A big year is hopefully on the way.
The sophomore leap doesn’t occur for every NBA player, but it does show up for most. While development isn’t linear in any sport, more often than not a player is quite a bit better in their second year than in their rookie year.
And it makes sense. Take Golden State Warriors youngster Brandin Podziemski for example. He’s a good example because, if you couldn’t tell from the headline and photo, he’s the topic of this article.
This time last year, Podziemski was trying to make the adjustment from playing against St. Mary’s, Gonzaga, and Pepperdine, to playing against the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Boston Celtics. This year, he’s trying to make the adjustment from playing against the Nuggets, Timberwolves, and Celtics, to playing better against the Nuggets, Timberwolves, and Celtics.
If I were a betting man, I’d say he’d play better this year than last year.
That’s saying something, though, because Podziemski was pretty fantastic last season. He did something very difficult in earning rotation minutes from Steve Kerr, and earned a spot on the All-Rookie First Team. It was a great year, and even if he simply repeats it, he’ll be a key part of the upcoming season for the Dubs.
But the Warriors are banking on him one-upping himself, which is part of why they were unwilling to include him in Lauri Markkanen trade talks. I’m also banking on him improving this year. Here are four ways where I think we’ll see that growth.
Podziemski shot 38.5% from three-point range last year. If you hear that a perimeter-oriented player shot that high of a mark from distance, you’d expect them to be a pretty efficient scorer, right?
Wrong.
Despite that mark, Podz had just a 54.0% true-shooting percentage, which ranked 172nd out of 193 qualified players last season. He was an inefficient scorer despite being a good shooter.
Podziemski struggled to score efficiently mainly because of his shot selection. He often eschewed threes in favor of tougher shots at the rim. His floaters and hook shots might have been fun and creative, but they worked against him: he shot just 44.6% on shots from three to 10 feet, and he took nearly as many of those shots as he did threes.
Podz is already working on this: in a recent radio interview with 95.7 The Game, the lefty said that he, “Took out the floaters, took out the hook shots.” As he does that, you can expect him to see his efficiency take off.
On a related note...
Movement is a core tenet of the Warriors’ offense, and it’s an area where Podziemski can — and almost surely will — improve. Usually when you point to a young player needing to improve their off-ball movement it’s because they’re stagnating too much: think Jonathan Kuminga in his rookie year, catching the ball, letting the defense set, waiting, and then making a move.
It was different for Podziemski. He embraced off-ball movement, but seemed to forget that he could be a weapon within it. The way he worked off-ball was sentimental for anyone who played high school basketball ... it sometimes felt like he was running a weave drill, or running the basic passing game offense. He would be a blur in motion, catch the ball, stay in motion, and find the next player to get the ball to.
That’s a good first step, but now it’s time for Podziemski to insert himself into the offensive scheme as a scorer. That means spending more time looking to get open in his spot rather than just open to receive and make a pass, and it means getting more comfortable with catch-and-shoot jumpers ... another area he said he’s working on in that aforementioned interview.
Podziemski was a shockingly good defensive player last year. He bucked all the pre-draft scouting reports by not just being a playable option on defense, but a good option a lot of the time.
He had some of the most active hands on the team, but like many players with active hands — especially young players — he sometimes got a little overly ambitious. It’s just about time for football season to start, so let’s go there for an analogy: sometimes you have to go for the interception, but most of the time you have to go for the deflection or even just the tackle.
The next step in Podziemski’s defensive evolution is to understand when to buckle down and play straight-up defense, and when let himself jump into passing lanes and in front of players.
This one’s fairly simple. Podziemski shot 38.5% on threes, and you expect those players to shoot well at the free throw line. He also shot 77.0% on free throws in college, so we know that’s a shot he’s comfortable making.
But in his rookie season, Podz shot a mere 63.3% on free throws. A lot can factor into a young player uncharacteristically struggling at the charity stripe, mainly the increased pressure of the situation, and the decreased rhythm as they play a smaller role and get to the line less frequently (at Santa Clara he averaged 4.5 attempts per game, vs. just 1.1 with the Dubs).
You can practice a lot — and he undoubtedly is — but those are things that mostly just come with experience at the NBA level. Podziemski has never lacked for confidence on the NBA stage, but sometimes experience still trumps confidence. I’d expect his free throw mark to be comfortably starting with a seven this year.
