SAN FRANCISCO -- Warriors coach Steve Kerr acknowledged that he and his staff have a lot of work to do before deciding on a starting rotation.
Moses Moody is making sure he’ll be a big part of those discussions.
Given a rare chance to start in Friday night's 109-106 preseason win over the Sacramento Kings at Chase Center, Moody enhanced his stock with a steady and solid performance that is sure to give Kerr more to think about as he adjusts his lineups in the coming days.
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Moody, the No. 14 overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft, put up a game-high 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting, pacing the way for a Warriors team that was missing its best player for the entire second half after Stephen Curry left with a jammed finger on his right hand.
“Just figuring out ways to score, reading the defense, seeing what the defense is giving you,” Moody said of his night. “I don’t feel like I took a lot of bad shots. Just efficiency.”
That efficiency is exactly what Kerr is looking for from his team, and Moody is eager to provide that.
Consider that on a night when the Warriors struggled with an onslaught of turnovers (23 total), Moody and Gary Payton II were the only two starters who took full care of the ball.
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“He’s had a really good camp,” Kerr said of Moody. “He was aggressive when we needed that aggressiveness. He did a nice job.”
Moody had plenty of motivation for the upcoming season. That's because last season, he had a decent scoring average (8.1 points) and shot 46.2 percent from the field, but he didn’t make the type of impact he'd hoped.
“I didn’t play as much as I wanted to last year, so I obviously wasn’t in a place to where I needed to be,” Moody said. “Over the summer, I put a lot of work in on the small things, the details. That’s just my mentality of it. I’m not even necessarily looking for the gratification this early. But I did the work, so it’ll show.”
Moody shares how he approached the offseason after last season's limited starts pic.twitter.com/PTrCALieVk
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) October 12, 2024
Moody acknowledged that the lack of playing time last season (17.5 minutes per game) messed with his mind, but he realized he had no choice but to accept the situation and make the most of it.
"If anybody doesn’t get what they want, it’s going to mess with them to a certain level,” Moody said. “But as a grown-up going to work, you have to think of it like that. You’re not in pee wee playing with your friends and getting as much playing time as you want. It’s a job. That’s what it’s about.
“Taking that, seeing stuff for what it is, not taking stuff personal, and just pulling your big boy pants up and going to work. You want to change the situation then change yourself. That’s my mindset.”
The Warriors boast what Kerr said is the deepest roster he’s had since accepting Golden State’s head-coaching job a decade ago, with a glut of rotational players.
Moody is smack dab in the middle of that mix.
“We’ve got 12, 13 guys that are really good players,” Kerr said. “This is probably the deepest team I’ve seen here in terms of the number of rotational guys. Moses is a rotation player. We have a lot of difficult decisions to make.”
"Moses is a rotational player."
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) October 12, 2024
Kerr on where Moody's role stands ahead of the Warriors' season opener pic.twitter.com/KI8JN3wj0w
Moody hasn’t been one to complain or make ripples in the waves when things aren’t going the way he wants. There’s some belief that type of attitude has worked against him to a certain extent.
Moody himself agrees with that assessment, but he doesn't plan to change his ways whatsoever.
“It does, for sure. But if I change my ways because of something else, then now I’m out here doing some goofy stuff and I’m getting away from my principles,” Moody said. “I’m not doing it for anyone else, I’m not being professional for nobody else. I’m being a professional because that’s the best way for me mentally to come to work every day, to go into life, to approach life. I can’t change that. If you do it to get something out of it, and that’s how these dudes get lost. That’s when you get out here and you’re doing wild stuff and you’re unpredictable just because you got so far away from your principles.
“I got to be who I am and play it out that way.”
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