After the Warriors’ season-opening blowout win over Portland, Buddy Hield took a second to mirror on what it’s prefer to be a Warrior. To play alongside Steph Curry, who he has studied intently since he was a child. To play inside the system he’s admired from afar for years.
“I don’t want to bring it up,” Hield stated, “But the last time I was free like this was in Oklahoma. Guys always playing for me, passing the ball and trying to get me open. It was fun, I’m not going to lie.”
The admission should be startling to the remainder of the 29 groups within the league. At Oklahoma, Hield was a phenomenon. The consensus Nationwide Participant of the 12 months as a senior, he lit up overmatched youngsters on a nightly foundation together with his unmatched vary and never-ending motion.
Up to now, it’s not hyperbole to say that man is right here in Golden State.
Hield led the Warriors with 22 factors on opening night time. A sport later, he poured in a game-high 27 factors, drilling seven of his 9 3-pointers. In his first 35 minutes as a Warrior, he has registered 49 factors.
“It looks like Buddy from Oklahoma again,” Draymond Inexperienced stated after Hield’s encore efficiency in Utah.
If the Warriors can bottle up Oklahoma Buddy and pour him out over 20 minutes per sport, they’ll have probably the most deadly bench weapons within the league. No person shoots it like Hield, who leads the NBA in 3-point makes since 2019. And no person, besides Steph Curry, runs fairly like Hield, who attracts defensive consideration by sprinting his lanes and always working off screens.
The Warriors had an concept of what it was getting when it acquired Hield within the six-team commerce that despatched Klay Thompson to Dallas. However they by no means may have recognized they’d get this model of Hield, and so they didn’t know the way shortly he’d acclimate himself within the Warriors’ veteran locker room.
Already, at the same time as the brand new man, Hield has introduced a contagious power to the workforce. He livens up shootarounds, organizes workforce dinners, cracks up his teammates on the bench and has embodied the unselfishness Steve Kerr is asking of his workforce.
In faculty, Hield would compete together with his roommate, Isaiah Cousins, to see who may get to the gymnasium first each morning. Even when the accolades began rolling in, Hield by no means let the stardom get to him, Kruger stated. The child from the Bahamas stayed assured, however humble.
As a senior, Hield averaged 25 factors per sport whereas capturing 45.7% from 3. His 147 3-point makes that season approached Curry’s single-season report from Davidson (162).
The one present Warrior to witness the Oklahoma Buddy phenomenon within the second was Kevon Looney. Early within the 2014 season, Looney’s UCLA visited Atlantis for a non-conference matchup with the Sooners. It was a house sport for Hield, and he confirmed out.
Looney had heard rumblings of the man from the Bahamas earlier than the sport, however didn’t know who Hield was. He wasn’t a extremely touted recruit — rising up within the Bahamas and doing a prep yr in Oklahoma — and began his faculty profession with two forgettable seasons.
The Bruins heart shortly acquired launched to Hield, who led the Sooners to a 75-65 win by giving NBA-caliber defenders like Norman Powell the enterprise. Hield scored 17 of his game-high 20 factors within the second half, together with 10 factors throughout a scorching, 90-second flurry that sealed the Sooners’ win.
“He was doing the same thing he’s doing now,” stated Looney, who had 16 factors and a game-high 15 rebounds for UCLA. “He was shooting it from everywhere. Always moving without the ball. He was kind of doing the same thing he’s doing now. His shot-making was incredible in college. Really tough to stop.”
Those self same issues Looney referred to had been omnipresent in Golden State’s first two video games — a traditionally dominant opening. Hield flew off flare screens. He labored the two-man sport with Curry. He launched a contested 30-footer off a bounce ball. He drilled nook 3s like they had been layups. He ran the ground arduous, forcing backpedaling defenses to both decide to him on the 3-point arc or surrender driving lanes to the rim.
In opposition to Utah on Friday night time, Hield additionally flashed an expanded flooring sport, registering six assists and 4 rebounds. Two of his dimes had been beauties — one behind-the-head kickout to Andrew Wiggins for 3 and a left-handed hook move to Curry on the wing for one more triple.
Hield has been engaged on the latter since he was a child. His coaches rising up would scold him for trying it, however after years of honing the talent and constructing energy, he can execute the tough move.
“I got it from (Curry), watching him, low-key,” Hield stated.
Hield has hit 12 of his 16 3-point makes an attempt to start out the yr. Even he isn’t going to hit 75% of his treys for the complete season, however his impression within the position beforehand occupied by Thompson seems to be sustainable.
Hield’s 22.5 plus-minus ranks fourth within the NBA via two video games. Within the 24 minutes Hield and Curry have shared the courtroom, the Warriors have outscored opponents by 79.3 factors per 100 possessions — the perfect two-man mixture on the workforce.
When Hield says the Warriors looks like Oklahoma, he’s occupied with how briskly the ball strikes. He’s occupied with how his teammates search him out on the perimeter, and the way he returns the favor. How everybody places their egos apart to play the precise means, falling in line behind Curry, Inexperienced and Kerr.
Not every thing orbits round him prefer it did in Norman. However Golden State’s fashion of play is simply as empowering.
“You don’t have to press so much,” Hield stated. “You just know guys are sacrificing and being unselfish. When you’re on teams like that, good things always come. I know my teammates look at me to shoot the ball, but I look for them too. It’s just organic.”
Hield has needed to press previously. Whilst he’s rained 3s — hitting at the least 200 in six straight seasons — he has bounced round from New Orleans to Sacramento to Indiana to Philadelphia.
However now, it appears fairly clear that he has discovered a house.
“Buddy’s just someone whose vibe is just different every day,” heart Trayce Jackson-Davis stated. “Loves being here, loves coming to work. He’s going to get out and run and shoot the 3. It’s probably the best situation for him, because all he has to do is run and shoot. We love him, glad he’s on our team.”
