JaMychal Green 3P% drop due to jammed wrist

[+extra analysis/quotes/video, Iguodala talk]

It’s been a long minute since I posted here so I’ll go ahead and thumb-type a few extra paragraphs of pertinent info... JaMychal Green spoke with local Golden State Warriors beatwriters yesterday for the first time at Chase Center. The big yellow flag when news broke on July 19th, 2022, that he was getting bought out by the OKC Thunder with the intention to sign with the Warriors was his precipitous dip in three-point shooting percentage, down to an alarming 26.6% in 2021-22 from 39.9% the year before.

The brain trust here at LGW was flummoxed:

Prior to that? 38.7% in 2019-20 and 40.3% in 2018-19. The latter was a season in which JaMychal was traded from the Memphis Grizzlies, where he shot 39.6% on threes in 41 games, to the LA Clippers, where he notched an incredible 41.3% in 24 regular season games played. If you want to indulge in a little bit of comparison entertainment, Stephen Curry is a 42.8% career three-point shooter and Klay Thompson is 41.7% over his career.

Anyhow, Green’s white-hot 2018-19 campaign ended in the playoffs against the third and final year of the Kevin Durant era with the Dubs. Also, can I just post Durant’s monster playoff numbers real quick? That Clippers series was the last healthy one for KD, who would play five of the six games against the Houston Rockets in the subsequent 2019 WCS:

To bring this back full circle to JaMychal, The Athletic’s Anthony Slater has a nice analysis with video [written on 7/19, check their website as Substack’s linking for posts written on mobile still isn’t fixed] of Green’s impact in the opening LA Clippers series from 2019 where he went 12-for-23 on threes in the six-game series — remember when Patrick Beverley had that postgame celebration in the bowels of Oracle while walking to the Clips’ locker room? KNBR’s Sam Hustis had the viral video of that. Anyways, that was Green’s fifth year in the NBA; he’s now entering his ninth tour of duty.

Well, we got the reason why his 3P% dipped last season, yesterday.

“I had a wrist injury,” JaMychal explained in an answer to SF Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau’s question. “That played a lot with me shooting and when it got towards the end of the season, I just stopped shooting, period, started working around the basket more — you know, jamming my wrist. But it’s all about reps and confidence. As long as I get my reps and makes in this summer, I’ll be good to go. I was just fighting through some things last year, just had a down shooting year.”

This seems to be confirmed by a stats lookup on Basketball Reference and “rumor tracker” of tweets on HoopsHype. On 3/28, Denver Nuggets beatwriter Mike Singer reported that Green was out due to a re-aggravation of a wrist injury suffered in a fall two weeks prior against the Philadelphia 76ers, which happened to be on 3/14. HoopsHype shows that he also suffered a hip contusion around the same time as the original wrist injury. Per bkref, Green missed two games on 3/28 and 3/30 then went three games straight without attempting a three, plus went 0-for-1 in each of the final two regular season games.

After 3/14, the date of the initial injury, and before 3/28, JaMychal went 3-for-10 in six games played. Green ended up shooting only zero, one or two three-pointers in 46 of his 67 games played in the 2021-22 regular season campaign. He only had 17 games (58 games played out of 82 possible) in 2020-21 where he shot two or fewer treys.

The lack of consistently putting up enough threes has been a talking point for Draymond Green’s trainer Travis Walton, to the point where Walton has had to assuage Dray’s concerns about his own three-point shooting clip. Draymond has seen his 3P% drop from a career-high of 38.8% in 2015-16 on 3.2 threes attempted per game to a career-low of 27.0% on 2.0 attempted per game in 2020-21. He was 29.6% this past year on just 1.2 attempts from the arc per game. Walton has spoken about Draymond’s lack of attempts and style of play resulting in fewer attempts from downtown, leading to an exaggerated worsened overall percentage, not only on our most recent livestream with him as a guest, back on 2/19 at halftime…

…but also on a recent radio guest spot with beat reporter Jason Dumas on 95.7 The Game.

As far as JaMychal’s role is concerned, other than Green himself detailing it in the second of three video splices of the interview below, Slater happened to have a one-on-one with Steve Kerr recently and Kerr said the following:

“He’s the logical replacement for Otto and Beli,” Kerr said. “One guy replacing two. He’s capable of sort of playing either role, the four or the five. If he’s playing with Draymond, he can stretch the floor and can guard the five, while Draymond guards the four. He gives us frontcourt flexibility.

“I have a lot of confidence he’ll shoot the ball well. Players generally shoot the ball better with us, I think. That’s not always true. But the space that Steph and Klay provide them along with Draymond’s passing. You saw it with Otto and Gary last year. I think JaMychal will love playing with our guys.”

[Again, check The Athletic’s website. The article was written yesterday, 8/1/2022.]

JaMychal’s departure from Denver seems to be related to a desire of the Nuggets to find a more true wing that can defend perimeter shooters, as the trade with OKC eventually netted 6’8” rookie “shooting guard” (aka “wing”) Peyton Watson. This seems to be in line with both Green and Kerr’s description of JaMychal’s expected role with the Warriors. Here’s The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov in an interview with Denver GM Calvin Booth: https://theathletic.com/3442789/2022/07/25/denver-nuggets-calvin-booth-jokic/

Did you make that trade — the JaMychal Green trade with OKC? Was that to help with the salary impact? Was that to get the 30th pick? What was the driving point?

