The Golden State Warriors have gotten off to a rough start this year. The team is 2-3 through five games and has struggled badly against any opponent that isn’t terrible.
Warriors star Stephen Curry is averaging 26.4 points per outing this year, but he is doing it on 42 percent shooting from the field and 32 percent shooting from beyond the arc. The very thing that made him an MVP and allowed him to rule over the NBA for half a decade wasn’t the number of points he got, but his efficiency while doing so. That efficiency, for now at least, appears gone.
This week, Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard offered his honest thoughts on Curry’s shooting woes and what is causing them.
“I think right now, with the injuries that the Warriors have been dealing with and Steph playing with a younger team right now, he’s seeing that it’s tough to get those quality looks right now,” Lillard told former teammate and NBC Sports Bay Area analyst Dorell Wright.
To Lillard’s point, it is much easier to secure clean looks when defenders are worried about leaving Klay Thompson open. It’s much harder when Kelly Oubre Jr., who is shooting 27 percent from the field and 4 percent from beyond the arc, is your running mate. Lillard added:
“It’s different than what it’s looked like over the last four or five years for him.
“He’s trying to get quality looks and get a clean look so he can make a good one. You don’t really have that luxury to take one from that deep just to be taking it like in the past he might have, and I’m the same, getting a lot of attention from defenses.”
On Friday night, Lillard and C.J. McCollum easily beat the Warriors 123-98.
Obviously the season is young and there is plenty of time for Curry and Co. to get their act together, but for now at least, it looks like 2021 will be a rough year for them.
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