Man, and I totally had Wiseman playing like a monster and winning the MVP despite playing only 20 games. Maybe I will have to re-calibrate that to "most improved".
Just to be clear, I did not write the article, but I agree the nuances about drop was interesting.
> Do you think he can give us 10 minutes as a purely drop big this year?
I have no idea what to expect with Wiseman, his situation is kind of unprecedented although JJJ's play last season makes me pessimistic about a 7 footer less than a year after a meniscus surgery (plus a clean up procedure). We don't even know what he's been able to work on the past 10 months, grip strength exercises? Free throws? Film study? Weight room? if he takes a leap in one of those categories (hands, shooting, awareness, physicality) he'll be a lot closer to meriting 10 minutes I think. Of course he might get 10 minutes regardless given the center situation, at least in the regular season.
The author made a good point about Wiseman theoretically having the speed and length to clean up plays where the ballhandler drives past him. However, where Forbes gets his shot blocked in that clip, I feel like someone like CP3 or Trae Young is changing pace and then drawing contact on a sprinting to recover Wiseman for the foul. I guess that falls under the awareness category, although it's a pretty broad category.
Other things matter apart from that. For example, Steph might only score 22 points in a game (and even that might be on a middling or poor efficiency), but his presence on the court might let someone like Wiggins or Poole score 30. The looks those guys get are going to be heavily influenced (positively) by Curry being on the court (seriously, see Wiggins' TS% splits with and without Curry). It's obviously role dependent, but for someone like Steph I'd say he's done his job if the offense has been spectacular with him on the court (I'm talking about in terms of shot quality, someday you might brick 30 wide open 3s and not score enough but that's not a reflection of poor shot quality). Over the course of a season (or a few seasons), I would expect the shooting variance to normalize and we can look at on-off ORTGs for Steph. You can use the same heuristic for role players too, but it's usually about them being valuable on 1 end and not killing you on the other end.
And this is without even considering on-ball playmaking (someone like CP3 can dominate games with like 10-12 points), defense (Dray can dominate without scoring a single point) or rebounding (lord knows we've been dominated through this recently lol).
Does indicate one of the flaws in Looney's game - he makes the safe pass but rarely comes up with a "wow" assist as he's more content to just hold onto the ball. In recent games, Steph has been breaking down the defense with passes to Looney (instead of Draymond) and not getting the hockey assists as a result. It'd be interesting to see the assist totals just on post split-action plays - I think that's where Beli is shining and Dray is always so good. A little surprised OPJ doesn't have that many assists to Steph as I always thought of him as a very smart passer.
Wondering about how the Warriors are using Bjelica. He seems to have some of the same capabilities as Jokić away from the basket, but I’m not sure he’s being used to best advantage. thoughts? Also, according to the cover drawing JTA is trying to play with four fingers on his left hand, one of which looks vestigial. Certainly must hamper his game :) Finger enhancement/enlargement, back in 3-4 weeks.
He's got some of the same abilities as Jokic, but none of those abilities are good enough to warrant giving him serious playmaking (or rather play creating) duties regularly. Degree of skill matters just as much (probably more in all honesty) than possessing the skill.
He cannot drive, he has one of the highest TOV% on drives in the league. He can pass to cutters and shooters from the post, but his scoring threat isn't credible enough to actually create (i.e. break down a defense) so he's merely using someone else's shot-creation (say Steph or Poole). He's also not the greatest screener and rim-roller, so having him do loads of hand-offs (i.e. play in a Bam sort of role) also doesn't really work.
So he's reduced to being a stretch 5. That's really valuable (especially when it's a true shooter like Bjelica rather than a fake stretch 5), but with his defensive flaws it does limit his usability against most competent teams.
I so love Belli. His early play seemed to be destined for Warriors basketball. I can’t for the life of me tell what happened. He can read defenses, identify weaknesses and hit cutters. His three when needed can be reliable. I want to send him good juju becauI think he can really help us in our area of need.
His shot went cold and Draymond isn't around to cover his defensive shortcomings. That's pretty much it... I'm actually really liking the idea of Bjelica sticking around for an offseason, learning how to play more with the core, and being 15th man next year for his last NBA hurrah.
