A Wiseman Told Me Never Argue With Fools: Official 2021 Warriors Season Thread
- Thread starter G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman
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Roland Coltrane
Superstar
Athletic article continued pt 2
also how cats be fitting more words than there are in the bible in spoilers
4. Does Alen Smailagic keep his roster spot?
The expected elimination of the 50-game limit for two-way contract guys (plus playoff eligibility) eases any pressure on the Warriors front office to create an open roster spot for Juan Toscano-Anderson before May. They can theoretically make zero roster moves, keep him active through the playoffs, retain his restricted free agency rights and decide on his future this summer.
That frees them to keep Alen Smailagić around if that’s a priority. He has two non-guaranteed seasons remaining on his deal. But the contract for the 2021-22 season does guarantee early in free agency. They can’t just give him another Summer League and training camp before deciding whether to commit a roster spot to him. There’s more urgency than it may seem.
That basically means the clock could be running out. Smailagić is in Orlando finishing out the G League bubble. He’s had some minor moments, but — playing under a 20-minute restriction after tearing his meniscus in the preseason — the results have been underwhelming. He’s not making his 3s and generally does not appear anywhere near ready for even a back-end rotation spot.
Maybe he will be someday. He’s only 20. But it’s foolish to believe that day would arrive in the next 12 months. That would essentially make him dead weight on a team that’ll have title aspirations next season. Roster spots are too valuable to commit to that for a third straight season.
That doesn’t mean the Warriors can’t keep him in their developmental program. If they cut him, it’s unlikely another team claims him. If they trade him before the deadline (which would shed his salary from the books), the receiving franchise would presumably only do it for cash or draft compensation, not to keep Smailagić around. He’s a G League player right now or, at best, a two-way project.
If both sides agree, he could remain in Santa Cruz,under the same developmental eye and program. Jacob Evans, for example, is back down there after the Knicks cut him. It’s not uncommon to keep guys around. Toscano-Anderson spent the past few seasons bouncing back and forth.
But what matters is that Smailagić roster spot. For now, it’s unneeded. Around the deadline or in buyout season, it might be. The Warriors had light interest in Blake Griffin, who just worked out a buyout with Detroit, but that Brooklyn partnership materialized quickly. Don’t expect major roster moves before the summer, but the front office is clearly open to a minor move in the coming month if the correct one materializes. That makes Smailagić expendable.
5. Keep following the Timberwolves
In their last game before the All-Star break, the Timberwolves were blown out at home by the Hornets. It was their ninth straight loss and fifth straight since swapping head coaches. Their point guard, D’Angelo Russell, is out after knee surgery. Their second-best player, Malik Beasley, is serving a suspension that bleeds into the second half of the season.
Their record is 7-29. That’s four fewer wins than the next-worse team in the conference, the 11-23 Rockets, and three fewer than the league’s next-worse team, the 10-25 Pistons. So entering the second half, they are in pole position to close with the NBA’s worst record.
That’s terrific news for the Warriors. Despite Minnesota having top-three protection on the pick, that’s exactly where the Warriors want the Timberwolves. It ensures that, if the pick does convey, it won’t fall outside of the top five. Minnesota would have a 40.1 percent chance of keeping the selection; the Warriors would have a 12 percent chance at the fourth pick and 47.9 percent chance at the fifth pick.
Why is that so crucial? Most draft analysts are starting to view 2021 as a five-player draft up top: Cade Cunningham, Jonathan Kuminga, Evan Mobley, Jalen Suggs and Jalen Green lead the way before a notable drop-off to the next tier of prospects. Minnesota finishing with the worst record would give the Warriors a 59.9 percent chance of grabbing one of those five (or using the enticing pick in a trade) and, if it doesn’t convey, it just pushes to a 2022 unprotected first-round pick, retaining pristine value.
So the results of Timberwolves games remain important until their exact standings location is known. If they leap past a team and finish with the second-worst record, there’s suddenly a 20 percent chance the Warriors get the sixth pick. If Minnesota leaps two teams and finishes with the third-worst record, there’s a 33 percent chance the Warriors get the sixth or seventh pick. That’s a notable puncture to its value, considering the five prospects atop the draft board.
