SAN FRANCISCO — Buddy Hield likes to hold a basketball while he sits on the bench. Because when he’s not shooting, or preparing to shoot, he’s still thinking about shooting. So much so, he wants to feel the leather in his hands. Rub his fingertips over the grooves.
“Just to get that feel,” he said. “Just having it in my hands. It’s like, I don’t know.”
Like an addiction?
“Yeah. Like that,” he said, a smile breaking out as he slipped on his shoes. “I didn’t want to say it but, yeah, I’m addicted.”
Love can feel like that. An obsession. And Chavano Rainer Hield, known to the world as Buddy, is completely consumed with the sensation of shooting.
It’s exactly the mindset the Golden State Warriors needed when they signed him as a free agent, endeavoring to feel the massive hole left by Klay Thompson’s departure.
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Hield was the finishing haymaker in a spirited comeback as the Warriors beat visiting New Orleans on Tuesday, 124-106. With no Curry — who injured his ankle Sunday in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers — no Andrew Wiggins and no DeAnthony Melton, and trailing by as many as 20 points, the Warriors rallied for the kind of galvanizing win that could be foundational to the season.
Hield didn’t start the comeback. He was on the bench when it sparked. But he finished it, scoring 19 of his team-high 28 points in the fourth quarter.
Because he wanted the ball.
Shooters have a history of getting shy on the Warriors. Their confidence throttles down a bit next to the greatest ever, under the weight of living up to the Warriors’ legacy of splash. Imagine feeling like a shooter and then practicing with Stephen Curry. It’s like believing you can sing and then taking the stage with Whitney Houston. Then you look over and see Thompson and, for three years, Kevin Durant.
But Hield, he can’t be another way. This runs too deep for him. It’s a compulsion.
So when he started the second half on the bench, replaced by Lindy Waters III in the opening lineup, hesitancy still wasn’t an option. Over his first six quarters as a Warrior at Chase Center, Hield was 4-for-22 from the field, including 2-for-14 from behind the arc, but nothing changed in his approach. When he finally got back into the game, with 2:36 left in the third quarter, his mentality was the same — another chance to get another sensation from this thing he so fully loves.
He cut across the lane, from right to left, then burst off a screen towards the top of the key. When he received the pass from Kevon Looney, Hield recognized pesky Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado had stumbled fighting through the screen. He was off balance. His hands were down. And Alvarado was already giving up four inches to Hield.
He didn’t pause. He didn’t overthink it. He didn’t concern himself with a better shot. He fired that thing up, swishing from the top at 1:45. Then, on the Warriors’ final possession of the half, in transition, Hield took a pass from Kyle Anderson on the left wing. With Brandon Ingram’s forever arms flying at him, with all the misses he’d racked up in this arena, Hield still wasn’t shy. No pump-fake-and-drive. Another splash, with 2.8 seconds left. Followed by a yell into the crowd.
Buddy
BUCKETS.📺 @NBAonTNT pic.twitter.com/udzNiWfvrV
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) October 30, 2024
Hield found his form. He made all four of his 3s in the fourth quarter. He scored 25 points in just shy of 12 minutes in the second half.
“You know, just finding yourself, thank God,” Hield said. “Blocking everything out of your mind and trusting (when) you go back in, you just figure it out. … Every time you play you always want to do good. But you have rough spurts, like the first half. But guys like Lindy and Moses (Moody) had it going, so you got to ride that wave. Steve (Kerr) did a good job of handling that and balancing guys out. When you got a hot hand like Lindy — who’s deserving of a chance; for all of training camp, he’s been doing really well — Steve was like, ‘I’m going to go with Lindy,’ and he rode that wave and it worked out. Then it was my time to come in and it worked out.”
What made it work is Hield’s mindset. He embodies an unwritten but defining tenet in this era of Warriors basketball: Shooters shoot. Hield is 20-for-36 from 3-point range through four games.
For most of the last decade, the Warriors have been in a constant search for supplemental shooting. In 2017, they signed Nick Young and Omri Casspi. In 2021, it was Otto Porter Jr. and Nemanja Bjelica. In 2022, they signed Donte DiVincenzo. Last year, Dario Šarić.
Few have lived up to their reputation once joining the Warriors.
Young, in 2017, went 6-for-7 from 3 in his first game as a Warrior. But he was 1-for-4 combined over his next two games. He wouldn’t make five 3s in a game again until March. His 20th 3-pointer of the season came in Game No. 13. Young would, however, hit one of the most important 3s in his career, a huge shot in a Game 7 win at Houston in the Western Conference finals.
Young shot 37.7 percent on 4.1 attempts per game with the Warriors.
Casspi never made 20 3s with the Warriors. He only took 22 in 740 minutes, making 10. He didn’t take a 3 until his third game. The first two, he barely played. Casspi started seven games with Golden State, playing more than 22 minutes in all seven. He took 10 3s total in those seven games, making five. He was a shooter who wouldn’t shoot.
Porter Jr. was more a spot-up shooter. He launched 216 in his one season with the Warriors, making 37 percent. Bjelica, a shooting big man, got up 149 in his 71 games, making 36.2 percent. The last time he played 70-plus games, two seasons earlier with Sacramento, Bjelica shot 41.9 percent from 3.
DiVincenzo averaged 5.3 attempts in 26.3 minutes with the Warriors, making 39.7 percent — which was on par with who he was when he came to the Warriors. He became a shooter after his Golden State experience. He put up 8.7 per game with the New York Knicks last season at a clip of 40.1 percent.
Hield enjoys far different circumstances. Young and Casspi were playing with three of the greatest shooters ever in Curry, Thompson and Durant. Porter Jr. and Bjelica, and Šarić after them, were stretch bigs in confined roles. DiVincenzo had to share with Curry, Thompson and Jordan Poole.
Hield’s light is neon green. It always is, though, in his mind. He’s a marvel in practice for the amount of shots he gets up. He doesn’t have a specific number to hit, or a regimen like Curry. Hield just has his addiction.
He gets up a lot of shots. Enough to make people on the Warriors feel like he gets up a lot of shots. Which is, yes, a lot of shots.
How many? Hield said he shoots until his body starts telling him to save some for the game.
With no Thompson, the Warriors need every shot from Hield. They need him to put up a prolific volume and take the pressure off Curry. He’s got the freedom to fire away.
“He knows what he does well,” Brandin Podziemski said. “Obviously, he’s shown that for the first four games. He knows what’s made him a bunch of money in this league and has helped him win.”
That’s not without pressure. As was evident in the loss Sunday to the Clippers, and in the first half against New Orleans, the Warriors need Hield to make a decent percentage of them. When he’s off, because of the Warriors’ limited shooting, they really feel it. Waters III is likely going to get some run because he’s looking like another unfazed shooter on the roster.
Without Curry, Hield becomes the focal point of the Warriors’ actions, the threat that fuels the misdirection their scheme creates. With Curry, Hield becomes the punisher of defenses that throw extra bodies at No. 30.
Either way, it requires a certain disposition. A shooter can’t be shook. The Warriors don’t have time for bashful.
“Never scared,” Hield said. “Put in too much work.”
(Photo of Buddy Hield celebrating a third-quarter 3-pointer in Tuesday’s game: Noah Graham / NBAE via Getty Images)
