Warriors’ persistent shooting woes could accelerate trade search originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – The joy ride the Warriors enjoyed as they won 10 of their first 12 games was largely the product of stellar defense, a decent assist-to-turnover ratio and fantastic three-point shooting. They got that 10-2 record.
Since then, they have lost eight of 12, and those three categories have fallen. Three-point shooting percentage has fallen from third in the NBA to 14th.
Can this squad recover? Or should general manager Mike Dunleavy and his management team increase their intensity? towards a trade?
Or maybe this is something that will fade in the next few games. A fall.
“No,” Lindy Waters III said Friday after practice. “No.
“The ball is going to go in. You’re going to fail night after night, defensive schemes, everything you can take into account. From the outside one may think that it is a crisis.
But like I said, we’ve been to every game. We have had chances to win many games. But I would never call that a crisis.”
Waters reached the Warriors during the summer like a branch snapped off Oklahoma City’s three-point shooter tree. It got off to a fantastic start but has cooled down appreciably. The 6-foot-6 wing shot 40.7 percent from deep during the team’s first dozen, but has since shot 30.6 percent.
Waters has plenty of company in the team’s recent downfall. Let’s take a look at the designated 3-point shooters on Golden State’s roster:
Stephen Curry, the all-time 3-point king, was 43.2 percent through 12 and has since dropped slightly to 39.8 percent.
Buddy Hield, one of the The NBA’s true 3-point shootersfell from 46.9 percent in the first 12 games to 37.6 percent in the next 12. Still respectable, but below its norm and a considerable drop from an initially unsustainable number.
De’Anthony Melton was a respectable 37.1 percent but lasted 11 games before A knee injury ended his season..
Moses Moody shot 45.8 percent in the team’s first 12 games, 23.5 percent since.
Jonathan Kuminga, who was advised to spend last summer perfecting his three-point shot, has struggled from the start, shooting 31.7 percent in his first 12 and 30.2 percent since then.
Draymond Green isn’t one of the league’s sharpshooters, so his 45.2 percent top-12 mark was never going to last. Since then it has 29.7 percent.
Only two players, Brandin Podziemski and Andrew Wiggins, are draining three balls more efficiently now than before. Podziemski, at 19.1 percent in his first 12 games, has since shot 31.6 percent, but a magnificent 41.2 percent in his last five games. Wiggins shot 37 percent through the first 12, but has since shot 47.4 percent.
Even with recent inefficiency hurting that approach, coach Steve Kerr believes he still has enough quality shooters to compete at the highest level.
“I think we have a lot of shots,” Kerr said. “We are trying to find combinations that fit. There are times where we put a combination on the court that’s maybe leaning too much toward offense or defense, and now we’re struggling a little bit.
“We’re deep, but we still have to manage the 48 in terms of balancing our rotations.”
Once Melton went down, Kerr realized he had to decide on a starting replacement at shooting guard. I could have gone with Gary Payton II, who is great but has a hard time making threes. There was Podziemski, whose three-pointers are starting to line up but is vulnerable on defense. Kerr initially turned to Waters, someone on the fringes of the rotation but who could offer a good balance of offense and defense.
All three have had opportunities to start alongside Curry, with Payton being the most recent. If he is on the court with Kuminga and Green, the Warriors have three players who do not dominate defenders in the goal.
And to think that the Warriors opened the season they seemed to have enough deep shooting to play “four out,” with at least four players comfortable shooting from distance. They were finally ready to join the rest of the NBA.
The team, however, has not performed as well as it did at the beginning. There are certainly no shortage of shooters.
“You can never have too much,” Kerr admitted. “I think losing Melton was a big part of what we’ve seen in the last few weeks because what you really need is two-sided. You need a shooter who can also defend so you don’t have to make decisions based on offense or defense.”
That was Melton, a high-level defender and solid shooter from beyond the arc. Without a doubt, it fit perfectly with what Golden State had in mind.
There might be an ideal replacement somewhere in the league, but he’s not on the current roster.
Download and follow the Dubs Talk podcast
This embedded content is not available in your region.