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James Wiseman, despite butterflies related to ring night and playing in his first official game since April 2021, acquitted himself well in the Golden State Warriors' 123-109 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.
The third-year big man had eight points, seven rebounds and one block on 4-of-6 shooting in the 2022-23 season opener, making a series of impressive defensive plays at the rim against LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Wiseman finished with both touch and power around the rim, too, even flashing his perimeter jumper with a 16-footer off a baseline out-of-bounds play. The only area he really struggled? At the free throw line, where a jittery Wiseman clanked all four of his attempts.
Impressive as he was on Tuesday night, though, Jordan Poole knows one specific part of the game in which Wiseman still has a long way to go: Setting effective screens.
Asked after the game to compare what it's like partnering with Wiseman in pick-and-roll to Draymond Green, Poole drilled down on the nuances that make Green and Kevon Looney two of the league's best ball-screen big men, plainly stating what Wiseman still has to learn.
“Still trying to find ways to get James to set the right angles on the screen. He's a really big target, he's a lob threat. We're just trying to find ways to have him hit the body,” Poole said. “Draymond is obviously one of the best screeners in the game that we have, as well as Loon. So just trying to find ways to get our rhythm right, get our cadence right, with the screens, with the slips, with the dives. He's a lob threat, I haven't really had a lob threat these last couple years. So still trying to find ways where he can catch the ball where he likes it, whether it's a middy pull-up or a lob on the backside.”
Loved this from Poole when asked to compare Wiseman, Draymond as PnR partners. Matches eye test.
"Still trying to find ways to get James to set the right angles on the screen. He's a really big target, he's a lob threat. We're just trying to find ways to have him hit the body." pic.twitter.com/6XA0syqSRg
— Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) October 19, 2022
The budding two-man game chemistry that Poole and Wiseman flashed throughout Warriors exhibition play was indeed on display against the Lakers. Poole found the seven-footer for a pair of scores in high ball-screen action, first manipulating the defense with a no-look drop-off then making the easy read when Los Angeles put two defenders on the ball.
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Those are nice finishes from Wiseman, especially considering he's still developing his hands and getting comfortable catching in traffic on the move. Look at how little contact Golden State's center makes with Patrick Beverley—a borderline elite screen navigator, it bears stressing—at the point of attack, though. That's exactly what Poole is talking about, and the kind of game within the game that goes easily unnoticed for not just fans, but players of Wiseman's lacking experience.
Like Green and Looney before him, Wiseman is bound to improve as a screen-setter the more time he gets on the floor. He kept harping on the importance of in-game reps after the final buzzer, acknowledging his all-around development would take time.
Poole, to be clear, is fully comfortable giving it to him, knowing the payoff is coming.
“He's really talented and he works hard,” Poole said of Wiseman. “It'll take only a matter of time before we really start to dominate that two-man game.”
Good thing for the Warriors, then, that it's already been proven effective.
