Why TJD believes Warriors’ small-ball lineup provides advantage

Why TJD believes Warriors’ small-ball lineup provides advantage originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

LAIE, Hawaii – Steph Curry has heard it for years. So has Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, countless other Warriors and even their head coach Steve Kerr. The same consensus feeling is being heard around the basketball world once again: The Warriors are too small.

Center Trayce Jackson-Davis heard the noise last season as a rookie, too, but he wasn’t bothered by it then and he isn’t giving any thought to it now.

“It is what it is,” Jackson-Davis said in an exclusive “Dubs Talk” interview that will be released Saturday night. “I feel like you can say that about us, but at the end of the day I’m pretty sure we led the league in rebounds last year. Being small you also have an advantage because that means you get to play fast and that’s something that coach Kerr is really putting an emphasis on – transition.

“He said if we can get our transition down on both ends of the floor, we’re going to be a really, really good team.”

Despite a 6-foot-10 Dario Saric being the Warriors’ tallest player last season, and not being someone known for crashing the glass, they did lead all of the NBA in rebounds at 46.7 per game. That still is a main goal, but there’s no downplaying how much Kerr and the coaching staff is stressing the importance of getting out and running, pushing the pace and getting back on defense.

The Warriors were one of the worst teams in the league last year in transition, both offensively and defensively. Jackson-Davis, however, is an ideal front-court player for improvements in those areas as a 6-foot-9 undersized big man who isn’t a sprinter, but is fleet of foot well enough for Kerr’s ideal two-way player.

Once Jackson-Davis was inserted into the starting lineup for the final month of his rookie season, the Warriors were a different team, especially defensively. Kerr hasn’t had a rim-runner and rim-protector the likes of Jackson-Davis since JaVale McGee, and the former is much younger than when the latter was a Warrior.

As the second-to-last pick in the 2023 NBA Draft,…

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Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-10-05 15:17:41

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