This season's Golden State Warriors have made a strong comeback, and although they have lost in the winning streak with the Suns, they are still a team with great hope of breaking out of the West, whether it is from the perspective of team competitiveness or the future competitive state of the players.
Stephen Curry is at the top of the MVP list, and his strong performance continues to prove to fans his legend in this day and age. And dream green's performance on the defensive end also seems to be a sign of returning to the peak, continuing the team's offensive and defensive speed improvement at the offensive end, being extremely sensitive to the non-ball running of teammates around him on the court, and can send basketball to the hands of the offensive team members in the moment of opportunity, and he also leads the team's extreme rotation in defense to block the opponent's offensive wave.
And Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole as Curry's right and left arm, the two of them occupy a lot of scoring responsibilities on the offensive end, when Curry is rested, the two of them need to take on the main scoring task on the court. Judging from the current team performance, these two players have adapted quite well to the role change of the Warriors. Wiggins changed his usual attitude of health, pounding the opponent's penalty area on the field again and again, and Jordan Poole became one of the most reliable players at the end of the team.
Finally, there's our protagonist today: Kevin Rooney.
Although his performance is not as outstanding as the above players, he still does his job conscientiously on the field. In an average of 18.3 minutes per game, Kevin Rooney was able to contribute 5.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 0.8 blocks for the team, and his personal shooting percentage was 52.8%.
If we just look at this stat sheet, his performance is not worthy of too much attention, but one thing, he was able to fight for 6.6 rebounds for the team in 18 minutes of playing time, which is a new level of his personal career, which is a more prominent aspect. In addition to this, his performance in other aspects seems to be somewhat unremarkable.
And this season, Kevin Rooney's personal offensive range is getting closer and closer to the basket box, most of his shooting distance is about a meter away from the basket, and in the case of a sharp reduction in the offensive range, he has handed over the lowest 59.1% of his career's shooting rate under the basket; the performance on the offensive end has declined to a certain extent, and there are not too many highlight moments on the defensive end, in the context of most of the Golden State Warriors' players are ushering in progress, as we said above, no matter which way you speak, None seems to pay attention to Kevin Rooney.
But in some ways, that seems to be exactly what he meant by this team. As a more traditional interior player, he does not have the ability to shoot in space like the small-ball center pursued by the league today, and he does not have the excellent blocking consciousness of the old-school center players, no matter which aspect he does not seem to have an advantage, but his characteristics are precisely derived from this. Considering Green's role in organizing the end of the game, his ability to create offensive opportunities for the team through local blocking and dismantling cooperation is an important part of this team's once peak, and Kevin Rooney's function on the court is similar to his, and he and Stephen Curry have an excellent blocking chemistry, whether it is using his own blocking to find a breakthrough scoring opportunity for Curry, or helping Curry delay the defender's pursuit in the no-ball running position, these things he has done quite well on the field.
A datasheet shows that in the past four seasons of the Golden State Warriors, when head coach Steve Kerr put Curry and Kevin Rooney on the court at the same time, the Warriors' overall offensive efficiency was about 5% higher than usual, and when Curry had Kevin Rooney by his side to block and cover for him, he was able to deliver 44.2% of the outstanding shooting percentage at the three-point line.
Considering that the Golden State Warriors have put a small lineup on the court for most of the season, and therefore Kevin Rooney's playing time has been drastically reduced, we may say that when Rooney is not on the court, the overall space of the team will perform better, which will be more conducive to the team's offensive players.
But like the data we gave above, the reality is exactly the opposite of the theory, which is also a point that we need to deliberately pay attention to in the future. Defensively, Kevin Rooney is not a good rim protector, but his defensive options on the inside are quite good, and his movement speed is also very good, which is enough to support him to complete a large area of defensive tasks on the field.
In the face of opposing players' blocking attacks, Rooney can deliver efficient efficiency in squat defense like Gobert, and also has the ability of Davis to improve the ability to hold the ball. Kevin Rooney has a pretty good sense of interception of the ball carrier's offensive route, he can predict the breakthrough route of the attacking player in advance before he actually launches the attack, and then appear on his breakthrough path on the way to attack the ball-handling player, slowing down the former's offensive speed and providing sufficient time for the assistant defense teammates behind him.
Although he does not have the top ability of Gobert or Davis to change defenses indefinitely, he is very good at making key defensive choices against the strong side of the attacking player in defense, forcing the opposing player to attack from his weak side, which will make their subsequent defense work easier.
We're not focusing on his performance on the defensive end in this way, not to show anyone his level of defense, and with his current defensive performance, it's far from the top level that we're focusing on. As far as his current performance is concerned, although he has a certain advantage in the interior defense, considering that he is still in a short board in terms of his own movement speed as a traditional center forward. When he faces the league's top-level attacking defenders, it is inevitable that he will become the key point for the team to be broken. And considering that he is not very good at bouncing ability and physical fitness, it also makes him look a little weak against many excellent center players in the league who are blocking and dismantling.
Of course, Kevin Rooney, as a very smart player, is also very aware of his shortcomings in these areas, he can use his excellent positional sense and defensive choices on the court to make up for these problems, and when he stands next to him to chase the dream Green, these so-called shortcomings are not too serious for him.
However, as we said at the beginning, in the Golden State Warriors lineup, Kevin Rooney's performance is not so good that it deserves too much attention, but considering the team's tactical system and the overall player configuration, they need a center player who is so loyal to his job, who can be the connection point for every offense on the field, the supporting role around every scoring player, as long as he can be on the court, he can naturally bring help.