In the last two games, both losses, 107-95 against the Phoenix Suns and 113-100 versus the San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors Sixth Man forward Andre Iguodala has accumulated just 2 points on 1-for-6 from the field, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists, to go along with 4 turnovers in 53 total minutes of play.
Iguodala’s play reached its nadir when he was called for a backcourt violation in the fourth quarter of Tuesday night’s loss to the Spurs, prompting a San Antonio beatwriter to tweet that Iguodala had become a “shell of a shell of himself”.
It also prompted Warriors fans into a familiar refrain: that the third-highest-paid player currently on the team’s payroll for 2014-15 — Iguodala is making $12.3 million this year and Klay Thompson‘s $15.5 million-per-year extension doesn’t kick in until next season — is over-rated and his skillset is duplicated with that of fellow bench-unit member Shaun Livingston.
Below is the local and national coverage on Iguodala over the past few days. Bottom line? Don’t expect Iguodala’s role as Sixth Man for the Warriors to change much in the near-term. Not only does head coach Steve Kerr believe in him, but so does general manager Bob Myers and, as we reported post-game from the Warriors’ locker room, Stephen Curry. And it appears that they have Iguodala bought in, at least for the time being.
My take? The injury to Livingston was an uncontrollable circumstance. Having Iguodala come off the bench was a reasonable, calculated risk that had more upside than the alternative. That was then proven with the results in preseason and into the beginning of the regular season.
A lot of time and energy has apparently gone into Kerr making sure Iguodala was okay with the new role. Do not hit the panic button and ditch all of that invested human element. Shaking up the rotations and chemistry in a major way, by swapping Harrison Barnes and Iguodala yet one more time, would send the wrong message to the team and Kerr could take an unspoken hit in the confidence of his players. Iguodala simply needs to play better (and most of that is on offense) and that course of action is not only a lot more do-able, but also forces him to take ownership of the issue. As you’ll read below, he already has.
Let’s hope Iguodala has been reading the articles and seeing the tweets, because if there’s anything that will get a player of his caliber some fuel, it’s a comparison to Livingston. Sure, Livingston is a similar long-limbed distributor who does not look for his own shot as a first priority. However, Livingston is at best a smaller, below-the-rim, inside-the-arc version of Iguodala.
Shaun cannot finish a break in spectacular fashion, such as receiving a pass nearly two yards behind him and swooping it with both hands for a slam dunk. Shaun cannot smother or intimidate the opponent’s most athletic player when that player has the ball and is supposed to be in a “triple threat” position. Andre can win the heart of #Roaracle by hitting a fadeaway catch-and-shoot at the buzzer over one of the league’s best defenders in Thabo Sefalosha. Shaun can’t do that.
Finally, the issue isn’t as much about who starts as who finishes, so the entire thread might be blown out of proportion. Granted, he did not play well against the Spurs, matching up against a hot-shooting Manu Ginobili, but he was in there for crunch time against the Suns — perhaps for too many minutes as Kerr later admitted (read below) — and Iguodala was not responsible for the late turnovers that ultimately led to Golden State’s demise in Phoenix, although he did miss a layup and free throw at critical junctures.
In fact, the only time Iguodala was scored on in the 4th quarter in Phoenix was when Gerald Green hit a “heat-check” three-pointer with Iguodala draped all over Green, despite Iguodala getting screened by Mason Plumlee with no help from Andrew Bogut. Prior to that, Green had found his rhythm by splashing a three-pointer on a failed close-out by Barnes.
So maybe this is really about Iguodala being in the wrong place at the wrong time against the Suns (he was a team-worst minus-15) and catching a first-ballot Hall Of Famer on a good night when his history-making franchise was clicking on all cylinders.
Sam Amick of USA Today included some exclusive quotes from Iguodala on accepting the role of Sixth Man, in an article that covered interviews with other Sixth Men across the NBA:
But as 30-year-old Iguodala sees it, there’s more to it than money. The simple desire to start and attain that status, Iguodala said, is something that starts early in most players’ lives and never seems to leave.
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“Guys are wired like that from a young age,” he told USA TODAY Sports. “I mean I’ve been playing basketball since I was five, and you’re just so used to just starting the game. Even when you’re young, it’s ‘Starters vs. Scrubs.’ That was kind of the (mentality).
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“If a guy is in front of you, then it’s like, ‘Well the guy is in front of me so I’ve got to go get his job.’ Really, in the NBA, it’s ‘I need to get paid like a starter.’ A team is not going to say, ‘I’m going to spend $10 million for a guy to come off the bench.’ A team is not going to do that. Or it’s very, very rare.”
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Iguodala is one of those exceptions, as he’s making $12.2 million this season while the player who was given his starting spot by Warriors coach Steve Kerr, third-year small forward Harrison Barnes, is making approximately $3 million. He’s clearly conflicted about playing this role — not surprising considering he had started in all 758 games of his 10-year career coming into this season — but said Kerr made the transition easier by being transparent.
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“I think the best way to (convince players to play the sixth man role) is to just be honest about it,” Iguodala said. “What are you trying to do? What’s your goal? Why do you think it works? And that’s what Coach Kerr did. He was like, ‘All right, I think you’re better playing with the second unit because the second unit (will be) better — you make them go.’ I was like, ‘All right, cool.’..I mean I can argue, and say, ‘(Expletive), I make the first team better too. I don’t care who I’m playing with, I’m making everybody better.’ ”
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But he won’t, especially so long as the Warriors keep winning.
