Moody’s motivated ‘mentality’ could lead to a breakthrough. The Warriors season originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – Warriors coach Steve Kerr acknowledged he and his staff still have a lot of work to do before deciding on a starting rotation. Moses Moody makes sure he will be a big part of these discussions.
Moody got a rare opportunity to start in Golden State’s 109-106 win over the Sacramento Kings on Friday at Chase Center and improved his stock with a steady and solid performance that will surely give Kerr more to think about as he continues his lineup will adjust in the coming days.
The No. 14 overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft produced a game-high 23 points on 7-for-13 shooting, paving the way for a Warriors team that was missing their best player for the entire second half after Stephen Curry left with a jammed finger on his right hand.”
“Just finding ways to score, reading the defense, seeing what the defense gives you,” Moody said of his night. “I don’t feel like I took a lot of bad shots. Just efficiency.”
That efficiency is exactly what Kerr expects from his team, and Moody is eager to provide it.
Consider that on a night when the Warriors were struggling with a deluge of turnovers, Moody and Gary Payton II were the only two starters with full control of the ball.
“He had a really good camp,” Kerr said. “He was aggressive when we needed that aggressiveness. He did a good job.”
Moody has plenty of motivation for the coming season.
He had a decent scoring average (8.1 points) and shot better than 46 percent from the floor, but didn’t make the kind of impact he had hoped for.
“Last year I didn’t play as much as I wanted to, so obviously I wasn’t where I needed to be,” Moody said. “Over the summer I put a lot of work into the little things, the details. That’s just my mentality about it. I’m not even necessarily looking for the gratification this early. But I did the work, so it will show.”
Moody acknowledged that the lack of playing time confused him, but realized he had no choice but to accept the situation and make the best of it.
“If someone doesn’t get what they want, it’s going to cause problems to some extent,” Moody said. “But as an adult going to work, you have to think about it this way: You’re not in it to play Pee Wee with your friends and get as much play time as you want. That’s the point.
“Taking that, seeing things for what they are, not taking things personally, and just pulling up your big boy pants and going to work. You want to change the situation and then change yourself. That’s my mentality.”
The Warriors, as Kerr said, have the deepest roster he has had since taking the Golden State head coaching job a decade ago, with a plethora of rotation players.
Moody is right in the middle of that mix.
“We have 12, 13 guys who are really good players,” Kerr said. “This is probably the deepest team I’ve seen here in terms of the number of rotation guys. Moses is a rotation player. We have to make a lot of difficult decisions.”
Moody is not one to complain or make ripples in the waves when things don’t go his way. There is some belief that this kind of attitude works against him to some extent.
Moody himself agrees with that assessment, but has no plans to change his ways.
“That is certainly true. But if I change my ways because of something else, then I’m doing crazy things here and deviating from my principles,” Moody said. “I don’t do it for anyone else, I’m not professional for anyone else. I am a professional because mentally that is the best way for me to go to work every day, to go into life, to approach life. I can’t change that. If you do it to get something out of it, and that’s how these guys get lost. That’s when you come out here and do wild things and be unpredictable just because you’re so far away from your principles.
“I have to be who I am and play it out that way.”
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