So much has been made of the Golden State Warriors’ bench unit and “youth movement,” as the two are largely synonymous. Figuring out who gets a nightly rotation spot beyond Jordan Poole and Donte DiVincenzo is a crapshoot, and the glut of wings have yet to distinguish themselves from one another.
One player I want to focus on in particular is Moses Moody. Though far from a finished product, many (including myself) considered Moody the most rotation-ready young guy among the Kuminga/Moody/Wiseman group. Yet he’s found himself on the outside looking in, cracking 10 minutes played twice in the last 10 games (both came with the starters resting) while taking two DNP-CDs. He recorded yet another DNP last night in a win against Utah.
Recent comments by head coach Steve Kerr have shed some light on the reasons why:
Everything Kerr said is the truth by itself: Moses does need to play and learn from his mistakes, he has to clean up his connective passing and drives, and he has fouled unnecessarily at times. But when blended together and adding the context of the surrounding roster, some of these things may be contradicting one another.
With those potential contradictions in mind, I wanted to look deeper into the tape and the numbers to compare his turnover and fouling woes to the teammates in similar contexts and roles so we can further understand where Moody has come up short. And there’s only one way to seek out these answers: film and tape, as always.
Methodology
To get an accurate sample and apply context, I roped two other players into this: Jonathan Kuminga and Anthony Lamb. All three are young, searching for a consistent rotation spot, and largely play on the perimeter at both ends of the floor. It’s important to note Lamb plays 37% of his minutes as the default center with the bench, but we’ll get to how that affects the data later on.
In terms of tracking the turnovers, I broke them down into the least subjective categories I could put together: good process/bad result, where the player made the right decisions but things went awry. Bad process/bad results, where they made poor choices and suffered as a result. Excellent defense turnovers are pretty self-explanatory, as are sloppy ones. The last category, “shit happens”, is reserved for the most shoulder-shrugging, “what are you gonna do?” turnovers of them all. We have all been there.
I also decided to break down the scenarios in which these turnovers occurred, which you can see here:
I chose to track these to further expand on the previous data, but also in the interest of corroborating the scenarios Kerr has explained in the video regarding Moody. Not all turnovers are borne out of equal processes or situations, so breaking them apart further can tell us the basic nature that produced the error.
For tracking fouls, I used a lot of the same basic criteria to break them apart initially. “Necessary” fouls are largely a product of preventing layups, being horribly mismatched, or hustling for loose balls/rebounds in a controlled way. “Unnecessary” catches a larger bucket of plays, including bad closeouts/shooting fouls, preventable loose-ball fouls, and egregious perimeter hand checks. Then of course you have “shit happens”, where I found it hard to fault the player for the result, by-products of refereeing and bad luck. I also added a “hustle” component in which I determined whether or not the foul was borne out of hustle/awareness.
Here’s a full list of the scenarios I broke down for these fouls:
Now that we have our parameters set, let’s dig into the data.
*note: I refuse to pay for League Pass as long as free websites can make an equal (if not better) product, so there are 3-4 total data points missing throughout. Some totals I calculated might not match basketballreference.com or nba.com figures. All stats current before game vs. Utah on 11/25.
Turnover Woes: Finding an Aggression Balance
By the numbers, Moody is certainly a bit more turnover-prone than other players on the roster. His 2.6 turnovers per 75 place him sixth among regular players on the Warriors, behind all four of the players I’d imagine Steve Kerr his “turnover guys” (though the degree certainly varies): Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Jordan Poole, and Donte DiVincenzo. This makes him the second worst offender among the “non-turnover” guys, just behind Jonathan Kuminga and ahead of JaMychal Green and Anthony Lamb.