(Photo of James Wiseman and Kelly Oubre: Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images)
The expected elimination of the 50-game limit for two-way contract guys (plus playoff eligibility) eases any pressure on the Warriors front office to create an open roster spot for Juan Toscano-Anderson before May. They can theoretically make zero roster moves, keep him active through the playoffs, retain his restricted free agency rights and decide on his future this summer.
That frees them to keep Alen Smailagić around if that’s a priority. He has two non-guaranteed seasons remaining on his deal. But the contract for the 2021-22 season does guarantee early in free agency. They can’t just give him another Summer League and training camp before deciding whether to commit a roster spot to him. There’s more urgency than it may seem.
That basically means the clock could be running out. Smailagić is in Orlando finishing out the G League bubble. He’s had some minor moments, but — playing under a 20-minute restriction after tearing his meniscus in the preseason — the results have been underwhelming. He’s not making his 3s and generally does not appear anywhere near ready for even a back-end rotation spot.
Maybe he will be someday. He’s only 20. But it’s foolish to believe that day would arrive in the next 12 months. That would essentially make him dead weight on a team that’ll have title aspirations next season. Roster spots are too valuable to commit to that for a third straight season.
That doesn’t mean the Warriors can’t keep him in their developmental program. If they cut him, it’s unlikely another team claims him. If they trade him before the deadline (which would shed his salary from the books), the receiving franchise would presumably only do it for cash or draft compensation, not to keep Smailagić around. He’s a G League player right now or, at best, a two-way project.
If both sides agree, he could remain in Santa Cruz,under the same developmental eye and program. Jacob Evans, for example, is back down there after the Knicks cut him. It’s not uncommon to keep guys around. Toscano-Anderson spent the past few seasons bouncing back and forth.
But what matters is that Smailagić roster spot. For now, it’s unneeded. Around the deadline or in buyout season, it might be. The Warriors had light interest in Blake Griffin, who just worked out a buyout with Detroit, but that Brooklyn partnership materialized quickly. Don’t expect major roster moves before the summer, but the front office is clearly open to a minor move in the coming month if the correct one materializes. That makes Smailagić expendable.
5. Keep following the Timberwolves
In their last game before the All-Star break, the Timberwolves were blown out at home by the Hornets. It was their ninth straight loss and fifth straight since swapping head coaches. Their point guard, D’Angelo Russell, is out after knee surgery. Their second-best player, Malik Beasley, is serving a suspension that bleeds into the second half of the season.
Their record is 7-29. That’s four fewer wins than the next-worse team in the conference, the 11-23 Rockets, and three fewer than the league’s next-worse team, the 10-25 Pistons. So entering the second half, they are in pole position to close with the NBA’s worst record.
That’s terrific news for the Warriors. Despite Minnesota having top-three protection on the pick, that’s exactly where the Warriors want the Timberwolves. It ensures that, if the pick does convey, it won’t fall outside of the top five. Minnesota would have a 40.1 percent chance of keeping the selection; the Warriors would have a 12 percent chance at the fourth pick and 47.9 percent chance at the fifth pick.
Why is that so crucial? Most draft analysts are starting to view 2021 as a five-player draft up top: Cade Cunningham, Jonathan Kuminga, Evan Mobley, Jalen Suggs and Jalen Green lead the way before a notable drop-off to the next tier of prospects. Minnesota finishing with the worst record would give the Warriors a 59.9 percent chance of grabbing one of those five (or using the enticing pick in a trade) and, if it doesn’t convey, it just pushes to a 2022 unprotected first-round pick, retaining pristine value.
So the results of Timberwolves games remain important until their exact standings location is known. If they leap past a team and finish with the second-worst record, there’s suddenly a 20 percent chance the Warriors get the sixth pick. If Minnesota leaps two teams and finishes with the third-worst record, there’s a 33 percent chance the Warriors get the sixth or seventh pick. That’s a notable puncture to its value, considering the five prospects atop the draft board.
(Photo of James Wiseman and Kelly Oubre: Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images)
also how cats be fitting more words than there are in the bible in spoilers
Roland Coltrane
Superstar
pt1
The Warriors will spend the season’s final 35 games jostling for conference positioning. We’ll spend those next few months covering the ramifications of those daily results. Regular season games carry more weight than the dynasty days because the playoffs are no longer a guarantee. This change has created an environment of average yet entertaining basketball.
But the Warriors are in the middle of a weeklong break from games. So let’s use this time to zoom out and examine five of the bigger picture items for the franchise in the coming months, from a roster-building and developmental perspective.
