Who is Taran Armstrong? New Warriors guard’s path paved by Cal Baptist

Who is Taran Armstrong? New Warriors guard’s path paved by Cal Baptist originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

The Warriors’ first home game after the 2025 NBA All-Star break was smothered in storylines.

Andre Iguodala was celebrated before, during and after Sunday’s game as his No. 9 jersey was retired and hung in the rafters, becoming the seventh player in franchise history to receive the honor. Warriors fans finally saw their newest star, Jimmy Butler, play at Chase Center. Their former star and franchise icon, Klay Thompson, was playing against his old team for a fourth and final time during the regular season.

Then, right as the game was tipping off, another storyline was added to the mix away from the court. Away from Chase Center, San Francisco and even away from the country.

With one roster spot available, the Warriors on Sunday agreed to a two-way contract with point guard Taran Armstrong out of Australia’s National Basketball League, his agent Daniel Moldovan told ESPN’s Shams Charania.

The Warriors officially announced on Tuesday the agreement with the 23-year-old native of Burnie in Tasmania, Australia, who played at Cal Baptist in Riverside from 2021 through 2023.

“I got a text from his father all the way in Tasmania and we were just overjoyed,” Armstrong’s college coach at Cal Baptist, Rick Croy, said to NBC Sports Bay Area in an exclusive interview. “Incredible joy. Watching the ability to learn about somebody accomplishing a dream – there’s nothing better.”

Basketball can be a copy-cat game, but Croy’s decision to deviate from the norm of today’s college basketball landscape soon will turn into both Warriors and NBA history.

Before Croy became Cal Baptist’s head coach in 2013 and completely changed the course of the program, he was Randy Bennett’s lead assistant at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, where a strong pipeline from Australia has formed. Building relationships in Australia helped Croy land Armstrong’s older brother, Tre, in the 2019 recruiting class, which became the stepping stone to the newest Warrior coming to campus in 2021.

Taran already was a highly decorated prospect coming up the ranks in Australia with a long list of accolades to show for it. He was given a scholarship by the NBA Global Academy in 2018 to spend the next three years developing at the Basketball Australia Centre Excellence. Armstrong played on the U17 Australian National Team, helped Australia win gold at the 2019 FIBA Oceania Tournament, played in the FIBA U19 World Cup and played on Tasmania’s U20 State Team.

June’s 2025 NBA Draft will be headlined by one-and-done players. Top prospects Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper will be on their respective campuses for just a few months before turning pro, and all three will be teenagers when selected. But between NIL and extra eligibility from COVID, college basketball now is full of older players running the show.

Adding Armstrong to the 2021 recruiting class meant all hands in from the coaching staff philosophically. The ball was going to be in the 19-year-old’s hands, through his mistakes and through reaping the benefits of his advanced basketball mind.

“Family is so important to the Armstrongs,” Croy says. “That was key. And Tre, his older brother, is a really special leader in Taran’s life. So No. 1 was family, but No. 2, we were committed to giving Taran the ball at a time in college basketball where it was really trending towards everyone trying to get old and stay old. Most of the guys that are in that role are very accomplished, seasoned veterans.

“We just felt like Taran’s talents were so unique. We were honored to give him the ball and watch him do his thing.”

Those talents were seen from his first college game, too. Armstrong had 12 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and one block in his debut, beating San Francisco State by 22 points. In his fourth game, Cal Baptist upset San Jose State by one point behind the school’s first-ever triple-double, where Amstrong tallied 16 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists.

Armstrong was named the WAC’s Freshman of the Year, averaging 10.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game. As a freshman, he broke Cal Baptist’s single-game assists record with 15, plus he led all freshmen in assists per game, while ranking fifth among all players.

Not every aspect of Armstrong’s game was perfect, though.

How Armstrong competes and practices first stood out to Croy, even ahead of his flair for highlight passes. His body now is much more built for the pro game after being a scrawny 6-foot-5 freshman. His natural ability to make everyone around him better was obvious to anyone, as was his need to improve as a shooter. Each question has been answered along the way.

