Golden State Warriors: Strange facet of Moses Moody’s rookie season

Second-year wing Moses Moody is poised to play a major role in the Golden State Warriors rotation this season, with his three-and-D style likely to prove effective in various potential lineups.

The 20-year-old showed a nice shooting touch in his rookie season, knocking down 37.4% of his three-point attempts. This came after shooting 35.8% in his one lone college season at Arkansas.

Golden State Warriors’ Moses Moody can take a major leap in his second season, although he’ll have to improve one important facet in his developing game.

The splits were peculiar, perhaps the weirdest element of Moody’s rookie season. As someone looking to master an off-ball role predicated on cutting to the rim and catch-and-shoot attempts, the shooting numbers were almost the opposite to what you’d expect.

Firstly, he shot 40% on pull-up attempts, compared to 36.5% on catch-and-shoot ones. For someone whose majority of shots will come off the catch, it would be great to see those percentages interchange.

Secondly, to be truly effective in a three-and-D role, Moody will need to drastically propel his corner three-point shooting.  He shot 26.1% from the left corner and 26.7% from the right, both really poor and unexpected numbers.

Of course, every shooter has their more comfortable spots on the floor. For Moody, according to his rookie season, these are on the wing and at the top of the arc – he shot 41.7% on above-the-break threes last season.

Fortunately for the 2021 lottery pick, the Warriors’ offensive scheme, which is built on ball and player movement, will see Moody take more above-the-break threes than may otherwise be. In many offensive systems around the league, he’d likely find himself glued to the corner watching a steady diet of pick-and-rolls.

However, Moody shouldn’t be expecting the same kind of discrepancies that he saw last season – over 65% of his three-point attempts were from above the break. Playing more minutes next to the Warriors starters, rather than simply in inconsequential junk time, should see him take a greater portion of shots from the corners.

If Moody can shoot 40% off the catch and a similar number from the corners, then he should reasonably expect to play over 20 minutes per game in 2022-23.