It was all-encompassing. I think it’s one of those things that it was multifaceted on both sides. It helped Oklahoma City maximize the cap space they had in the ’21-22 season. It helped us open up another roster spot to get a more regarded or better defender on the perimeter. JaMychal brought a lot of toughness and explosion around the rim and he’s a great shooter, but (being) in space wasn’t his strength. So, it allowed us to open up a roster spot where we can get somebody that could be more versatile and switch and do something like that.

Other notes and speculation:

• JaMychal mentioned that the Warriors have guys coming back from injury. The average fan is probably thinking, “Who besides James Wiseman would be included with the plurality of ‘guys’?” I’m going to grossly speculate that part of Steve and Dray’s pitch to JaMychal was that, in addition to Wiseman, they expect Donte DiVicenzo to have a great year (42 games played in total after missing 39 of the first 42 games of 2021-22), Andre Iguodala — if he doesn’t retire (more on that, below) — will be fully healthy, and Patrick Baldwin and Ryan Rollins will play key roles. In other words, Kerr and Draymond are very high on all of those guys who happen to be coming off injuries.

• This isn’t from the JaMychal presser, but Steve had this to say about Andre’s retirement in the Slater exclusive:

  “I leave Andre alone,” Kerr said. “He knows where we stand. If he wants to come back, we’d love to have him. The one thing we feel strongly about with Andre is we want to give him whatever space and time he needs to make a decision. I’m leaving him alone. Whenever he makes his decision is fine with us.”

• JaMychal mentioned Iguodala as part of the Warriors culture that he’s excited about (second video below). Does this mean there is some inside knowledge of which way Andre is currently leaning? Your guess is as good as anybody’s.

• Jordan Poole is apparently back from his vacation to London and Paris, which was documented on his Instagram account. Green said they met yesterday. He also met DiVincenzo at the hotel, which suggests DiVincenzo hasn’t found permanent residence here yet. Donte signed with the Warriors three weeks ago and spoke to reporters covering NBA Summer League in Las Vegas:

Hope you enjoyed all the extra research and commentary I typed; this would not be possible during the regular season and playoffs, as the pipeline of new GSW content is like a fire hose on full blast!

There are more notes and quotes underneath the following JaMychal Green videos, which have been spliced according to three main topics covered and somewhat repeated in the 11-minute interview with Green:

1. The phone calls with Kerr and Draymond which swayed him to choose the Warriors over another team, plus the AAU history of knowing Draymond since the eighth grade.

2. JaMychal’s role and bringing toughness which was borne from his upbringing playing against Alabama football player types (and Kerr not even mentioning the physicality part in the phone call). There’s also an ode to former teammate Nikola Jokic, where JaMychal called Jokic by the truncated nickname “Yoke”.

3. This article’s main topic of the wrist injury causing the dip in 3PP.

DISCLAIMER: These are all just notes for my main workflow of YouTube videos, tweeted by beatwriters. I used to transcribe every interview but it became too tedious and not worth the investment for the small amount of views we got on the soundbites on YouTube. The links to the tweets are not available because sometimes I don’t use the full tweet and just having a ton of tweets on this website imo isn’t aesthetically pleasing and gets away from the main goal: transferring information (not so much entertainment) asap.

• JaMychal Green was about to go to another team, was in Jamaica chilling in the plunge pool and Steve Kerr gave him a call: “After talking to him I just couldn’t tell him no.” He says he had this phone on him knowing business could pop up. One more call with childhood friend Draymond Green, and JaMychal was ready to join. (Dalton Johnson, 95.7 The Game, Kylen Mills, Kendra Andrews)

• JaMychal Green says he and Draymond Green have known each other since they were in 8th grade and he’s ready to “do the dirty work” with Draymond Green for the Warriors, mixing it up down low and playing tough defense: “I'm just gonna be here to do all the small things…Be a dog. Do the dirty work. Help Draymond out with the dirty work.” (Dalton Johnson, Kylen Mills)

• JaMychal Green on signing with the Warriors: “I’m just happy to be here.” (95.7 The Game)

• JaMychal Green talked about losing to the Warriors when he played for the Clippers and Denver: “But they called me and once they call you, said they want you. Man, that’s a great feeling.” (95.7 The Game)

• Green attributes some of his poor shooting last season to a wrist injury. He said by the end of the season he just wasn’t shooting. He doesn’t expect it to be an issue: “It’s all about rest and confidence. As long as I get my reps this summer, I’ll be good to go. I was just fighting through some things last year.” (Kendra Andrews, Kylen Mills)

• On how players perceive the Warriors: “I feel like the keep you on your toes…When you come here and handle business, you can set yourself up for life.” (Jason Dumas)

• JG is from Alabama and said he became a physical basketball player because he was playing against big ol’ football players his whole life. (Jason Dumas)

👍👍💛💙