1. Kelly Oubre Jr.’s future
The estimated $80 million tax bill the Warriors incurred for adding Kelly Oubre Jr. was always an overestimation. Before the trade went down, news surfaced of a temporary but substantial tweak to the luxury tax rules. The final tax bill will be reduced in conjunction with the percentage decrease of basketball-related income compared to pre-pandemic projections.
That’ll take a large chunk out of the final number. It was still quite a commitment to absorb Oubre’s $14 million contract into the trade exception and add a bunch of tax in these uncertain financial times, but the larger question — as fans slowly trickle back into Chase Center and revenue reappears — is whether the Warriors will commit to maintaining that pricy salary slot for more than a single season.
If Oubre leaves, they can’t just give that money to another free agent. The Warriors are way over the cap. They can only retain Oubre because they have his rights. If he walks, that’ll basically be the end of the Andre Iguodala salary slot, which morphed from Iguodala to a trade exception to Oubre.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be Oubre, who is an unrestricted free agent. If the Warriors fear he will sign elsewhere or prefer a different player, he’s eligible to be traded before the deadline, which could lead to the Warriors dealing Oubre for a player with more team control. That’s partly at the root of the Lonzo Ball chatter from earlier this season. Ball makes similar money but is a restricted free agent, meaning the Warriors could match any deal he gets.
But Oubre wasn’t playing well back then. He’s playing terrific basketball right now, fresh off a February in which he made 44 percent of his 3s, became increasingly comfortable moving in a Steph Curry ecosystem, created a cutting connection with a passing Draymond Green and served as a steals- and blocks-gathering perimeter disruptor for a defense that climbed into the top five.
That’s valuable. Probably more valuable than anything an Oubre trade package would return on the deadline market. It makes sense to explore. But it also makes sense, strictly from a team-building competitive standpoint, to retain him in free agency. Klay Thompson needs to be eased back into the lineup next season and treated carefully upon his return. Oubre’s presence would allow for that and, if and when Thompson gets up to speed, he’d still be useful off the bench. You can never have enough athletic wings.
But that would require Joe Lacob and the Warriors’ ownership group continuing to absorb an NBA-record tax bill that would only keep rising into new levels of the stratosphere. Thompson, Curry, Green and Andrew Wiggins are all on big-money deals that escalate in price every season. They’ll make $139.3 million combined next season. James Wiseman’s rookie contract rises above $9 million. Kevon Looney has a $5 million player option. Punitive repeater tax penalties are on the horizon.
And it’s not as if Oubre will be cheap to retain. Even when he was slumping, league insiders predicted he’d still command double-digit million per season. He’s a hyper-athlete with two-way skill and a successful, improving track record. Starting wings like that, entering free agency at 25, cash out.
But Oubre isn’t struggling anymore, which is great for the current Warriors and bodes well for his long-term fit. But it also jacks up the price tag. Remember, he’s unrestricted, and there is a ton of projected cap space this summer. Could he get an offer worth $20 million per season? It’s not out of the question.
That turns the spotlight to both the Warriors’ front office and ownership. First, how expensive is too expensive for a roster that’d be a contender but certainly nowhere near a title guarantee? Once the financial direction is known, what’s the best way to maneuver? Would keeping Oubre mean shedding salary elsewhere? Who would go? If Oubre can’t be retained, should a pre-deadline Oubre move be explored to ensure some value is retained? Or is Golden State comfortable just paying whatever it takes?
Important decisions are ahead.
2. How soon can they make James Wiseman a winning component?
Eric Paschall didn’t see the open pass much early in his rookie season. So the Warriors put in designed actions that forced him to be a passer. Simple stuff. Sometimes just a catch and side-to-side swing up top. Gregg Popovich and the Spurs had done that early in Kawhi Leonard’s career, and it slowly helped open his passing periphery.
Paschall was the leading scorer of the league’s worst team, shoved into a heavy offensive workload. He scored well, but before the All-Star break, in 50 games, he only averaged 1.7 assists. Paschall played in 10 games after the break before the pandemic shut the league down. Here were his assist totals in the final six games of his rookie season: 4, 6, 6, 8, 6, 7.
A lightbulb clicked. Paschall returned from the break seeing the floor much better. The chessboard around him slowed down pretty suddenly. Maybe he had absorbed those lessons in his week away from the game. Jordan Poole, at the same time, also looked like a much improved offensive player. Go look at his pre-All-Star break and post-All-Star break shooting splits as a rookie.