Halfway through Armstrong’s 2021-22 freshman year, he battled a case of mono as conference play began. Before that, he was hit with two other big tests, playing road games against Texas and Arizona. This was Armstrong’s chance to showcase himself for NBA scouts and front offices. Instead, he fell flat.

Texas was the preseason No. 5 team in the country. Against the Longhorns, Armstrong committed seven turnovers, scoring only six points with one assist in a 24-point loss. When Cal Baptist played Arizona, the Wildcats were 10-0. Armstrong again was on the wrong end of an ugly 24-point loss, this time having four turnovers in a game where he also had nine points, three rebounds and three assists.

The next year, just four games into his sophomore season, Armstrong showed everybody how he had learned from those two frustrating performances, turning his weaknesses more and more into positives. Cal Baptist’s first 2022-23 road game was a 73-64 upset over Washington. Armstrong was the star, scoring 18 points while also registering five rebounds, six assists, one steal and two blocks.

“There was just a moment there where it was like, ‘Coach, throw the playbook out. Just put me in a ball screen and we’re going to get this game done,’ ” Croy remembers. “That’s the inner confidence that channeled through him.”

The next game was another much bigger and well-recognized opponent in the Minnesota Gophers. Cal Baptist lost by one point in overtime, but Armstrong again made a loud statement with a box score of 24 points, six rebounds and two assists.

“He just stayed at the task and kept improving, and was really, really tough and resilient,” Croy says.

Armstrong earned All-WAC Second Team as a sophomore after averaging 11.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game. Croy, of course, would have loved to keep coaching Armstrong, but he wasn’t going to get in the way of his unique opportunity, going pro in the NBL for the Cairns Taipans.

Armstrong was one of the NBL’s most intriguing young players during his second season, and the most improved players overall, going from 7.7 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, to 17.1 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game while also raising his 3-point proficiency from 26 percent on only 1.5 attempts to 35 percent on 5.1 attempts.

The Warriors made the signing official Tuesday, making Armstrong the first player from Tasmania ever to ink an NBA contract of any kind. The celebration will be on when he enters an NBA game for the first time. Croy believes Armstrong will remind people of Ricky Rubio for his “elite passing, great size, ability to see over the defense, play with great pace and be very, very, very competitive.”

Steve Kerr admitted to NBC Sports Bay Area on Tuesday night that he hadn’t seen Armstrong play yet. Armstrong is expected to arrive in Santa Cruz on Thursday but might not play in a game for at least a few days as his work visa still needs to be cleared.

Pointing to the fact that the Warriors outscored the Hornets by four points while using six players who have been a product of their G League affiliate this season, Kerr is confident Armstrong can grow into the player the front office envisions.

“What our front office has done, what our Santa Cruz coaching staff has done with development, I trust them implicitly,” Kerr said. “I’m excited because if these guys believe in him, then I believe in him.”

Seeing every hurdle he had to leap, every mountain he had to climb and every question mark he had to work to have an answer for, Croy always will be in Armstrong’s corner. The reasoning isn’t his obvious skills. What’s up top has convinced Croy that Armstrong is made to be a Warrior.

“The thing about Taz is he’s fearless, and I think the Warriors play a fearless brand of basketball,” Croy says. “They’ve demonstrated that with guys who have had success in their program. They just seem to find a way to tap into guys’ elite talents and Taran has an elite, elite ability to create easy buckets and open shots for his team. I’m sure they’ll find a way to utilize that.”

The Warriors internationally already have represented Canada (Andrew Wiggins and Jackson Rowe), Germany (Dennis Schroder), Brazil (Gui Santos), the Bahamas (Buddy Hield), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Jonathan Kuminga) and the Netherlands (Quinten Post) this season.

Now, a new chapter of Dub Nation can form in Tasmania. Armstrong’s pro path already was paved in Australia from a young age. Overcoming obstacles at a small California college that turned D-I in 2018 were wrinkles he needed at the right time to one day be a Warrior.

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