Opportunity Presented To Harrison Barnes

The Golden State Warriors sent a stern message this past Wednesday night, handily defeating the beasts of the East, the Atlanta Hawks, in front of their usual capacity crowd at the Oracle.

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In the interest of full disclosure, both the Warriors and the Hawks were missing their two respective sharpshooting starting 2 guards in Klay Thompson and Kyle Korver. However, the stifling brand of barricade defense the Dubs were able to overwhelm Atlanta’s ball-fizzing offense with, cannot be discredited.

Moreover, their ability to generate quality looks, albeit on a concerning amount of turnovers, without Thompson was a sight to behold.

With Klay sidelined for at least another week with his sprained ankle, Golden State’s contingent of auxiliary wings — namely, Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala — will have to continue to outperform their season averages.

Although the Warriors pretty much have their playoffs fate sealed, their final 15 games will serve as a litmus test to see which complementary player can withstand an expanded role during the playoffs.

Barnes, aside from his 25-point on 11-of-13 shooting explosion against the Hawks, has provided a steady stream of consistent play for coach Steve Kerr and his coaching staff this season.

While Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson hoard the majority of the media attention surrounding the Warriors, and rightfully so, and Draymond Green receives incessant praise for his gradual improvement, defensive versatility, and unwavering tenacity, Barnes’ progression this year has, for the most part, been severely overlooked.

Miscast as a featured post-up/isolation player for the better part of his brief three-year NBA career — specifically while playing under former head coach Mark Jackson — Barnes has found a new lease on his NBA life, playing alongside Curry and Thompson in a supporting capacity.

Explicitly, almost immediately upon his arrival, Kerr inserted both Barnes and Green into the starting lineup in place of Iguodala and former All-Star power forward David Lee. The move has enabled both Green and Barnes to play to their respective strengths.

For Barnes, his primary NBA skill is correspondent scoring — making baskets off of his teammate’s playmaking skills, attacking aggressive closeouts, and leaking out in transition — and not ball-in-hand creation.

Without the burden of having to play as the second unit’s offensive focal point, Barnes’ scoring efficiency has sky-rocketed this season. Most notably, he’s posting career highs in points per game, rebounds per game, eFG% (effective field goal percentage), 3-point field goal percentage, and TS% (true shooting percentage, while experiencing a career-low usage rate.

Playing off of the playmaking of Curry and the high-post wizardry of Andrew Bogut, the Black Falcon is flourishing in a more grounded, spot-up oriented role.

In fact, according to NBA.com’s SportVU Data, Barnes is converting on an ultra-efficient 43.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts — which makes up for approximately 30.5 percent of his shots — and making more than 42.2 percent of his 3-point looks with no defender within six feet of him — which makes up for roughly 25.1 percent of his field goal attempts.

Comparatively, only 24.5 percent and 20.2 percent of his shot attempts last season derived off of catch-off-shoot and wide open 3-point opportunities.

Sure enough, Barnes has thus far been the Warriors’ fourth most effective spot up artist, producing an efficacious 1.20 PPP (points per possession) on said situations, which ranks him among the top 87-percentile when compared to his contemporaries around the association.

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However, with the loss of Thompson, the Dubs will essentially lose one of the most lethal off-ball threats in the NBA for the next seven to 10 days.

This presents Barnes with the opportunity of perhaps taking some of Klay’s possessions, and allows Golden State to experiment utilizing the 6-foot-8 high-flying forward as a featured piece in Kerr’s offense.

Thus far this season, only 9.6 and 3.3 percent of Barnes’ possessions come in the form of an off-ball cutter or the player coming off of a down screen, respectively. In comparison, 21.8 percent of Thompson’s offensive touches come from quick pin downs and curling off of off-ball screens.

While Barnes produces below-average results in both situations, giving him reps and making a concerted effort to expand his scoring horizons could pay dividends in the playoffs, especially if the Warriors decide to go small with their highly-electric Curry-Thompson-Iguodala-Barnes-Green lineup.

With the playoffs approaching in less than a month, the time is now for Barnes to make his case for an expanded role to the Warriors’ coaching staff — maybe then, people will start taking notice at his unassuming, steady development this season.

Next: 5 Likely First Time NBA All-Stars Next Season

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