That’s the Warriors’ hope for James Wiseman. He has been inundated with information the past three months and, in the final days, appeared mentally overwhelmed on the court. He was actually better six weeks ago, before his wrist injury. Coaches said he was starting to better apply behind-the-scenes lessons, like this night of successful vertical rim-protecting against the Timberwolves.
Since his return, the game’s been too fast for him. He probably needed the mental vacation away from basketball more than anyone in the organization. But now the question becomes whether he returns refreshed and reverses back to an upward rookie trajectory.
He’s certainly going to get the opportunity. Wiseman is the likely starting center out of the break, and Steve Kerr has already pledged to play him more minutes on a nightly basis, believing it’ll speed up the process of turning him into a winning component.
Because that’s what matters most here. In eight-second glimpses, Wiseman’s potential leaps off the screen. But his regular mistakes are both obvious and detrimental on the scoreboard. Wiseman has appeared in 26 games this season and only been on the plus side of the plus/minus ledger in seven of them. The Warriors were 9.7 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor in the first half.
That is an untenable margin next season, once Thompson reappears, the roster is reformed and championship expectations and pressure return. I had a coach predict recently that Wiseman could be a winning component by then. Emphasis on could. It’s a tall task. Veteran teams view him as a target. They’ll pick on him until he proves they shouldn’t.
But he does already contain skills, if bottled up and strengthened, that can help a team win. His offensive role probably needs simplification. The isolation post touches should become a mop-up duty, Summer League project, maybe with an occasional sprinkle in the second unit. When Curry and Green are on the court, he’s best leveraged as a pick-and-roll dive threat, occasional spot-up floor spacer (to develop that 3-point shot) and a long-armed lob option in the dunker spot.
The Warriors destroyed the Spurs earlier this season by planting him down there after a few days of teaching him the proper timing and spacing. It led to seven dunks and 20 points. He was alert that night. His role was simple. He seems to catch passes better on nights he’s not overthinking.
Wiseman’s energy and physicality also tend to expand after some early buckets. Young players need confidence. Poole has it right now. Wiseman seemed to lose it the last few weeks, floating out of the action, away from the fray, hanging his head after each mistake.
In that Spurs game, where they schemed up and delivered him some easy dunks, he capped his 20-point night with the best rebound of his early career. Golden State needs this Wiseman on the glass in the second half of the season. That’s where he can impact winning basketball. Go on the hunt for extra possessions.
3. The need to clarify Eric Paschall’s role and future
Paschall did make that leap late in his rookie season but did so on a lottery team that allowed him enough offensive freedom to get in a nightly rhythm. It’s a different life as a 14-minute bench piece on a winner with limited opportunity. You must stay engaged and capitalize in smaller doses.
He seemed to find his niche during the season’s first homestand, unlocked as a small-ball center, scoring double-digit points in eight straight games off the bench, making more than half his shots in all eight games. But he had a different burst to him during that hot stretch, a first-step explosion to zoom past slower bigs and lift at the rim to help him finish more often in traffic.
Like this.
But Paschall’s right knee continues to bother him. It popped up on the injury report right around the time his field goal percentage and raw production began to nosedive. He woke up in Dallas during a January road trip and it was swollen, forcing him to miss two games. Look at him on the bench most nights. He wraps a massive ice pack around it as he rests. It’s a persistent issue. He wears a leg sleeve to cover it.
The impact on his game is subtle. He doesn’t limp up and down the court. But he also doesn’t have quite the first-step explosion to blow past bigs as he did in the first month or as much burst once he gets in the paint. Watch this double-miss from the other night against the pretty slow Markieff Morris.
Paschall’s stagnant 3-point percentage is a long-term concern. He made 28.7 percent of his 3s as a rookie and sits at 28.9 percent halfway through his second season. It hasn’t improved. If it doesn’t, he’ll always be limited because it’s become absolutely necessary for role players in the 2021 NBA — and Paschall is a role player on even an average team — to space the floor. He doesn’t yet.
But it’s even more pressing for him to get back to that downhill, efficient bully-ball scorer he can be in the paint. Paschall made 66 percent of his shots within 5 feet as a rookie. He was at 65 percent through that long homestand to open the season. But ever since, he’s in the mid-50s with a struggling midranger and inconsistent 3-point shot.