What interests me is how that figure has been affected by others more than the other two we’ll be comparing him to, and how he showed a pretty sound process for a sophomore wing. Here’s the breakdown of Moody’s turnovers:
19 turnovers isn’t a ton of data to go off early in the year, but it certainly tells a story when looking at the specific plays and comparing to his fellow Warriors wings. Note the high figure of bad-luck turnovers and a positive ratio of good process to bad. These got tricky to determine with the volume of drive-and-dumps to the paint, where everything right up to the pass was good. As Kerr said, you need to make bounce passes or lobs, and you can see that failure from Moody here:
It’s certainly a difficult pass to pull off, but Moody has to find a way to capitalize on his baseline drives and closeout attacks with good passes, or else he’s just a one-trick finishing pony. These possessions have a lot of good and bad mixed in, and it’s often hard to determine who’s truly at fault, like this one here:
Not only does the execution need improvement, but recognizing windows to drive and whether or not there’s an advantage being created by doing so:
Is attacking Zion Williamson a good thing? Yes. But without a previous advantage having been created, the defense isn’t in rotation, and going baseline on Zion won’t tilt the floor unless you beat him cleanly, an unlikely proposition considering how little baseline there is and how much of Zion Williamson fills that lane. He doesn’t get the edge, the defenders stay home and Moody throws it away.
One important thing I want to highlight on these baseline drives: he CAN get them. I tracked him as having 4 turnovers resulting off these drives, while Lamb and Kuminga have one combined. The willingness and ability to catch/fake and go are excellent developmental building blocks for Moses; if he can tighten up his dump-off passing, they’ll turn from “promising process” to “great result”.
The vast majority of these turnovers came from being a regular connective piece of the offense, and there’s little to fault here. Moody isn’t a very adventurous perimeter passer and the opportunities for mistakes are limited. That being said, there are areas for improvement readily available for Moses to work on:
With Moody’s shooting gravity coming off the exit screen by JaMychal Green, the slip is readily available for JMG, and Moses sees that gap. Like his baseline drive and dumps, the process is there but the execution is lacking. Without getting into a tangent about the lost art of high-low entry passing, it’s imperative for Moody to throw a fake in here if he wants to attempt the bounce pass through this sea of hands, or fake low before going over the top. Trying to force it in without any deception won’t work.
You can see the general theme starting to form here: leveraging his shooting into good process, but failing when it comes to execution. Not the worst thing ever for a sophomore player. But these struggles relative to other rotation guys fail to explain why Moody’s playing time has evaporated. To begin our comparison, here are the turnover figures for Jonathan Kuminga:
Right off the bat, you can see the disparity in his numbers and Moody’s. The high proportion of sloppy turnovers and bobbles/drops won’t surprise anyone who has watched Kuminga at length throughout the season. It’s also not a shock that Kuminga has 3 travels to Moody’s zero, as one is a footwork god on both ends. There isn’t much to be gleaned from the tape on these turnovers, but they serve as an interesting point of comparison.
A lot of Kuminga’s turnovers are frustrating, but many are borne out of trying different things and keeping an aggressive mentality. The head-scratchers are not becoming of a rotation player, but he has been similarly treated in terms of rotation consistency: over the past 10, he has 5 games with double digit minutes (2 starter rest games) and one DNP. Slightly more leash than Moses, but a similar degree of restraint by the coaching staff.
Where I really start to wonder about turnovers being a primary issue for Moses is when we get to Anthony Lamb.
The figures when compared to Moody are nearly identical. Similar proportions of good/bad process, shoulder-shrugging mistakes, and overall turnover figures to boot: Lamb has 15 TOs in 221 mins, Moody has 19 in 264.
The one figure that does stand out to me is the relative aggression on Moody’s part. If Kuminga is the chaos man who creates almost entirely something bad or good, and Moody creates a small amount of bad and good, Lamb is the most risk-averse of the three. He’s not trying to drive baseline and kick or make dumpoff passes after attacking closeouts, largely because he can’t. Yet he still finds himself giving it away. Being risk-averse but still turnover prone puts you squarely in the Jimmy Garoppolo zone.
