{"id":73137,"date":"2024-04-13T16:00:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T20:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=73137"},"modified":"2024-04-13T20:10:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T00:10:32","slug":"warriors-add-draymond-green-kevon-looney-hybrid-usman-garuba-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/13\/warriors-add-draymond-green-kevon-looney-hybrid-usman-garuba-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors Add Draymond-Looney Hybrid Ahead of Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, the Golden State Warriors will be filling their final roster spot with a player already indoctrinated in their system, converting forward-center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garubus01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Usman <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garubus01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Garuba\u2019s<\/a> two-way contract <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1779189033228448027\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">into a standard NBA contract<\/a> (per The Athletic insider Shams Charania).<\/p>\n<h2>Warriors Add Draymond-Looney Hybrid Ahead of Playoffs<\/h2>\n<p>The 21st pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Garuba joined the Warriors as a free agent shortly before the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n<h3>Who is Usman Garuba?<\/h3>\n<p>Beginning his career with the Houston Rockets, he became a roster casualty last summer due to Houston\u2019s desire to be the offseason\u2019s big spenders. However, Garuba had stretches in which he played a consistent albeit minor role.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, Garuba averaged 3.0 points, 4.1 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.6 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game. However, to better highlight his impact, he averaged 8.4 points, 11.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.1 blocks per 36 minutes. Perhaps most importantly, Garuba shot 40.7 percent from 3, including 41.4 percent on corner 3s.<\/p>\n<p>Upon being traded to the Atlanta Hawks, the Eastern Conference contender flipped Garuba to the Oklahoma City Thunder for veteran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/millspa02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patty Mills<\/a>. The Hawks eventually waived Mills, but the Thunder waived Garuba almost immediately.<\/p>\n<p>It was somewhat surprising that both the Hawks and Thunder passed on Garuba. In the case of Atlanta, it was clear they needed a multipositional defender who wouldn\u2019t take scoring opportunities away from his teammates. In the case of OKC, it was their youth and his upside.<\/p>\n<p>For a time, it appeared Garuba was <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/blasradio\/status\/1700072783508566224\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">set to return to Spain<\/a>, his home. After playing for the Spanish national team in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, he would\u2019ve played for the Super Cup. Soon after, he was picked up by the Warriors, who coincidentally employed a player he wants to emulate and was compared to pre-draft: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/greendr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Draymond Green<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Who Is He More Like?<\/h3>\n<p>Indeed, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr saw the similarities early on.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Steve Kerr says Usman Garuba has some Draymond and Looney qualities. He&#8217;s certainly happy with the latest addition<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dalton Johnson (@DaltonJ_Johnson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DaltonJ_Johnson\/status\/1706415099702096129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 25, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>6-foot-8 and 220 pounds, Garuba is a two-way playmaker who\u2019s effective on the boards. He has a mediocre shooting touch and isn\u2019t much of a vertical threat. Nonetheless, with his ability to essentially guard 1-5, he\u2019s a rare defensive weapon.<\/p>\n<p>With the Warriors, Kerr has implored Garuba to find his niche on offense and to improve his conditioning for the defensive end. With the Warriors converting his contract to a standard deal, he may have fulfilled Kerr\u2019s desires.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Usman Garuba Posts 18 PTS &amp; RECORD-SETTING 19 REB in Warriors&#039; First Round Playoff Victory!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PrEnMCTBA-M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Garuba primarily played for the G League\u2019s Santa Cruz Warriors this season. In 14 games, he averaged 10.9 points, 8.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.6 blocks, and 1.0 steal per contest. He shot 65.1 percent from the field, getting the bulk of his points rolling off screens.<\/p>\n<p>Garuba has chosen to play a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/looneke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevon Looney<\/a>-like role this season. Understandably so, as it\u2019s easy for him to make a consistent impact on offense in the pick-and-roll. However, like Green, he\u2019s still capable of creating advantages for his teammates with the ball in his hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, the Golden State Warriors will be filling their final roster spot with a player already indoctrinated in their system, converting forward-center Usman Garuba\u2019s two-way contract into a standard NBA contract (per The Athletic insider Shams Charania). Warriors Add Draymond-Looney Hybrid Ahead of Playoffs The 21st pick in the 2021 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":73154,"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":[25,1608,31,62,3],"tags":[409,1965,596,528,4232],"class_list":["post-73137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-warriors","category-basketball","category-rockets","category-nba","category-news","tag-draymond-green","tag-kevon-looney","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-steve-kerr","tag-usman-garuba"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73137","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\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}