Right now, he’s not doing what he’s always done best that well, while also not providing much rebounding help or floor spacing, failing to be effective in lineups next to a center. The Warriors have basically been forced to keep Paschall in small-ball units almost exclusively.
But to survive in the league long term, he must find a way to mesh into different lineup combinations, including those with a center. These final 35 games of his second season feel like a massive moment in his early-career direction. Maybe a week of rest for that right knee will help.
But the Warriors are in the middle of a weeklong break from games. So let’s use this time to zoom out and examine five of the bigger picture items for the franchise in the coming months, from a roster-building and developmental perspective.
1. Kelly Oubre Jr.’s future
The estimated $80 million tax bill the Warriors incurred for adding Kelly Oubre Jr. was always an overestimation. Before the trade went down, news surfaced of a temporary but substantial tweak to the luxury tax rules. The final tax bill will be reduced in conjunction with the percentage decrease of basketball-related income compared to pre-pandemic projections.
That’ll take a large chunk out of the final number. It was still quite a commitment to absorb Oubre’s $14 million contract into the trade exception and add a bunch of tax in these uncertain financial times, but the larger question — as fans slowly trickle back into Chase Center and revenue reappears — is whether the Warriors will commit to maintaining that pricy salary slot for more than a single season.
If Oubre leaves, they can’t just give that money to another free agent. The Warriors are way over the cap. They can only retain Oubre because they have his rights. If he walks, that’ll basically be the end of the Andre Iguodala salary slot, which morphed from Iguodala to a trade exception to Oubre.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be Oubre, who is an unrestricted free agent. If the Warriors fear he will sign elsewhere or prefer a different player, he’s eligible to be traded before the deadline, which could lead to the Warriors dealing Oubre for a player with more team control. That’s partly at the root of the Lonzo Ball chatter from earlier this season. Ball makes similar money but is a restricted free agent, meaning the Warriors could match any deal he gets.
But Oubre wasn’t playing well back then. He’s playing terrific basketball right now, fresh off a February in which he made 44 percent of his 3s, became increasingly comfortable moving in a Steph Curry ecosystem, created a cutting connection with a passing Draymond Green and served as a steals- and blocks-gathering perimeter disruptor for a defense that climbed into the top five.
That’s valuable. Probably more valuable than anything an Oubre trade package would return on the deadline market. It makes sense to explore. But it also makes sense, strictly from a team-building competitive standpoint, to retain him in free agency. Klay Thompson needs to be eased back into the lineup next season and treated carefully upon his return. Oubre’s presence would allow for that and, if and when Thompson gets up to speed, he’d still be useful off the bench. You can never have enough athletic wings.
But that would require Joe Lacob and the Warriors’ ownership group continuing to absorb an NBA-record tax bill that would only keep rising into new levels of the stratosphere. Thompson, Curry, Green and Andrew Wiggins are all on big-money deals that escalate in price every season. They’ll make $139.3 million combined next season. James Wiseman’s rookie contract rises above $9 million. Kevon Looney has a $5 million player option. Punitive repeater tax penalties are on the horizon.
And it’s not as if Oubre will be cheap to retain. Even when he was slumping, league insiders predicted he’d still command double-digit million per season. He’s a hyper-athlete with two-way skill and a successful, improving track record. Starting wings like that, entering free agency at 25, cash out.
But Oubre isn’t struggling anymore, which is great for the current Warriors and bodes well for his long-term fit. But it also jacks up the price tag. Remember, he’s unrestricted, and there is a ton of projected cap space this summer. Could he get an offer worth $20 million per season? It’s not out of the question.
That turns the spotlight to both the Warriors’ front office and ownership. First, how expensive is too expensive for a roster that’d be a contender but certainly nowhere near a title guarantee? Once the financial direction is known, what’s the best way to maneuver? Would keeping Oubre mean shedding salary elsewhere? Who would go? If Oubre can’t be retained, should a pre-deadline Oubre move be explored to ensure some value is retained? Or is Golden State comfortable just paying whatever it takes?
Important decisions are ahead.
2. How soon can they make James Wiseman a winning component?
Eric Paschall didn’t see the open pass much early in his rookie season. So the Warriors put in designed actions that forced him to be a passer. Simple stuff. Sometimes just a catch and side-to-side swing up top. Gregg Popovich and the Spurs had done that early in Kawhi Leonard’s career, and it slowly helped open his passing periphery.
