCaw — athletic, maybe not the greatest scorers, which dropped them out of the first…

-LACOB: Very athletic. And honestly, he was one of two players that were my favorite guys in the whole thing, other than maybe the top 10 guys or something like that.

I’m very, very excited.

-Q: Did you know you could get to that 38th spot and just waited for him to drop there?

-LACOB: No, we didn’t know until it literally happened, the last second. We were just fighting, fighting, fighting to get the pick, working really hard.

It’s amazing that we were able to do it, second year in a row. Thirty-eight’s a lucky number, I guess.

-Q: The money keeps going up.

-LACOB: The cash keeps going up and it’s probably going to keep going up. And the CBA changes next year.

So if you win and you select the right guy, like I think we did last year, it’s very worth it if you just do the math.

-Q: How do you factor in this money? Does the playoff gate pay for this? How do you work this into the budget?

-LACOB: We would do it regardless. We just think that it’s money well spent if you just do the math.

If you are good at picking players, it’s just a lot cheaper way to get a player than otherwise. How else are you going to do it?