The offensive burden on Stephen Curry is greater than ever, Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic writes. The Warriors currently don’t have a steady No. 2 scoring option and they’re 18-20 this season when Curry scores fewer than 30 points.
“We can’t expect to just ride Steph game after game after game,” coach Steve Kerr said, adding, “… We’ve put the burden of this franchise on his shoulders for 15 years.”
We have more on the Warriors:
- In a subscriber-only story, Kerr tells The Indianapolis Star’s Dustin Dopirak how former Indiana University star Trayce Jackson-Davis has impacted the team in his first season. “Trayce is just incredibly mature for a rookie,” Kerr said. “He’s a little bit like the bigs who came into the league way back when I came in. Lots of college experience. Already grounded in the fundamentals of the game. It’s easy to throw stuff at him, sort of NBA stuff that he hasn’t seen before and expect him to pick up on it because he’s got this great fundamental base.” The second-rounder is averaging 7.4 points and 4.5 rebounds in 14.9 minutes through 57 games. He missed Tuesday’s game in Miami due to knee soreness, Anthony Slater of The Athletic tweets.
- Kevon Looney said he learned valuable lessons from Dejan Milojevic, the assistant who died suddenly in January. “Deki was a great coach. He was brutally honest, but he always had a smile on his face,” Looney told Hoops Hype’s Sam Yip. “He’s always joyful. He made coming into work that much better, and that much more fun. I had the best years of my career learning from him, learning different footwork, learning the different nuances of offensive rebounding, and learning how to finish. He wasn’t the biggest guy, but he scored a lot of points overseas, he was one of the best scorers in his league, and he was undersized. So he taught me different things about leverage, pump-fakes, angles, and different things like that.”
- While the Warriors haven’t given up this season, they may be looking at next season to make one last push for another championship with this core group, Tim Kawakami of The Athletic opines.