Paschall was the leading scorer of the league’s worst team, shoved into a heavy offensive workload. He scored well, but before the All-Star break, in 50 games, he only averaged 1.7 assists. Paschall played in 10 games after the break before the pandemic shut the league down. Here were his assist totals in the final six games of his rookie season: 4, 6, 6, 8, 6, 7.
A lightbulb clicked. Paschall returned from the break seeing the floor much better. The chessboard around him slowed down pretty suddenly. Maybe he had absorbed those lessons in his week away from the game. Jordan Poole, at the same time, also looked like a much improved offensive player. Go look at his pre-All-Star break and post-All-Star break shooting splits as a rookie.
That’s the Warriors’ hope for James Wiseman. He has been inundated with information the past three months and, in the final days, appeared mentally overwhelmed on the court. He was actually better six weeks ago, before his wrist injury. Coaches said he was starting to better apply behind-the-scenes lessons, like this night of successful vertical rim-protecting against the Timberwolves.
Since his return, the game’s been too fast for him. He probably needed the mental vacation away from basketball more than anyone in the organization. But now the question becomes whether he returns refreshed and reverses back to an upward rookie trajectory.
He’s certainly going to get the opportunity. Wiseman is the likely starting center out of the break, and Steve Kerr has already pledged to play him more minutes on a nightly basis, believing it’ll speed up the process of turning him into a winning component.
Because that’s what matters most here. In eight-second glimpses, Wiseman’s potential leaps off the screen. But his regular mistakes are both obvious and detrimental on the scoreboard. Wiseman has appeared in 26 games this season and only been on the plus side of the plus/minus ledger in seven of them. The Warriors were 9.7 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor in the first half.
That is an untenable margin next season, once Thompson reappears, the roster is reformed and championship expectations and pressure return. I had a coach predict recently that Wiseman could be a winning component by then. Emphasis on could. It’s a tall task. Veteran teams view him as a target. They’ll pick on him until he proves they shouldn’t.
But he does already contain skills, if bottled up and strengthened, that can help a team win. His offensive role probably needs simplification. The isolation post touches should become a mop-up duty, Summer League project, maybe with an occasional sprinkle in the second unit. When Curry and Green are on the court, he’s best leveraged as a pick-and-roll dive threat, occasional spot-up floor spacer (to develop that 3-point shot) and a long-armed lob option in the dunker spot.
The Warriors destroyed the Spurs earlier this season by planting him down there after a few days of teaching him the proper timing and spacing. It led to seven dunks and 20 points. He was alert that night. His role was simple. He seems to catch passes better on nights he’s not overthinking.
Wiseman’s energy and physicality also tend to expand after some early buckets. Young players need confidence. Poole has it right now. Wiseman seemed to lose it the last few weeks, floating out of the action, away from the fray, hanging his head after each mistake.
In that Spurs game, where they schemed up and delivered him some easy dunks, he capped his 20-point night with the best rebound of his early career. Golden State needs this Wiseman on the glass in the second half of the season. That’s where he can impact winning basketball. Go on the hunt for extra possessions.
3. The need to clarify Eric Paschall’s role and future
Paschall did make that leap late in his rookie season but did so on a lottery team that allowed him enough offensive freedom to get in a nightly rhythm. It’s a different life as a 14-minute bench piece on a winner with limited opportunity. You must stay engaged and capitalize in smaller doses.
He seemed to find his niche during the season’s first homestand, unlocked as a small-ball center, scoring double-digit points in eight straight games off the bench, making more than half his shots in all eight games. But he had a different burst to him during that hot stretch, a first-step explosion to zoom past slower bigs and lift at the rim to help him finish more often in traffic.
Like this.
But Paschall’s right knee continues to bother him. It popped up on the injury report right around the time his field goal percentage and raw production began to nosedive. He woke up in Dallas during a January road trip and it was swollen, forcing him to miss two games. Look at him on the bench most nights. He wraps a massive ice pack around it as he rests. It’s a persistent issue. He wears a leg sleeve to cover it.
The impact on his game is subtle. He doesn’t limp up and down the court. But he also doesn’t have quite the first-step explosion to blow past bigs as he did in the first month or as much burst once he gets in the paint. Watch this double-miss from the other night against the pretty slow Markieff Morris.
