The Warriors have said they need to evolve. The Schroder trade is just that.
SAN FRANCISCO — Dennis Schroder isn’t really the Warriors’ type. At least not historically.
Schroder likes having the ball and running pick-and-rolls, where he punishes defenders who go under screens with his streaky jumper or zips past them to the rim. The Warriors will be his ninth team in 13 seasons, meaning he has worn out his welcome a time or two.
The Warriors are nevertheless ecstatic to acquire him, especially at a low-risk price. They know that at this point of their team-building arc, they can’t wait around for the perfect fit — stylistically, personality or otherwise. They know they need to evolve by bringing new dimensions to their pace-and-space, read-and-react, split-action and off-ball movement offense.
“Everything that we need, we feel like he can provide,” Steve Kerr said on Sunday.
The Warriors envision Schroder playing on and off the ball, with and without Steph Curry. He’ll have a convincing bid to join the starting lineup and to close games. He’ll fill the role De’Anthony Melton — who headed to Brooklyn in the trade — held before his season-ending injury.
Still, the Warriors probably wouldn’t have traded for Schroder three, five or 10 years ago; given Schroder’s career trajectory, they probably had chances to. But as Kerr and the Warriors have repeated this year, they need to adapt their style. Their slimmer margin for error requires it. When that’s the case, risks become necessary.
“I don’t think he was necessarily brought here to fit,” Draymond Green said. “We play a certain style of basketball that he does not really play. And I don’t think the goal is to get him to play the style of basketball we play. We need someone who does the things that he does. I’m looking forward to us adjusting to him.”
The league is evolving to the point that the best teams have multiple on-ball engines. The Celtics have Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard — all players capable of running pick-and-rolls effectively. The Mavericks, Golden State’s Sunday opponent, have Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Before the trade, the Warriors had just one reliable on-ball creator in Curry. Jonathan Kuminga has shown flashes, too, but not enough to prevent the team’s current 2-8 slide in which their late-game offense has gotten painfully stagnant in several losses.
In crunch time, teams have face-guarded Curry and anticipated Golden State’s pet actions. The counter, as the Warriors have shown at times, is to run pick-and-rolls to create an advantage, be it a mismatch, 4-on-3 or driving lane.
The Warriors run the fourth fewest pick-and-rolls per game and rank 23rd in efficiency on the play types. It’s just not a big part of their offensive approach.
Unless the team adjusts the philosophy that helped bring them four championships.
“It’s what we’ve been talking about all year: trying to cater to the strengths of what this team is,” Curry said. “There’s a lot of experimenting been going on with us, and there will be even more with Dennis in the sense of how he can shift the geometry on the offensive end.”
Schroder would be part of that change. Among ballhandlers who run at least five pick-and-rolls per game, Schroder ranks in the 73rd percentile in points per possession.
“We’ve established through almost a third of the season that we’re a good defense,” Kerr said. “That shouldn’t change if we stay healthy. In fact, Dennis should add to that because he’s an excellent defender. Where we need help, frankly, is offense. Off-ball, pick-and-roll, we need help. Our last 10 games, we’re dead last in efficiency. Not just pick-and-roll efficiency, but overall offensive efficiency. I don’t care what I try to run, I just want to run something that’s efficient.”
Kerr has always cared about what the Warriors run. When he arrived as a first-time head coach, he turned an isolation-heavy team into one of the most selfless offensive systems ever. The Warriors went from last in the league in passes per game to ninth in Kerr’s inaugural season.
Although Schroder’s averaging a career-best 6.6 assists per game, he can be somewhat of a ball-stopper. He has eight screen assists on the season — same as Jordan Poole — another data point that suggests he won’t be a natural fit in the Warriors’ movement system.
“We have to adjust to him because he’s bringing something that this team needs,” Green said. “To just make him fall in line with what we do, we’d be wasting our time with even bringing him here. Because we need someone to do what we necessarily don’t. I think that’s what he’ll be for us.”
Schroder’s career 24.6 usage rate would rank third on the current Warriors team, behind only Curry and Jonathan Kuminga. He’s best when he has the ball and is making decisions, and the Warriors are poised to put the rock in his hands.
Even if that occasionally looks different than Kerr’s bucolic ideal of offense.
“I think it’ll be seamless, actually,” Kerr said. “Because we actually need a pick-and-roll player right now. In our last 10 games, our pick-and-roll efficiency is dead last in the league. Teams are loading up on Steph. Can’t ask him to run every pick-and-roll. And Dennis is a pick-and-roll player.”