I'm not too sure about the Draymond & Beli combo. Beli and Dray haven't played all that much together.
They've been in the same lineup for 132 minutes (+10) which is Beli's 11th most common pairing. It's less than JK+Beli (252 minutes, +6)... less than Cheeze+Beli (152 minutes, +0).
Andre+Beli is the one that stands out to me: 264 minutes, +82.
The other thing with the Beli + Dray combo is they may start preferring JK or Wise next to Dray. Particularly if either start to hit open 3s at a decent clip
Part of it is Bjelica playing more alongside Kuminga who wasn't the best team defender as opposed to next to JTA/Draymond. However, I will say, the death of Belli has been greatly exaggerated. He's still a pretty productive bench big EVEN when his three point shot hasn't been landing. When his 3 PT shot returns + Draymond comes back to help with his defensive woes . . . we'll be singing his praises again.
I feel he's being used alright on offense. He just needs to start hitting his threes and/or stop spotting up 2+ feet behind the line... then at least we can live with his defense.
The Warriors have outscored their opponents by 6.1 points per game in the restricted area. That’s the *league’s best restricted-area differential*, but it breaks down to +11.8 points per game in the 33 games that Green has played and -1.2 points per game in the 26 games he’s missed.
I just watched it on YouTube yesterday and it was a lot of fun!
My favorite moment was when Barkley, looking at Shams and Haynes team, asked “Who’s gonna dribble the ball on that team?” and several people at once said “Uh, Magic Johnson.”
If these #s are correct: They're only giving up 3 more points in the restricted area on defense... and scoring 10 fewer points in the restricted area. So missing Draymond is having a way bigger negative impact on offense.
If this analysis is correct, Kerr & the FO are rightly not looking to add a big non-offense bruising center to an already struggling offense. The key to success is, and always has been, getting Draymond back on the floor.
I mean, I think it really comes down to exactly that. With Draymond their defense is incredible. Without him they have a huge gap in the middle. You can get away with 12 Draymond free minutes a game, not 48.
Missing Draymond is expectedly effecting both offense and defense. I'm reminded of the time against Phoenix that Draymond (a non-shooter) used his offensive excellence to point Kuminga (a rookie non-shooter) to cut from the corner down the baseline. Draymond put Kuminga in position to succeed for a sick reverse layup. Any other player probably leaves Kuminga in the corner and looks elsewhere.
In the grand scheme of things I think that loss to the Nuggets may end up being good for the team. I'm hoping going into the break on such a sour note lights a fire under the team to get things together and come out fighting on the other end. Curry's ASG performance is hopefully a harbinger of things to come rather than an anomaly.
Also, I've been downplaying Wiseman's role THIS year for awhile now but I'm starting to come around to the opinion that he'll need to play an important (but likely small) part if the Warriors are going to win a championship this year. If he really does come back soon after the break is over that'll be huge.
We should see a more tightened rotation as we get closer to April. I hope by then Steve will have figured out if guys like JTA, Lee, Bjelica or whoever will play in the playoffs. It's cool to have them be ready at any time based on matchups but I'd rather have them in a rhythm going into the playoffs than be thrown randomly in during game 3 when we need energy after not playing for 6 games
I mean... the rumor is that Wiseman might be back early next month, Green hopefully mid March (at best), and who knows what's up with Iguodala. Those are all major wrenches to throw, and not really conducive to "tightening up the rotation". It's an interesting pressure dynamic for Kerr and his staff to figure out.
Barring a setback, Wise will be ready soon. March 1st is 3w from starting contact work, and March 8th is 4w. That should be plenty, especially for an edge rotation role. I think they haven't been saying much because it's been such a windy road.
sure, but the point was that tightening the rotations is going to be a whole lot more difficult than in any other season. We have some major cogs coming into the fold pretty late.
Plus, there's Kerr's coaching style, he tends to stick with the vets. Hard for me to see him fully benching either JTA or Lee - and I'm not sure I disagree... but that's tomorrow's article
The usual starters plus GP2, Poole, Iggy, OPJ and Kuminga is 10 guys without even counting Wiseman or Bjelly. I can’t see taking minutes from any of those guys because there’s an urgent need to get Lee or JTA on the floor.