Paschall’s stagnant 3-point percentage is a long-term concern. He made 28.7 percent of his 3s as a rookie and sits at 28.9 percent halfway through his second season. It hasn’t improved. If it doesn’t, he’ll always be limited because it’s become absolutely necessary for role players in the 2021 NBA — and Paschall is a role player on even an average team — to space the floor. He doesn’t yet.
But it’s even more pressing for him to get back to that downhill, efficient bully-ball scorer he can be in the paint. Paschall made 66 percent of his shots within 5 feet as a rookie. He was at 65 percent through that long homestand to open the season. But ever since, he’s in the mid-50s with a struggling midranger and inconsistent 3-point shot.
Right now, he’s not doing what he’s always done best that well, while also not providing much rebounding help or floor spacing, failing to be effective in lineups next to a center. The Warriors have basically been forced to keep Paschall in small-ball units almost exclusively.
But to survive in the league long term, he must find a way to mesh into different lineup combinations, including those with a center. These final 35 games of his second season feel like a massive moment in his early-career direction. Maybe a week of rest for that right knee will help.
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
hell nawl
Wigs has greatly improved on defense from his Minny days and I think he's a net positive for us on that end
and like Jalen Rose says, the best ability is availability. Wigs has that, Dipo doesn't
He's been absolutely neutral overall for y'all. Basically the numbers are showing that Oubre and Wiggins are equally frustrating.
Even though y'all got Wiseman, y'all might need to add more size going forward.
Roland Coltrane
Superstar
bullshyt
Oubre has been a defensive stalwart and is shooting 44% from 3 since he got out of his slump a month ago
they are a 6th ranked defense in the league, and a top ten defense like Kerr hoped and believed they would be. Wigs is fine and the knock on him his whole career in Minny was that he didn't play defense. NO Warriors fan is complaining about his defense now as it's been a pleasant surprise. All he needed was a change of culture.
you clearly don't know what the fukk you are talking about
go sit your lil retarded ass down somewhere
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
bullshyt
Oubre has been a defensive stalwart and is shooting 44% from 3 since he got out of his slump a month ago
they are a 6th ranked defense in the league, and a top ten defense like Kerr hoped and believed they would be. Wigs is fine and the knock on him his whole career in Minny was that he didn't play defense. NO Warriors fan is complaining about his defense now as it's been a pleasant surprise. All he needed was a change of culture.
you clearly don't know what the fukk you are talking about
go sit your lil retarded ass down somewhere
"Basically the numbers are showing" clearly reading is tough for you.
The Warriors have the 6th ranked defense. You know who's been a huge factor for that besides Green obviously? Kent Bazemore. Offensively he's been about the same as Wiggins and Oubre, but he's been way better defensively than them. Neither Wiggins or Oubre are really moving the needle any more or less based off what the numbers say. The defense is fine from the team, but you're crediting the wrong people. And the knock on Wiggins wasn't his defense capabilities. It was that he didn't feel like playing it. You better hope this isn't Wiggins at his best defensively because stats say it's still below average.
2nd half, Bazemore needs more PT.
Roland Coltrane
Superstar
BlaqkSpliffin
Ni**as Still Weird - Me
It'll probably happen in the offseason. Most of these players be on some "I don't need these old nikkas help
" type shyt but you can tell that's not Wiseman. They'll probably be in the lab when the season's over.
shyt i hope to shyt not , nikka gives away 9pts alone on fouling someone shooting a 3pt. for a vet bruh looks totally fukking lost instead of flying by on shooting hand he literally thinks hes gonna block someone shooting the deep 3
Id love thatIt'll probably happen in the offseason. Most of these players be on some "I don't need these old nikkas help
BlaqkSpliffin
Ni**as Still Weird - Me
Wiggins, Oubre, Paschall, Looney, and Poole are on the trading block and that's what you love to see
Everybody got 2 weeks to prove they belong on this roster for the rest of the season. Let's see how it goes.
Everybody got 2 weeks to prove they belong on this roster for the rest of the season. Let's see how it goes.
What you hearing breh?Wiggins, Oubre, Paschall, Looney, and Poole are on the trading block and that's what you love to see
Everybody got 2 weeks to prove they belong on this roster for the rest of the season. Let's see how it goes.
Mortal1
Superstar
What you hearing breh?
- Status