When he does try to make aggressive passes, he predetermines them. You can see on this drive that he picked a good bet to put the defense in rotation by attacking Zion. The help defenders just dare him to take the layup, but he’s already decided on the pass, and Trey Murphy III deflects it with his wacky inflatable tube man arms.
Not only does Lamb fail to show flashes of any consistent playmaking, he’s also prone to mistakes as a connector. Especially when factoring in his experience advantage over Moody (Lamb is almost 25, Moody still can’t drink legally) it is pretty clear who has the potential to offer some tertiary playmaking upside from the wing spots.
Yet Lamb somehow finds himself with a locked-in role for the time being. He’s cracked 10 minutes in 9 of the last 10, averaging 21.3 minutes per game. The ability to fill a frontcourt spot in a pinch has certainly given Lamb a leg up for minutes, but he’s not exactly lighting the world on fire as a small-ball 4/5.
Before we get even get to the fouls, you can see some inconsistencies in who plays and who doesn’t when all three players above aren’t really taking care of the ball.
Foul Trouble: Hustle Hard, but Not Too Hard
This is the category that left me the most baffled. The stats alone left me confused and searching for answers on the tape, because Moody has the lowest fouls per 75 figure (1.73) of ANY rotation player on the Warriors.
He certainly has a position advantage over his contemporaries, as Kuminga and Lamb spend far more time in the frontcourt, but that low figure really stunned me if it’s such a point of concern for the Warriors’ staff.
Again I want to reiterate here than I’m being subjective in some respects, but very little of what I saw by Moody concerned me relative to others on the roster.
Though I’ll never act like 11 fouls is a solid sample size, the hustle and process are evident throughout. It largely matches the theme of his turnovers: talent and good-ish process being undone by execution.
The instincts to shade McCollum high and get in his grill is great, and you can even see the off-hand used by CJ that could easily be called an offensive foul. But if the young guy playing aggressive defense meets the veteran on a bang-bang call, who do you think gets the benefit of the doubt?
A good share of his fouls point to deficiencies as a player more than bad process or anything else within Moody’s control.
To be clear, there is plenty in his control as he bites on the initial crossover. Paolo Banchero is not only much larger than Moses but a more dynamic athlete, and had gotten downhill cleanly, thus the “good” foul designation. The coaching staff surely won’t fault Moses for cutting his losses and making Banchero earn it at the line.
The high ratio of hustle certainly matches the tape and scouting report on Moody. Even when put in disadvantaged situations, he worked hard and gave effort through the whistle, even if the whistle was on him.
If you’re a smaller player trying to box out a big, “putting them under the rim” is your job. The idea here is that the vast majority of rebounds will go a few feet in front of the rim, so the further you can box them under the rim, the less able they are to use that height advantage against you.
Moses gets a little too assertive in trying to put Nick Richards under the rim in the play above, but you can again see good process and hustle being undone by a lack of execution.
He takes some bad fouls, there’s no denying that, but it feels like an acceptable level for both his role and where he’s at in terms of his development. The comparison against Jonathan Kuminga further asserts that idea.
Right off the jump, you can see the massive discrepancy in good and bad fouls. Kuminga frequently gets himself in trouble with bad closeouts, overly aggressive trail defense, and reaches. Considering the time he spends in the frontcourt, I can’t knock him much for the mismatch/loose-ball fouls, largely a product of dealing with much larger players. But there are some clear concerns.
Many of these are born out of faulty process combining with execution, like the play you see below:
Jabari Smith Jr. is a lot of things, but he’s surely not a superior athlete to Jonathan Kuminga in any respect. The hand checks are unnecessary when you have a clear lateral advantage and can move your feet and use strength to deny his drives, and it gets him in trouble here.
He did have some good process on tape where he was put in a lose-lose spot, and surprisingly lost:
But the vast majority will be cause for concern from the coaching staff. A 64% rate of fouls born out of hustle is as major an issue as anything, because those 36% compound in terms of their impact. The unnecessary instances build frustration amongst a team that already has pressing foul concerns, and lack of effort only adds to the bad vibes.
