The Golden State Warriors' two-timeline approach to team-building is officially kaput. Just because James Wiseman has already been traded, Jordan Poole's future is suddenly in flux and Jonathan Kuminga fell out of the playoff rotation following an eye-popping regular season, though, hardly means Moses Moody isn't on his own upward trajectory with the Dubs.
Steve Kerr opened up on Moody's development in 2022-23 on the most recent episode of The TK Show.
“I think in Moses' case he had some good moments for us last year, even in the playoffs against Dallas I remember him having a couple good games,” the Warriors coach told Tim Kawakami of The Athletic. “He's always been somebody we've been impressed with in terms of his maturity and his perspective. This year, to be very frank, he was not really confident during the middle part of the season, couldn't find a rhythm. Part of that was he was in and out of the rotation.”
Moody was a deep bench player for most of the regular season, relegated to spot minutes or playing in mop-up duty as the Warriors tried to find a workable rotation amid a rash of injuries and inconsistency. He came off the bench for 14 or more minutes in seven of the Dubs' 13 playoff games, though, even enjoying multiple stints as a member of Kerr's clutch closing five.
Once Golden State's dreams of back-to-back titles ended in a blowout loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals, Moody had scored nearly twice as many points and grabbed almost twice as many rebounds as he had over the 82-game grind—significant yet unsurprising progress considering what coaches saw from him behind the scenes.
“The biggest thing is we saw a breakthrough with Moses later on in the season,” Kerr continued. “You have to understand we look at practice every single day. Development isn't just about what happens in the games, it's about what happens in practice every single day, and Moses had a real breakthrough late in the season in the pickup games that our guys play, in the 3-on-3, the individual work. You could see he realized how to use his strength, he realized how hard he had to play, how hard he had to go after loose balls and rebounds. That translates. You fast forward to the playoffs and all of a sudden he's back in the rotation, diving on the floor for loose balls, getting offensive rebounds, knocking down shots. So I think Moses had a breakthrough at the end of the year, and that's what you look for. You look for someone who's got perseverance and stays with it and keeps working and eventually breaks through. But you just don't know how long that process is going to take.”
The Warriors face many questions as a pivotal summer fast approaches. There's even an outside chance Moody could begin 2023-24 as the last man standing from Golden State's defunct second timeline.
What seems certain following his “breakthrough,” though? Moody's game-by-game status next season as a rotational fixture who knocks down open shots, ably defends multiple positions and hustles like a player who knows how hard it is to become a reliable impact player in the NBA.
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