I think when the playoffs start, they only play in a Plan B situation.
I think there's enough knowledge of what Dray & Dre do to know who's going to work well with them. The "tight rotation" questions will be around who plays when they aren't on the floor, and those questions can get answered without them available. Outside "what can Wise actually bring?" I really don't see that many unanswered questions...
I'll stand by my earlier recommendation that the Warriors should score more points on offense than the opponent or failing that use their defense to hold the opponent to fewer points. Also they should take it one game at a time, just focus on winning instead of individual accomplishments, and have a ready supply of sports cliches. It's a long season and you don't want to run out.
Wiseman coming back and not being trash could be huge. Look at what Williams has done for the Celtics. Can Wiseman give us some of that defensively this year? Like half of that even?
Man...Williams was falling in that 2018 Draft and got to the #27 pick which was one spot ahead of the Warriors but then the Celtics took him and the Warriors took Jacob Evans.
Wonder if they would have drafted him if he fell one spot further.
I'm still an optimist w/r/t Wiseman and think he will give the Warriors a pretty significant boost if he does nothing but play well enough that Looney can get some rest. At the end of the day he is still a hyper athletic 7 footer and by all accounts a smart guy so he should have learned something about team defense during 9 months of physical rehab. Bu heck, I'm still irrationally optimistic about Justinian Jessup.
This is super interesting as it starts to show the FOs intentions regarding some other key guys.
Connor was on the last episode of Warriors Huddle talking about the FO financial crunch with resigning JP, Wise & Wiggs. Essentially the warriors can’t/won’t sign all three, but can do two. So assuming this extension comes to fruition, one of Wiggs or Wise is probably getting traded this offseason to recoup value.
Also, signing an extension with Jordan Poole now is important since another offseason where Poole works on his jump shot has (imho) a high likelihood of drastic improvement given his FT%. Poole is a far better shooter than his percentages indicate, and with some small tweaks to his form/footwork, I expect his scoring/shooting to improve dramatically taking him up to a 20 + ppg scorer.
This makes sense… but it’s not very well articulated in Draymond’s post. And IMO, there’s way more in the “athletes are dumb jocks” attitude than just lack of understanding the business of basketball
Yeah, but his point isn't about whether athletes are dumb jocks or not. It's that he's really disappointed how few of his peers take the time to understand the business.
Phrasing it the way he did was confrontational and an attention grabber. It's basically said just to start an argument. If you took the bait he'd just keep hammering home the point "how can you say you're not dumb if you don't take the time to understand how you make your money?". He'd ignore anything that wasn't about that part.
Eh, they don’t have to. And they’re not dumb just because they chose not to focus on that. And it’s ok to be angry at people who call them names, and use dumb tropes without even knowing them.
Dray realizes Dame has only played with one All-star (LA). He asks Dame: Do you think part of the problem is getting players to come to Portland?
Dame: Maybe... but people go play in Oklahoma City bruh.
LOL 🤣
Simple! Replace bjelica with Robin lopez or a buyout big, go small, or pray that wiseman comes back soon and plays decent.
I think they are going with your plan B, Wiseman.
https://www.outletpass.net/james-wisemans-roadmap-to-success/
Extremely thorough article on Wiseman.
Thanks Beli. This was really interesting
Is klaytheist on here or still hanging around only GSOM? Man that was a great write up!
Sounds like we might get a peak inside this Pandora's box in a week!
Man, and I totally had Wiseman playing like a monster and winning the MVP despite playing only 20 games. Maybe I will have to re-calibrate that to "most improved".
Thanks, this is great. Especially the defensive critique (for me at least considering I know very little about defense lol).
Do you think he can give us 10 minutes as a purely drop big this year?
Just to be clear, I did not write the article, but I agree the nuances about drop was interesting.
> Do you think he can give us 10 minutes as a purely drop big this year?
I have no idea what to expect with Wiseman, his situation is kind of unprecedented although JJJ's play last season makes me pessimistic about a 7 footer less than a year after a meniscus surgery (plus a clean up procedure). We don't even know what he's been able to work on the past 10 months, grip strength exercises? Free throws? Film study? Weight room? if he takes a leap in one of those categories (hands, shooting, awareness, physicality) he'll be a lot closer to meriting 10 minutes I think. Of course he might get 10 minutes regardless given the center situation, at least in the regular season.
