{"id":120204,"date":"2025-01-27T06:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T11:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=120204"},"modified":"2025-01-27T04:48:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T09:48:42","slug":"the-warriors-need-to-trade-or-bench-buddy-hield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/27\/the-warriors-need-to-trade-or-bench-buddy-hield\/","title":{"rendered":"The Warriors Need To Trade Or Bench This Player Immediately\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buddy Hield<\/a> lit the league on fire at the beginning of this season. He started the year as an offensive force<\/a>, giving the Warriors the shooting and spacing they needed to start the season 12-3. Since then, Hield\u2019s stats have slowly declined, and so have the Warriors<\/a>. Unfortunately, head coach Steve Kerr<\/a> has decided to continue to play Hield significant minutes, hurting the Warriors on both offense and defense. If Kerr and the Warriors coaching staff don\u2019t bench him, a Buddy Hield trade may be the best option moving forward. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Warriors Need To Trade Or Bench This Player Immediately\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Buddy Hield\u2019s Stats Are Declining<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At this point, Hield\u2019s stats are about the same as they were last year. Hield is averaging 12 points and 3.3 rebounds on 41.3% shooting from the field and 37% from three. Hield is averaging 23.4 minutes per game. However, the season averages are not where the problems lie. The problem is that Hield started the season off so hot that the Warriors continue to have faith in him, regardless of his terrible play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hield went from averaging<\/span><\/a> 21.2 points in October (shooting 50% from three although just five games),\u00a0 to 13.2 points in November (41.4% from three), and finally 8.5 points in December (30.5% from three). While he\u2019s shown slight improvement in January averaging 10.7 points (31.6% from three), that\u2019s still a far cry from the start of the season. This rapid decline has directly correlated with the Warriors\u2019 decline, which is why the Warriors need to seriously consider putting him on the bench.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Benching Hield Could Be The Move<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Since Hield can\u2019t seem to shoot the three-ball with great accuracy anymore, he is essentially worthless to the Warriors\u2019 offense. He still provides some spacing because of his reputation, but how long will that last? Even offensively, outside of his three-point shooting he doesn\u2019t provide much on that end of the floor. He is only averaging 1.5 assists per game, his lowest mark since his rookie season in New Orleans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what is the benefit of benching Hield? First of all, almost everyone on the Warriors\u2019 roster is an upgrade from Hield defensively. Moses Moody<\/a>, Brandin Podziemski<\/a>, and even Lindy Waters III<\/a> are reasonable replacements for Hield. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moody and Podziemski could use as many minutes as they can handle to develop, and they also bring playmaking and rebounding that Hield lacks. Waters has the ball as well as Hield of late and is averaging almost as many assists and rebounds while playing six less minutes. Waters could likely exceed Buddy Hield\u2019s stats if given the opportunity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Is There A Buddy Hield Trade Out There?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is unlikely that a team would be interested in trading for Hield straight up. Although his contract is very reasonable, there aren\u2019t a lot of teams looking for three-point shooters who aren\u2019t shooting well or don\u2019t play solid defense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So if the Warriors are going to find a way to get rid of Hield, it may be part of a bigger trade. Is it worth attaching a pick just to get rid of him? Probably not. That being said, if a larger deal is in the works, the Warriors would be foolish not to try to get Hield into the deal as part of the salary filler. If \u00a0Hield\u2019s stats don’t improve significantly soon, the Warriors need to do something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buddy Hield lit the league on fire at the beginning of this season. He started the year as an offensive force, giving the Warriors the shooting and spacing they needed to start the season 12-3. Since then, Hield\u2019s stats have slowly declined, and so have the Warriors. Unfortunately, head coach Steve Kerr has decided to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":120210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1608,62],"tags":[48978,256,49771,4176,528],"class_list":["post-120204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-warriors","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-brandin-podziemski","tag-buddy-hield","tag-lindy-waters-iii","tag-moses-moody","tag-steve-kerr"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120211,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120204\/revisions\/120211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}