Considering Kuminga is still such a raw player on the defensive end of the floor compared to Moody, but with a much higher theoretical upside on that side of the ball, a bit of a longer leash with fouls makes sense. Where I start scratching my head is when the Lamb fouls come into play.
The hustle stats are great, and the positional differences are clear with almost half of Lamb’s fouls coming as a result of his small-ball spot. But even with that caveat, Lamb is still prone to bad fouls of his own making.
Even though Wiseman and Moody have position ahead of Valanciunas to secure the potential rebound, a little extra help boxing out never hurts. Except if you run in and body check the opposing player, the possession isn’t going anywhere. Being the little guy amongst the trees doesn’t excuse every foul borne out of height/strength differences.
There were lots of instances where Lamb did everything right as a smaller player, taking away easy buckets in exchange for trips to the line. The coaches will always be in favor of this foul:
What confused me the most relative to Moses Moody’s concerns are the frequency with which Lamb has good process and bad execution. He’s overly aggressive with his help, like Moody, and often creates trouble situations for the defense where one didn’t have to occur.
Take this play above. With Lamb switched onto Jarrett Allen, he’s in a tough spot when LeVert goes baseline. Do you leave Steph on an island or move to intercept and force a tough shot or pass? It doesn’t really matter if your feet are moving the whole time you rotate. That’s a blocking foul all the way.
Overall, I found Lamb’s foul issues to follow a similar pattern to Moses’, if not a little more pressing. He still making rough decisions and creating disadvantaged situations for the defense, yet his rotation spot seems secure. He’s become the de facto 8th man at this stage, with the two lottery picks struggling to play.
Where does this leave us?
Drawing…Conclusions?
It’s not a surprise to anyone that Kuminga has the most foul/turnover troubles of these three players, and the Warriors expect this more than anyone. It makes sense that they are more forgiving for these mistakes. He’s behind Moody in terms of developmental age, and has the potential to impact the game in many more ways than Moses can.
What surprises me is that Lamb and Moody fall into almost a virtual tie, perhaps favoring Moody slightly, when it comes to taking care of the ball and playing within yourself defensively. If these are the two things keeping Moody off the floor, why don’t they keep Lamb off it?
If the answer is the ability to play Lamb in the frontcourt, that points to a DIRE roster issue if an equally mistake-prone player is getting trotted out as a warm center body. With Lamb at the 5, teams are gathering almost twice as many offensive rebounds as the Warriors while Golden State also loses the turnover and free throw battles. That’s not going to cut it in the long run.
My biggest concern is one hard to put numbers and film behind. Moody is a former 14th overall pick in his second year, with two more years of team control before hitting restricted free agency. Lamb is a solid scrap-heap find by Golden State to be sure, but he’s a two-way contract player who could play his way into a new contract by the end of the season.
With the financial restraints Golden State is under, getting some short-term production for next to nothing is great, but they can’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Since they are the ones who prioritized the bigger picture, it makes little sense to sacrifice the development of multiple lottery picks while letting an undrafted 25-year-old work through his mistakes on a nightly basis.
Much like the Warriors, I found myself between a rock and a hard place searching for an answer here. For a team clawing their way around .500 fresh off a championship, sacrificing in the short term isn’t to be taken lightly. But at the same time, is prioritizing what little extra Lamb offers worth the side effects on Moody and Kuminga, and what they could (cheaply!) offer you in the two seasons beyond this one. After all, this is a title window they hope to keep extended.
The good thing is, the Warriors aren’t paying me to make these decisions, so I’m not forced to draw a conclusion. But what I can tell you is that these concerns for Moses feel overblown, and that he’s made strong developmental strides throughout his career. My only hope is that the lack of front office-coaching staff cohesion doesn’t slow that stride into a crawl.
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