The author made a good point about Wiseman theoretically having the speed and length to clean up plays where the ballhandler drives past him. However, where Forbes gets his shot blocked in that clip, I feel like someone like CP3 or Trae Young is changing pace and then drawing contact on a sprinting to recover Wiseman for the foul. I guess that falls under the awareness category, although it's a pretty broad category.
The second best thing about this article, beside the content, was listening to play-by-play announcers other than Fitzgerald. Such a relief.
That article is a gift. Thank you!
Pre-All Star come down would have been ameliorated by better last minute coaching from Steve Kerr. Two more wins and they're 7-2 in the last nine.
I think he coached too many minutes and his mind was tired. Hopefully the All-Star break helped.
Question . . . if the person you're guarding scores 22 points, but you score 26 points . . . you did your job right??? :)
Other things matter apart from that. For example, Steph might only score 22 points in a game (and even that might be on a middling or poor efficiency), but his presence on the court might let someone like Wiggins or Poole score 30. The looks those guys get are going to be heavily influenced (positively) by Curry being on the court (seriously, see Wiggins' TS% splits with and without Curry). It's obviously role dependent, but for someone like Steph I'd say he's done his job if the offense has been spectacular with him on the court (I'm talking about in terms of shot quality, someday you might brick 30 wide open 3s and not score enough but that's not a reflection of poor shot quality). Over the course of a season (or a few seasons), I would expect the shooting variance to normalize and we can look at on-off ORTGs for Steph. You can use the same heuristic for role players too, but it's usually about them being valuable on 1 end and not killing you on the other end.
And this is without even considering on-ball playmaking (someone like CP3 can dominate games with like 10-12 points), defense (Dray can dominate without scoring a single point) or rebounding (lord knows we've been dominated through this recently lol).
If Steph scores 26 and Mikal Bridges scores 22 points, Mikal's done his job.
Or if Giannis scores 26 and Draymond scores 22 on a triple double.
Depends on the efficiency?
Pretty much the same efficiency.
Who's getting the ball to Steph?
For fun, I took the total number of minutes played alongside Steph and divided it by the total number of assists to a Steph made FG:
Dray: 11.9 minutes per assist (65 assists)
Wiggs: 44.2 minutes per assist (28 assists)
Andre: 17 minutes per assist (19 assists)
Loon: 54.1 minutes per assist (18 assists)
Beli: 26.9 minutes per assist (17 assists)
Otto: 50.3 minutes per assist (14 assists)
JTA: 32.4 minutes per assist (14 assists)
Poole: 34.1 minutes per assist (12 assists)
Klay: 47.4 minutes per assist (7 assists)
Dray and Andre are the big feeders to Steph (no surprise) followed by Beli and JTA+Poole not too far behind... and then the rest of the guys.
ooh, where'd you pull the base info from? This is pretty cool!
Player Stats > Splits > Shooting
And then scroll allllll the way down to see who assisted on a player's FGM.
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/201939/shooting/
And then 2-man lineups to get total minutes played together.
https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/traditional/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612744&GroupQuantity=2&PerMode=Totals&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*
Does indicate one of the flaws in Looney's game - he makes the safe pass but rarely comes up with a "wow" assist as he's more content to just hold onto the ball. In recent games, Steph has been breaking down the defense with passes to Looney (instead of Draymond) and not getting the hockey assists as a result. It'd be interesting to see the assist totals just on post split-action plays - I think that's where Beli is shining and Dray is always so good. A little surprised OPJ doesn't have that many assists to Steph as I always thought of him as a very smart passer.
This is why I think I’m higher on Bjelly than most, even while he’s in a shooting slump. He’s one of the best passers on the team.
Wondering about how the Warriors are using Bjelica. He seems to have some of the same capabilities as Jokić away from the basket, but I’m not sure he’s being used to best advantage. thoughts? Also, according to the cover drawing JTA is trying to play with four fingers on his left hand, one of which looks vestigial. Certainly must hamper his game :) Finger enhancement/enlargement, back in 3-4 weeks.
