How Moses Moody has stayed game-ready after fall from Warriors’ rotation
Important section quoted below:
Moody has played as many minutes as Steph Curry this season. That’s how the Warriors are counting them.
That’s because the Golden State staff has Moody and other players who don’t play significant game minutes partake in “game-sense minutes” during side scrimmages throughout the week.
“The challenge is, ‘How do we create game opportunities for him that aren’t on the game floor?’” assistant coach Jama Mahlalehla said. “So we create opportunity on the practice floor.”
After team practices and during off days — when the main rotation players get the day to rest — guys like Moody, two-way player Lester Quiñones and rookie Patrick Baldwin Jr. come to the practice court to scrimmage with coaches and staff, particularly those who have recently played in the NBA. Think video coordinator Mychel Thompson (Klay’s brother) and assistant Hilton Armstrong.
The objective is to simulate the intensity of a real NBA game.
Moody found himself on the bench after making a series of mistakes in most of the team’s defensive coverages early on.
And while Moody and his teammates are banking high-intensity minutes, the coaching staff is tracking every play a player makes to determine if he is making a mistake or not. Moody and other players go over game-sense minute film as if it is a game, too. That entails video coordinator Will Sheehey watching all the film and writing down how the players perform in every coverage — correct ones and mistakes — on a running list.
In that way, it’s more than just a game of pick-up. Improvement during game-sense minutes can earn players minutes in games. It takes a unique dedication to make the most of these scrimmages — Mahalehla and the Warriors have seen vast improvement from Moody in particular.
“Even though he plays two, three minutes in the NBA garbage time game. He’s played 25 minutes of 5-on-5 here and we can evaluate those minutes and see how many mistakes he makes on pick and roll coverage, trapping the box, any of those sorts of things,” Mahlalehla said. “That is his biggest thing, making mistakes. The fact he’s getting experience and making less mistakes makes it way more potential he can play in an NBA game.”
Will practice minutes translate to playoff minutes?
“He’s doing it at an elite enough level that it will translate,” Mahlalehla said. “The brain is still making the connections. Those repetitions and decisions you make full speed will translate.
“Other players may play the same game-sense minutes, but he chooses to play them with passion and focus and purpose to say this will get me better as opposed to, ‘OK I have to go play game-sense minutes
by Valuable-Garage6188
6 Comments
If the Dubs have such a comprehensive talent evaluation methodology, I’m not gonna pretend that Wiseman/Kuminga were held back because Kerr dumb.
Wiseman didn’t play because he was not ready and not good enough.
And similarly Kuminga would play more minutes if he were more consistent and taking that next level, because he has some good pieces.
And this applies to all young talent like Pod, TJD, PBJ, Rollins, Lester etc
What?!? You mean to tell me that players pick up a basketball outside of the 48 minutes of NBA games?!?
But I was led to believe that it’s all Kerr’s fault that Wiseman couldn’t set a screen after 3 years because he didn’t get enough playing time.
Do all teams do things this way?
I hope this is true but…Don’t believe it. Explain Poole….as I’m writing this though… maybe it’s because of Poole they’re being more tight with all the minutes for new guys, idk.
I figured that performance in practice determined playing time for the young guys more than the few mistakes we see in limited game appearances. This provides some insight about what those practices look like. Is Mahlalehla still on our coaching staff?
This should shock no one… the whole KeRr HaTeS KiDs narrative is dumb. If he thinks they help them win they play.