Warriors' Gentry: Stephen Curry could play off-ball more this season
Contrary to what he thinks of himself, Stephen Curry may not be a better offensive player than LeBron James, but the All-Star point guard is as offensively capable as anyone on the planet not named James or Durant.
Based on the fact that the Warriors sound set to give him more opportunities off the ball, Curry may very well improve on the 24 points he averaged last season.
“I think if you talk to Steph, I don’t know if he wants the ball in his hands that much at all like it’s been in the past,” Warriors assistant coach Alvin Gentry told KNBR, via Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
Gentry went on:
“It’s one of the things we talked about with Steve Nash in Phoenix as he got a little bit older. It’s very tiresome when you come down and basically have the ball 80 percent of the time and you’re creating shots and everything for yourself as well as other players.
“I think we’ll try to alleviate some of that with Steph as far as pitching ahead and getting the ball from one side of the floor to the other, running some pin-downs for him where he can come off and catch-and-shoot, and as I said, try to create easy baskets for him. By ball movement, I still don’t think it’s going to affect Steph one way as far as the shots that he gets, the assists that he has.”
Gentry and first-time head coach Steve Kerr are new to the Warriors and appear ready to bring some changes to the Bay Area. Curry is one of the NBA's best shooters (if not the best shooter - he shot 48.9 percent in catch-and-shoot situations last season), and putting him in more catch-and-shoot situations, while taking some of the ball handling duties off his shoulders, could benefit both Curry and the team.
Golden State signed Shaun Livingston early in the off-season after the guard put together a solid season with the Nets.
According to NBA.com's Player Tracking stats, Curry's 6.7 minutes per game of ball possession ranked 11th in the league.
Of course, while the idea of more catch-and-shoot opportunities for a dead eye shooter seems promising, the Warriors won't want to take the ball out of the hands of one of the NBA's best point guards too often.