He's got some of the same abilities as Jokic, but none of those abilities are good enough to warrant giving him serious playmaking (or rather play creating) duties regularly. Degree of skill matters just as much (probably more in all honesty) than possessing the skill.
He cannot drive, he has one of the highest TOV% on drives in the league. He can pass to cutters and shooters from the post, but his scoring threat isn't credible enough to actually create (i.e. break down a defense) so he's merely using someone else's shot-creation (say Steph or Poole). He's also not the greatest screener and rim-roller, so having him do loads of hand-offs (i.e. play in a Bam sort of role) also doesn't really work.
So he's reduced to being a stretch 5. That's really valuable (especially when it's a true shooter like Bjelica rather than a fake stretch 5), but with his defensive flaws it does limit his usability against most competent teams.
I possess the skill of making long jump shots. Like, I can do it. Don’t make me a playable as Steph Curry tho. 🤣
Helpful. Thanks.
I so love Belli. His early play seemed to be destined for Warriors basketball. I can’t for the life of me tell what happened. He can read defenses, identify weaknesses and hit cutters. His three when needed can be reliable. I want to send him good juju becauI think he can really help us in our area of need.
I was wonder how he could perform as a facilitator, sort of like Jokić, out by the three-point line?
He has pretty good vision, but his handle is not good and even when he makes a good read his passes are not accurate
His shot went cold and Draymond isn't around to cover his defensive shortcomings. That's pretty much it... I'm actually really liking the idea of Bjelica sticking around for an offseason, learning how to play more with the core, and being 15th man next year for his last NBA hurrah.
I'm not too sure about the Draymond & Beli combo. Beli and Dray haven't played all that much together.
They've been in the same lineup for 132 minutes (+10) which is Beli's 11th most common pairing. It's less than JK+Beli (252 minutes, +6)... less than Cheeze+Beli (152 minutes, +0).
Andre+Beli is the one that stands out to me: 264 minutes, +82.
https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/traditional/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612744&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*Bjelica&GroupQuantity=2&PerMode=Totals&sort=MIN&dir=1
Hmmm good data... then maybe Dray's unavailability is pushing Bjelica into bad matchups he normally wouldn't play in? Or GP2 not playing much lately?
Andre was what I was thinking primarily but all that too. Andre is his best pairing and he's been playing without him for a long time now.
Another way to slice the data: per36 filtering out anyone with less that 120 total minutes with Beli.
Andre +10.8
Steph +10.7
GP2 +7.7
Otto +7
DLee +4.9
Dray +2.7
The other thing with the Beli + Dray combo is they may start preferring JK or Wise next to Dray. Particularly if either start to hit open 3s at a decent clip
Fascinating, thanks for this data. Question, how do you make it so that the filter has to include nemanja in the lineup data?
Advanced Filters -> Custom Filters -> Lineups
It's not intuitive but the "Lineups" filter is a substring match so then you just type in a name (eg. "Bjeli" works for Bjelica)
Part of it is Bjelica playing more alongside Kuminga who wasn't the best team defender as opposed to next to JTA/Draymond. However, I will say, the death of Belli has been greatly exaggerated. He's still a pretty productive bench big EVEN when his three point shot hasn't been landing. When his 3 PT shot returns + Draymond comes back to help with his defensive woes . . . we'll be singing his praises again.
I'm an ardent Bjeli defender lmao.
I also think his game complements Looney’s really well, but we never really see them together.
I feel he's being used alright on offense. He just needs to start hitting his threes and/or stop spotting up 2+ feet behind the line... then at least we can live with his defense.
ha!
Thought this was interesting:
The Warriors have outscored their opponents by 6.1 points per game in the restricted area. That’s the *league’s best restricted-area differential*, but it breaks down to +11.8 points per game in the 33 games that Green has played and -1.2 points per game in the 26 games he’s missed.
Is this why FO is not forking out for a centre?
Would like to see the breakdown of fastbreak vs half court.
I'd wager that with Green, the defense and pace are much better, thus they get a lot more run outs for dunks and layups.
Then in the half court the Warriors really don't score all that much at the rim regardless.
