Golden State Warriors have been too streaky this season

Before the Golden State Warriors won their first championship, the general consensus around the NBA was that jump-shooting teams could never win a title because of the streaky nature of 3-point shooting. The Playoffs are where boys become men – and at some point throughout a grueling postseason run, your luck from deep would run out.

At least, that’s what we thought prior to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. These two Hall-of-Famers revolutionized the game and brought consistency to 3-point shooting that we still haven’t seen replicated.

The game has changed, that’s for sure. Teams are now obsessed with analytics and playing the numbers game to its fullest extent. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the Denver Nuggets’ recent game against the Washington Wizards, where nobody took a free lane to the hoop to tie the game – instead of looking to maximize the situation by shooting a 3-pointer. The result? Denver lost by two.

Not every team in the league is as crazy enticed by jacking up 3-pointers, but it has become the norm as the average attempts continue to rise each season. In the past, this played beautifully into the Warriors’ hands, who were simply better at shooting from behind the line than any other team.

Now, not so much. The Warriors still have the greatest shooter in the world – but even Curry has dealt with some inconsistency this season as the Warriors recently won three games in a row for the first time all season long.

The Golden State Warriors used to rely on their consistency to win games, but now, the Dubs are as streaky as everyone else.

Curry himself hasn’t been much of an issue for the Dubs. In fact, he’s really the only player on the roster who has been amazing 99.9 percent of the time. Still, the Warriors have lost all but 3-of-9 games in which Curry hits three or fewer 3-pointers.

More startling is the shooting department is Oubre, who has had nine separate games with zero makes from deep on an average of nearly five attempts in each instance. That stretch aside, Oubre is shooting 44.0 percent from the 3-point line since his 40 point explosion in Dallas.

The law of averages is a crazy thing, isn’t it? We saw it in full effect this season when the Cleveland Cavaliers went from posting a top-three defense to 25th in the league following a historically bad 10-game stretch to set things back to normal.

Everything in life is balanced. Ups are followed by downs, hot streaks are met with cold streaks soon after. This has been the case for Oubre, whose horrid start to the season has been neutralized by his recent hot hand.

The opposite is happening for Wiggins, who began the year hitting a career-high from deep but has fallen to 33.0 percent shooting in his last 22 games. This has brought his season percentage to roughly the same as his career average. Once again, the law of averages strikes.

Their inconsistency has made it difficult for the team to break over the .500 mark for good. They’re constantly hovering between the bottom-tier playoff teams and something must give in order for them to push higher into the standings.

The determining factor for this team, specifically Oubre and Wiggins, will be if they are able to make true improvements to their shooting. Will they continue to rapidly trend up and down throughout the season – or can they find some consistency? Maintaining a minimum 35 percent average from deep will be key to keeping the Warriors competitive. Only time will tell if they can accomplish this for an entire year.