Warriors’ persistent shooting woes could accelerate trade pursuit originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – The joyride the Warriors took as they won 10 of their first 12 games was largely a product of excellent defense, an acceptable assist-to-turnover ratio and fantastic three-point shooting. They deserved that 10-2 record.
Since then, they have lost eight of 12, with all three categories declining. The three-point shooting percentage has fallen from third in the NBA to fourteenth.
Can this roster recover? Or should general manager Mike Dunleavy and his front office team increase their intensity toward a trade?
Or maybe this is something that will fade over the next few games. A breakdown.
“No,” Lindy Waters III said after practice Friday. “No.
“The ball goes in. You will miss defense plans every night, anything you can take into account. From the outside you might think it’s a breakdown.
But like I said, we’ve been in every game. We had many chances to win. But I would never call that a breakdown.”
Waters came to the Warriors this summer when a branch was plucked from Oklahoma City’s three-point shooters. He had a great start, but has cooled down considerably. The 6-foot-1 wing shot 40.7 percent from deep through the team’s first dozen, but has since been at 30.6 percent.
Waters has plenty of company in the team’s recent slide. Let’s scan the designated 3-point shooters on Golden State’s roster:
Stephen Curry, the all-time 3-point king, was at 43.2 percent through 12 and has since seen a slight decline to 39.8 percent.
Buddy Hield, one of the NBA’s true three-point shooters, dropped from 46.9 percent in the first twelve games to 37.6 percent in the next twelve games. Still respectable, but below his standard and a significant drop from an initially unsustainable number.
De’Anthony Melton shot a respectable 37.1 percent, but lasted 11 games before a knee injury ended his season.
Moses Moody shot 45.8 percent through the team’s first twelve games, and 23.5 percent since then.
Jonathan Kuminga, who was advised to sharpen his three-point shot last summer, has struggled from the start, shooting 31.7 percent through the first 12 and 30.2 percent since then.
Draymond Green isn’t one of the league’s sharpshooters, so his 45.2 percent mark through the first 12 was never going to last long. It has since stood at 29.7 percent.
Only two players, Brandin Podziemski and Andrew Wiggins, now execute 3-balls more efficiently than before. Podziemski, who shot 19.1 percent in his first 12 games, has since managed 31.6 percent, but an excellent 41.2 percent in his last five games. Wiggins was at 37 percent during the first 12, but has since reached 47.4 percent.
Even with recent inefficiencies hurting this approach, coach Steve Kerr believes there are still enough quality shooters to compete at the highest level.
“I think we have plenty of shooting opportunities,” Kerr said. “We try to find combinations that fit. There are times when we put a combination on the floor where it might be leaning a little too heavily toward offense or defense, and now we’re scrambling a little bit.
“We’re deep, but we still really have to manage the full 48 when it comes to balancing our rotations.”
Once Melton went down, Kerr realized he had to decide on a replacement starter at shooting guard. He could have gone with Gary Payton II, a great player who struggles to make triples. There was Podziemski, whose triples are starting to fall but is vulnerable on defense. Kerr initially turned to Waters, someone on the edge of the rotation but who could provide a good balance of offense and defense.
All three have had opportunities to start alongside Curry, with Payton being the most recent. When he’s on the floor with Kuminga and Green, the Warriors have three players who don’t control a defender at the arc.
And to think, the Warriors to open the season seemed to shoot deep enough to play four-out, with at least four players able to shoot comfortably from distance. They were finally equipped to join the rest of the NBA.
However, the equipment does not work as well as it did in the beginning. There is certainly no surplus of shooters.
“You can never have too much,” Kerr admitted. “I think the loss of Melton was a big part of what we’ve seen in recent weeks because what you really need is a two-way street. You need a shooter who can also defend, so you don’t have to make decisions based on attack or defense.”
That was Melton, a high-level defender and a solid shooter from beyond the arc. He certainly fit “perfectly” with what Golden State had in mind.
There may be an ideal replacement somewhere in the league, but he is not on the current roster.
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