This is why I love Jerry West wanting to use a wildcard on Draymond for the Ultimate NBA 75 Draft!
I just watched it on YouTube yesterday and it was a lot of fun!
My favorite moment was when Barkley, looking at Shams and Haynes team, asked “Who’s gonna dribble the ball on that team?” and several people at once said “Uh, Magic Johnson.”
Chuck: “Oops, my bad.”
The add even more color to this, here's a breakdown of Opponent FGA / FG% in the restricted area, before and after Jan 9.
Before: 19.2 / 64.1% (1st / 11th)
After: 21.4 / 69.3% (2nd / 29th)
If these #s are correct: They're only giving up 3 more points in the restricted area on defense... and scoring 10 fewer points in the restricted area. So missing Draymond is having a way bigger negative impact on offense.
If this analysis is correct, Kerr & the FO are rightly not looking to add a big non-offense bruising center to an already struggling offense. The key to success is, and always has been, getting Draymond back on the floor.
Is there enough time to replace his bones with adamantium before the playoffs?
Even that couldn't save Logan near the end...
(not saying that Dray is there, btw.)
But are you saying that evil doctors used Dray's DNA to grow a super soldier version of Dray in Jonathan Kuminga?
If Kuminga can ever become half the floor general that Draymond is, watch out NBA!
I mean, I think it really comes down to exactly that. With Draymond their defense is incredible. Without him they have a huge gap in the middle. You can get away with 12 Draymond free minutes a game, not 48.
Missing Draymond is expectedly effecting both offense and defense. I'm reminded of the time against Phoenix that Draymond (a non-shooter) used his offensive excellence to point Kuminga (a rookie non-shooter) to cut from the corner down the baseline. Draymond put Kuminga in position to succeed for a sick reverse layup. Any other player probably leaves Kuminga in the corner and looks elsewhere.
Yeah, he’s really Kerr’s egalitarian offense personified.
It's 22/2/22... what is #22, Andrew Wiggins, doing today?
I really appreciate how we’ve all agreed to leave only two ❤️s on this post
Also, I really missed an opportunity with "what is #22 [...] doing 2day" huh?
Trying to get his number changed to 17
Chiozza says hi
Probably jacking up long 2 after long 2
Still smiling
eating two tacos for dinner?
TACO TWO-SDAY!!
Holy. Niiiice...
Double teaming Klay?
Should it be 23 games?
82 - (42+17).
Touche
oh no. Transcription error : ( fixed
In the grand scheme of things I think that loss to the Nuggets may end up being good for the team. I'm hoping going into the break on such a sour note lights a fire under the team to get things together and come out fighting on the other end. Curry's ASG performance is hopefully a harbinger of things to come rather than an anomaly.
Also, I've been downplaying Wiseman's role THIS year for awhile now but I'm starting to come around to the opinion that he'll need to play an important (but likely small) part if the Warriors are going to win a championship this year. If he really does come back soon after the break is over that'll be huge.
We should see a more tightened rotation as we get closer to April. I hope by then Steve will have figured out if guys like JTA, Lee, Bjelica or whoever will play in the playoffs. It's cool to have them be ready at any time based on matchups but I'd rather have them in a rhythm going into the playoffs than be thrown randomly in during game 3 when we need energy after not playing for 6 games
I mean... the rumor is that Wiseman might be back early next month, Green hopefully mid March (at best), and who knows what's up with Iguodala. Those are all major wrenches to throw, and not really conducive to "tightening up the rotation". It's an interesting pressure dynamic for Kerr and his staff to figure out.
Barring a setback, Wise will be ready soon. March 1st is 3w from starting contact work, and March 8th is 4w. That should be plenty, especially for an edge rotation role. I think they haven't been saying much because it's been such a windy road.
sure, but the point was that tightening the rotations is going to be a whole lot more difficult than in any other season. We have some major cogs coming into the fold pretty late.
Plus, there's Kerr's coaching style, he tends to stick with the vets. Hard for me to see him fully benching either JTA or Lee - and I'm not sure I disagree... but that's tomorrow's article
The usual starters plus GP2, Poole, Iggy, OPJ and Kuminga is 10 guys without even counting Wiseman or Bjelly. I can’t see taking minutes from any of those guys because there’s an urgent need to get Lee or JTA on the floor.
