DALLAS – Moses Moody knows the rarity of the situation he landed in with the Warriors. Surrounded by future Hall of Famers, champions and several successful NBA veterans, the 19-year-old wing has spent the early part of his rookie season soaking up the knowledge from his teammates.
He has been learning, developing and waiting to make the most of any opportunity given to him by Steve Kerr.
On Thursday night in Dallas, Moody showed all that time spent studying his legendary teammates is paying off during the Warriors’ 122-113 loss to the Mavericks at American Airlines Center. While Golden State’s furious rally from a 17-point deficit came up short, they pulled even with the Mavericks halfway through the fourth thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers from Moody.
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Moody’s impressive 15 second-half minutes were proof enough to Kerr that he is ready for a bigger role as the playoffs near.
“We’ve seen this coming from Moses for a while now,” Kerr said after the Warriors’ seventh loss in their last nine games. “He has just continued to get better in practice. He has played well in the G League. He has played well when we have given him consistent minutes. He’s a guy with good size, really smart, really tough.
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“Moses is going to be a part of things going forward. He is now at the point where he’s ready, as he showed tonight. You have to have guys like that. He’s got a big body and long wingspan, he can guard multiple players, he can switch and those are the kind of guys you have to have in the playoffs. I’m really excited about Moses.”
There’s no doubt Moody would have liked more consistent playing time early in his career. It’s human to want more opportunity, to want to show what you can do and why you were drafted in the first round as a key part to the next era of Warriors basketball.
But Moody has understood what being drafted by the Warriors meant, and has fully bought in to using resources given to him with Golden State that other rookies aren’t lucky enough to have at their disposal.
“The biggest thing that’s been beneficial to me through this period of adjustment of learning is paying attention to other guys on the team,” Moody said after the loss to the Mavericks. “I mean if you just look at the situation, I’m around a lot of NBA guys who have been NBA guys for a long time for a reason.
“So there’s plenty of things from each guy that I have been able to take and add on to my game whether if it’s Klay [Thompson], Steph [Curry], Otto [Porter Jr.], [Damion Lee], [Gary Payton II], [Nemanja Bjelica], everybody does a lot of different things that I can really apply to my game and I’ve been focusing and watching those things and implementing them.”
Moody has dissected each of his teammates’ games, hoping to glean something from each of them. Why have they been successful? What makes them good at what they do? How can he incorporate that into his game and how will that make him a more impactful player for this team?
Chief among the players Moody has spent time studying is Thompson, whose picturesque shooting form and elite bucket-getting ability has had Moody in the lab. His goal isn’t to copy Klay, but to download everything the sharpshooter does and see use those lessons to make himself a better pro early on in his career.
“Klay, I watch his workouts and just seeing the way he moves, the way his body moves when he is playing,” Moody said of learning from watching Klay. “My thing is, I don’t watch it to say, ‘I’m going to mimic that and do exactly what he does.’ But I watch and see how he scores, how he knocks down his shot, what about his shot makes it so consistent. Same thing with Steph. It’s hard to really watch Steph and learn from him because a lot of times his feet not the same as it was last shot. He just makes the shot. That might be more conversational.
“But with Klay, he’s got a routine, he’s more consistent with his body, with everything that he does and how he shoots it. So, I’ve been able to really see everything from his base to his hips to his release, how he gets to his spot, ball placement, pick-up point, all of that. Just things I have picked up.”
The teacher, in this case Thompson, has been equally impressed with Moody’s growth, maturity and ability to stay ready for his opportunity despite fluctuating playing time. To Thompson, that’s a sign of the good things to come for his young teammate.
“Moses is such a hard worker and an incredibly bright, humble person and I am very proud of the way he played tonight,” Thompson, who scored 16 points in the loss, said of Moody. “He did not play in the first half and to come in and play the way he did is a testament to his professionalism. For such a young player to be ready like that is a testament to what the future holds and obviously he is going to be a great player in this league for a long time.”
Studying Thompson and Curry, especially how they go about their work as shooters, is a no-brainer for a rookie like Moody. He’d be foolish not to watch everything the duo does, remember it, practice it and use what he can when his opportunity arises.
But he also knows the importance of being around the third member of the Warriors’ dynastic core. The rookie’s eyes and ears are always open around Draymond Green and it’s clear no detail is forgotten. It’s all valuable to a rookie given the gift of being immersed in the Warriors’ culture from the jump and not finding himself in an NBA wasteland normally reserved for lottery picks.
“I personally try to be around Draymond as much as possible because I feel like learning from him, there’s so much you can tell somebody face-to-face when they ask a question, or you can tell somebody what you want them to do,” Moody said. “But just hanging around him, seeing how he talks to other people, just things that he does, I feel like that’s the best way for me to learn from him.”
Kerr was quick to note that saying Moody will have a bigger role going forward doesn’t mean guaranteed minutes every night. But the fact that Moody was on the floor, alongside fellow rookie Jonathan Kuminga, Curry, Thompson and Andrew Wiggins, as the Warriors tried to finish off their comeback speaks volumes about how Kerr feels about his young rookies and the belief that they will play a part in the title chase to come.
“When you get to playoff basketball, it’s really all about two-way players,” Kerr said Thursday about trusting Moody and Kuminga in crunch time. “Those guys are two-way players. JK can make a play offensively, he can finish in transition, knock down a three and Moses has shown what he can do.”
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With 19 games remaining in the regular season, the Warriors are starting to throw out rotations and lineups you can see them using in the postseason. It’s clear some of those will include Moody and Kuminga. The fact that two rookies have grown from projects to playoff rotation staples in under five months speaks to the potency of the Warriors’ culture and the work ethic of two players drafted to be building blocks for the post-Curry era.
Moody smiled when told Kerr said he had earned more opportunities like the one Thursday night going forward. He was quick to note he’d use any chance he gets to show what he can do and continue using nights like Thursday as more material to study and learn from early in his NBA journey.
“It’s big for my development,” Moody said of playing crunch time Thursday. “Being in all those in-game situations, being in those late-game situations around Steph, around Klay, around those guys and figuring out playing off those guys. It’s just another level, another something to study.”
Moody is always watering his plant. Each game, each minute, each practice is another data point in the education of Moses Moody.
Thursday night he graduated to the next step. The assignments will only get harder as the pressure of the moment increases.
That’s a test the Warriors believe he is ready to ace.