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“I don’t wrestle with (the new notion of playing the role)” said Iguodala, who added he thinks longtime Los Angeles Lakers sixth man Lamar Odom was the best to ever play the role. “The only time I think about it is when I get asked about it, so I just deflect the question, like, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ That’s just how I deal with it. Don’t ask me about it. I’m just going to be ready to play tomorrow.
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“We’re all human, and I think that’s a part that can’t be measured. When you look at (basketball) analytics, there’s nothing in there that talks about how, ‘He’s a human being and what’s he thinking?… That’s another big thing when you decide who to bring off the bench. Some guys, mentally, can’t take it. Other guys might be able to. So a guy may actually be a better player, and he should be starting, but he can’t take coming off the bench better than the other guy so you just flip-flop them around.”
ESPN.com’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss reminds #DubNation to think twice before declaring Iguodala over-rated:
It’s undeniably early in the season and perhaps this is all a matter of Iguodala finding his place in a system that’s radically changed from last season. If these struggles do continue, though, there’s an exterior context to the malaise. The Warriors are choosing between which wings they want for the future, as they press up against the luxury tax. It’s unlikely that the team carries Iguodala, Barnes, and Draymond Green for more than another season, if that. Diminishing play for Iguodala could lead to a new team for the 30-year-old utility man.
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Again, it’s early, and one can’t make a solid conclusion about whether Iguodala is on a steep decline. It’s debatable, but what’s less debatable is the past. Iguodala’s frustrating play has caused some Warriors fans to declare that he was always overrated — at least that’s what I’m seeing on Twitter. I’ll emphatically disagree with that sentiment and point out how much worse Denver got defensively when Iguodala left (ranked 11th to 21st) and how much better the Warriors got when he arrived (ranked 13th to third). He has been really good.
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A stretch of bad play isn’t confirmation that he was always bad. If anything, Iguodala’s recent run of play has been confirmation that the team could really use him — or someone like him at least.
While Iguodala’s Sixth Man role paid huge dividends while Livingston was out, CSN Bay Area’s Monte Poole sees a problem with both players on the floor at the same time:
It’s not the fault of either player. Each is terrific at what he does. They just happen to do pretty much the same thing on offense. Each exquisitely fills the role of rangy, ball-handling playmaker.
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And neither is dangerous enough from the arc to create the spacing that would so immensely help the other.
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That explains, to a great degree, why the Iguodala we’re seeing now has so little impact compared to the Andre we saw in the preseason. Playing alongside Leandro Barbosa, Iguodala was a dynamic and creative point-forward. He found ways to facilitate and the Warriors benefitted.
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Livingston, coming off toe surgery, was not ready to play in October. And even though he’s playing now, his conditioning and touch have yet to arrive.
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But when Livingston and Iguodala are on the court together, Livingston generally has the ball. And Iguodala generally seems to be searching for a role.
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“He’s in a tough spot,” Kerr conceded after a 113-100 loss to the Spurs on Tuesday night. “In the preseason we had him running the point, with Livingston out, and he really relished that role. And it was great for him.
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“Now we’re sort of piecing things together and playing him with Shaun. They’ve been terrific defensively.”
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Well, yes they have. And they’ve been brutal offensively.
As for upcoming games, Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Iguodala will handle the ball more frequently with the second unit:
The usually fluid athlete looked especially stiff over the past two games when he totaled three points and regularly got beaten by offensive players who wouldn’t dare go at him in the past. In fairness, Iguodala is still dealing with knee tendinitis and is trying to adapt to a bench role after starting the first 806 games of his professional career.
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“I thought last night was just one of those games. The Phoenix game, I thought I didn’t use him the right way. I wore him down a little bit,” Kerr said, explaining why Iguodala fell so drastically after being a defensive game-changer and scoring 15 points in Houston on Saturday. “This is part of being in the NBA. There are ups and downs. I’m not worried about Andre, at all. He’s one of our captains. He’s one of our smartest players. We’re still figuring out some things. We’re new together.”
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Whether coming off the bench or moving back into the starting lineup, Kerr said he wants Iguodala to be aggressive on offense and show the defensive skills that made his name in the NBA.
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In hopes of rekindling that aggression from Iguodala, Kerr said he’ll try to put the ball in his hands more often as the Warriors prepare to play Brooklyn on Thursday and Charlotte on Saturday.
And, finally, Carl Steward of the Bay Area News Group reports that Myers has full confidence in Iguodala’s ability to work through this current slump:
Despite appearances and on-court results — he’s averaging just 6.1 points and 3.1 rebounds over the first seven games — Iguodala apparently is on board with it all. General manager Bob Myers said on his weekly radio show on 95.7 The Game on Wednesday that Iguodala left the arena early Tuesday because he wanted to put in some extra work at the team’s downtown facility. As for not being available after practice, he had a community service appointment in San Rafael.
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“He’s aware he can play better, and he’s doing everything he can,” Myers said. “This guy’s a professional. He’ll find his way.”
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Ultimately, Kerr believes Iguodala’s move to the reserves will be beneficial to both the player and the team. It’s just going to take a little time to make the adjustment to the role in which the coach sees him.
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“I want him to be aggressive. I want him to be the versatile defender that he is. I want him to handle the ball quite a bit,” Kerr said. “Part of the reason we’re bringing him off the bench is that he tends to get lost starting, because Steph (Curry) and Klay (Thompson) have the ball constantly, and I think Andre’s at his best when he’s got the ball in his hands.
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