I think when the playoffs start, they only play in a Plan B situation.
I think there's enough knowledge of what Dray & Dre do to know who's going to work well with them. The "tight rotation" questions will be around who plays when they aren't on the floor, and those questions can get answered without them available. Outside "what can Wise actually bring?" I really don't see that many unanswered questions...
I'll stand by my earlier recommendation that the Warriors should score more points on offense than the opponent or failing that use their defense to hold the opponent to fewer points. Also they should take it one game at a time, just focus on winning instead of individual accomplishments, and have a ready supply of sports cliches. It's a long season and you don't want to run out.
Gotta tip your cap to this post.
Crafty.
That's all good and well provided they give 110% and want it more than their opponents.
Most definitely.
Wiseman coming back and not being trash could be huge. Look at what Williams has done for the Celtics. Can Wiseman give us some of that defensively this year? Like half of that even?
Man...Williams was falling in that 2018 Draft and got to the #27 pick which was one spot ahead of the Warriors but then the Celtics took him and the Warriors took Jacob Evans.
Wonder if they would have drafted him if he fell one spot further.
They definitely would have imo. They love bigs.
I'm still an optimist w/r/t Wiseman and think he will give the Warriors a pretty significant boost if he does nothing but play well enough that Looney can get some rest. At the end of the day he is still a hyper athletic 7 footer and by all accounts a smart guy so he should have learned something about team defense during 9 months of physical rehab. Bu heck, I'm still irrationally optimistic about Justinian Jessup.
That is irrational.
I'm on the Jessup Jeep too. He'll probably be a late bloomer like Joe Ingles but I'll take it
Jessup's stats through 15 games this season:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/players/justinian-jessup-1.html
12 pts per game? Probably doesn't project to the NBA.
So, he's a better 3 point shooter than Moody? I kid, I kid... lol. Moody's gonna be great.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/gleague/players/m/moodymo01d.html
Why muddy the waters with more data?!?!
Now we're talking.
This is super interesting as it starts to show the FOs intentions regarding some other key guys.
Connor was on the last episode of Warriors Huddle talking about the FO financial crunch with resigning JP, Wise & Wiggs. Essentially the warriors can’t/won’t sign all three, but can do two. So assuming this extension comes to fruition, one of Wiggs or Wise is probably getting traded this offseason to recoup value.
Also, signing an extension with Jordan Poole now is important since another offseason where Poole works on his jump shot has (imho) a high likelihood of drastic improvement given his FT%. Poole is a far better shooter than his percentages indicate, and with some small tweaks to his form/footwork, I expect his scoring/shooting to improve dramatically taking him up to a 20 + ppg scorer.
2% from form/footwork and another 2% from shot selection, and you've got a 38-40% 3pt shooter.
Yeah, reminds me of the Ws trying to extend HB a year early, but he decided to wait out for market value.
That sounds like a win win.
There is a major difference between dumb and ignorant.
I have read this tweet a few times. I still don't quite understand what he's writing about...
He's saying that athletes shouldn't get mad about being called dumb when they don't understand the business they're in.
This makes sense… but it’s not very well articulated in Draymond’s post. And IMO, there’s way more in the “athletes are dumb jocks” attitude than just lack of understanding the business of basketball
Yeah, but his point isn't about whether athletes are dumb jocks or not. It's that he's really disappointed how few of his peers take the time to understand the business.
Phrasing it the way he did was confrontational and an attention grabber. It's basically said just to start an argument. If you took the bait he'd just keep hammering home the point "how can you say you're not dumb if you don't take the time to understand how you make your money?". He'd ignore anything that wasn't about that part.
Eh, they don’t have to. And they’re not dumb just because they chose not to focus on that. And it’s ok to be angry at people who call them names, and use dumb tropes without even knowing them.
Draymond would ignore everything you said after your first two sentences and argue against those.
Exactly. And he’s right.
He's a really smart, passionate dude. I really love that about him. I do think I would hate him though if he were on a different team.
Good thing the Warriors drafted him.