Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images The first thing you typically associate the word “drive” with when it comes to the Golden State Warriors is Jonathan Kuminga — and with good reason. His drives this season have been fun to watch. A violent mixture of explosion and audacity — coupled with exquisite body control and an understated ability to stop on a dime — has made his ascension this season very intriguing. There’s an argument that no one else on this team provides the kind of rim pressure and force that he has given a team that has historically lacked such traits. (If you want to read more on Kuminga’s exploits as a driver this season, read this wonderful piece by Charlie Cummings of Swish Theory.) But another Warrior deserves to be shouted out for his paint exploits — even if his drives haven’t been as eye popping or forcefully violent as Kuminga’s. The signs were there as early as Summer League for Brandin Podziemski and his ability to get into the paint. Even if he’s generously listed as 6-foot-5, he didn’t necessarily profile as someone who could will his way toward paint touches. Nor could he be the kind of finisher at the rim that most decent-volume drivers have historically been. The height is one limiting factor — he also didn’t have the vertical pop to compensate for it. Which is why the frequency of shots he takes at the restricted area has been low: 25%, which is at the 50th percentile among combo guards in the NBA, per Cleaning The Glass. The frequency is a limiting factor — but surprisingly, whenever he does manage to get close to the rim, he has been finishing at a decent rate: 66-of-90 in non-garbage time heading into their game against the Charlotte Hornets (73.3%), which is at the 89th percentile among combo guards. That should mean a lot of things. One: that Podziemski should definitely up his volume of rim attempts. Two: that the next step for him is to use the threat of finishing to create advantage situations. Three: creating advantage situations off of drives should generate reads for him to make. Glimpses of his paint-touch exploits in Summer League lit the proverbial light bulb above my head: Podz w/ another paint touch but has no lane to the rim. Gathers himself, sees Gui Santos open, splash. Liking the patience and poise so far from Podz. pic.twitter.com/MqelpvpuCR— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) July 4, 2023 There was this possession in a Summer League game that made me go “hmmm”: A measure of one’s excellence when it comes to being a passer and overall playmaker as a driver and paint-touch merchant is the ability to make the next read — that is, skipping over the most obvious target, processing where the help is coming from, and hitting the teammate that benefits the most from said help coming over to shore up on Podziemski’s drives. In the example above, Podziemski displays a perfect example of reading the “low” man (the defender guarding the weak-side corner) and making the skip pass to a teammate in the corner once he sees the low man commit to the help. I go back to that example because a highly similar situation occurred against the Hornets:
Coming off the Draymond Green screen, Podziemski sees the help coming: at the “nail” (the area approximating the middle of the free-throw line), from the dropping big, and from the weak side corner (the “low” man). Once Podziemski touches the paint just below the nail, he sees Miles Bridges pre-rotating and helping off of Andrew Wiggins in the corner and executes the skip pass accordingly, which generates a three. This kind of passing from Podziemski has been sprinkled throughout this season — from preseason all the way up to the present: Paint-touch Podz strikes again pic.twitter.com/vS4J5VK4rI— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) October 14, 2023 "Quick 55" (Kerr called this Quick 77 w/ Team USA). Podz rejects and gets to the paint, draws low-man help and finds the corner shooter.
Paint-touch Podz >>>> pic.twitter.com/xPFpgU4WH9— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) October 8, 2023 Podz making himself available at the top of the arc as the release valve. Catches and stampedes his way to a paint touch to draw help and force the sink on Draymond, opens up the kickout to JK for the 3. pic.twitter.com/kxZ9bK7mBB— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) February 3, 2024 Podz's craft as a PnR ballhandler. Usual paint touch because of course, gets Okongwu up in the air before committing to the kickout to Lester shaking up from the corner. pic.twitter.com/IcSeiXJRaV— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) February 4, 2024 Podziemski is averaging 6.7 drives per game this season. Among 27 qualifying rookies, that mark is fourth in the NBA — and actually beats Kuminga’s raw drives-per-game mark this season (5.6). But the one metric that has been revealing is Podziemski’s turnover rate on drives this season: 5.0%, sixth lowest among those 27 rookies. Not only has he been touching the paint — he’s been making good decisions with the ball and has taken good care of it. It makes it even more paramount that he become a bona fide threat to score up close, which feels like the next step in his development as a ballhandler and all-around threat on offense. If the outside shot corrects itself toward his college numbers (and it’s been trending that way as of late), Podziemski can turn into a legitimate outside-in presence who can also moonlight as an inside-out decision maker and playmaker. Which makes possessions like this — punishing botched coverages, attacking hard closeouts, and flashing finishing craft over shot blockers — a herald of what is to come for the productive rookie:
Source: https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2024/ ... -breakdown