Hot take: Saturday against the Clippers was the Warriors’ best defensive game of 2024. Actually, there were maybe one or two games from last season where I jumped out of my chair during a watch party and said, “Omg! That’s the championship-level defense we need to make a playoff run!” Alas, didn’t happen much aside from those times I can count on one hand.
In that vein, the Warrior that jumped off the page to me from Saturday was De’Anthony Melton.
Here are all the scouting notes I took that were related to Melton from the Warriors’ one-point win over the LA Clippers, of course capped by the Lindy Waters buzzer-beater:
10m41 q1 Melton 3 after missing one, catch and shoot quick release — wasn’t afraid to launch after just missing one
10m02 q1 Melton went for the oreb and James Harden scored in transition, Trayce Jackson-Davis jabbed at Harden, gambling, and The Beard burned the youngster — tough to blame anyone on that for an unsuccessful offensive board crash (by Melton) then a mismatch in transition
8m53 q1 Melton defense: he anticipates the Ivica Zubac screen and moves his feet closer to Harden
8m38 q1 Melton great switch with Trayce on Harden, Jonathan Kuminga ended up getting downhill transition the other way
7m47 q1 Melton stays with Harden, body contact, no foul, Stephen Curry anticipates, steals, JK downhill trans = WARRIORS BASKETBALL (of 2024-25), love to have Melton there just for defensive osmosis to Moses Moody because Moody could not do that last year (more on this, below)
6m32 q1 Melton again great D vs Zubac pick, might’ve even been a charge (no call)
9m29 q2 Steph to Melton zig-zag turnover probably due to lack of chemistry
It got so routine during the watch party calling Melton’s number, I decided to just start referring to him as “DA”:
9m06 q2 DA pull up trans over Zu
8m23 q2 DA oreb vs Zu, feeds Steph, back to DA for 3 splash timeout
6m05 q2 Steph, DA, JK, Gary Payton II, Draymond Green is a nice combination
5m18 q2 JK with a nice switch on the POA from Norman Powell then the handover to DA — just not something we saw a lot of last year
Moody also had his nice moments on defense, particularly the reach-in steal and breakaway bucket that would have been part of any game highlight reel, and Moses has come a long way. But Melton is showing us some defensive acumen that is only now part of Moody’s process. There were many times last season where Mo couldn’t stay in front of his man, but he’s improving little by little. And he does stay ready! Did so again versus the Clips on more than one occasion.
Specific to point-of-attack (aka “POA”) defense, there was a Hawaiian reporter all week at training camp asking every Warrior what their favorite basketball training drill is, and Melton said it was defensive slides. Naturally! [I’ll have the interview up on the YouTube channel by the end of this week.]
So I had to ask our Draft expert, Eric Guilleminault of NBADraft.net, if Lottery picks lacking POA acumen has been a trend, because you look at Melton’s career and he’s “only” got three years of seniority on Moody, was the 46th pick of the 2018 Draft, and has stayed a bit below-the-radar. Then again, three years is a long time in NBA years. Anyways, it seems draftees with great POA defense are few and far between these days, or at least since 2021, when Moses was drafted.
“Rules have changed,” Guilleminault said. “So it’s harder to defend and in the current NBA, it’s hard to play a non-shooting wing, no matter how good of a defender he is. The examples are GP2 and Matisse Thybulle. If they were a reliable shooting threat, they wouldn’t play spot minutes and wouldn’t have taken so long to catch on with a team.”
For the people demanding that Moody play more, I think 1) the complexity of the Klay Thompson situation had the most domino effect on Moody’s minutes and, 2) Moses just doesn’t have the POA skill that Melton does. Not starting doesn’t mean you don’t give Mo minutes, though, but overall I’m just not worried about it because the Warriors control his contract as is the case with rookie extensions (restricted free agent) and Melton can be the direct daily observable blueprint for Moody going forward.
Melton only has a one-year deal, so if he plays all season like he did on Saturday, he’ll earn another double-digit-per-year contract after this — something Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and Joe Lacob may decide is too expensive for the GSW salary cap sheet, especially when you’d rather invest in the younger player Moody who shows an upward trend on developing that Melton-like defense. So that leaves the door open for Moody to take Melton’s spot next summer.
The worst-case scenario is if somehow Moody continues to languish with his playing time, then his agent Rich Paul demands a trade. Then you’ve got a probably irreparable situation, but I just think the odds of this happening are super-low, like near-nil (knock on wood).
Melton is actually a very nice blueprint for Moody. Melton started 31 games in his rookie season at 19.7 minutes per game and his been part of the rotation on his teams ever since. By comparison, Moody averaged 17.5 minutes per game last season. So he’s already pretty close to what a regularly impactful rotation player gets (~20 mpg).
But I did say that the Warriors need to consciously improve the market value of Andrew Wiggins as compared to what he’s getting paid ($26 million, so more than twice Melton’s), so that means plugging Wiggs in at the starting 2 with JK at the 3.