{"id":287552,"date":"2025-10-08T21:46:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/287552\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T21:46:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:46:25","slug":"entering-year-5-moses-moody-is-poised-to-take-the-next-step-with-the-warriors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/287552\/","title":{"rendered":"Entering Year 5, Moses Moody is poised to take the next step with the Warriors"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Moses Moody wasn\u2019t cleared for basketball activities until July, but that didn\u2019t stop him from finding pickup runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only snag was, with a surgically repaired UCL in his right thumb, he could only play left-handed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up playing ball, so when I was going through the surgery rehab \u2014 don\u2019t tell Rick (Celebrini) \u2014 but I was out there playing left-handed at the park. Whoever was out there, I\u2019d go play,\u201d Moody said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Atlanta visiting family and back home in Little Rock, at the Kanis Park court where he grew up playing, Moody couldn\u2019t wait to fully heal to get runs in. He tucked his shooting hand in a brace and did everything with his left.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe only played with one hand!\u201d said Marcel Hudson, a 22-year-old hooper from Atlanta who played against Moody that day. \u201cLike, literally only played with one hand the entire time. He had the right hand kind of tucked, he didn\u2019t use his right hand. He was crossing over with the left, catching it with the left, shooting it with the left \u2014 it\u2019s crazy how deep their skill-set is. Because he was still like a big part for the teams he was playing on, like even with one hand he was still making shots. It was crazy to see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Moody pulled up to the court, one guy was convinced he was an NBA player. \u201cIs that Moses Moody?\u201d After playing it cool for a bit, Moody eventually came clean.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Always thoughtful but more soft-spoken than bombastic, Moody sharing such a colorful story at the podium in front of reporters is a sign of how comfortable he is entering his fifth NBA season. That might\u2019ve been the first time fans on social media heard his Kawhi Leonard-esque laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s relaxed for good reason. The Warriors wing thrived next to Jimmy Butler toward the end of last season, which became the longest stretch of a steady role in Moody\u2019s career. He\u2019s a candidate to start in that same lineup \u2014 next to Butler, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Brandin Podziemski \u2014 and carry the momentum he started to build before the thumb injury.<\/p>\n

\"TwoMoody averaged a career-high 9.8 points per game last season. | Source: Ezra Shaw\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think that comes with age, growing up a little bit,\u201d Moody said of his mindset. \u201cNot trying to sound like a super vet, an OG or nothing in the game. But I guess it\u2019s just the comfort that you can control whatever you can, and what you can\u2019t control. I think that\u2019s comforting. And then just trusting the work I put in this summer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr thinks players should spend more time in the offseason playing pickup instead of doing individual work, which has become the norm in today\u2019s hyper-skilled league. It\u2019s a decision-making sport, and the only way to improve is to actually play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moody concurs. Even when he had to do everything in daily life with only his left hand \u2014 the one thing he never could figure out was eating with chopsticks \u2014 the 23-year-old wing sought out games.<\/p>\n

He remembers the Atlanta game vividly. Looking at a picture Hudson posted, he pointed out a player who got buckets \u2014 \u201cHe was nice,\u201d Moody said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hudson grew up playing football and had never shared the court with an NBA player before. That didn\u2019t stop him from talking trash to Moody.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time he shot I\u2019m like, \u2018That\u2019s off, you can\u2019t make that, that\u2019s not your bag,\u2019\u201d Hudson recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"EightMoody, in the middle, found a pickup run in Atlanta when he traveled to visit family this summer. | Source: Courtesy of Marcel Hudson<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s thumb injury severely impacted his game last year. He suffered it on March 18 against Milwaukee, but continued playing as the Warriors raced toward the playoffs. In the 20 games before the injury, he shot 47% from the field and 39.8% from deep. Afterward, those numbers dipped to 37.2% and 30.3%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s offensive struggles continued into the postseason. He couldn\u2019t palm the ball and his thumb hurt every time he caught a pass. Hand-checks were uncomfortable and he could only shoot with four fingers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once Moody was cleared for basketball activities this summer, he reincorporated his thumb into his jumper. The first results were spectacular; in Golden State\u2019s preseason opener, he shot 7-for-9 for a game-high 19 points, sinking five of his seven 3-pointers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s perhaps more important than Moody\u2019s outside jumper is his defense. Last year\u2019s small-ball lineup with Green at center and Moody as the point-of-attack defender helped the Warriors surge into the playoffs by outscoring opponents by 18.7 points per 100 possessions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s wingspan and athleticism make him the Warriors\u2019 best option at picking up ballhandlers far from the basket besides Gary Payton II. With more experience, he got smarter about when to swipe at the ball for steals, too. He likened the cat-and-mouse game of on-ball defense to wrestling, which he loved to do growing up with his brother and older cousins. There\u2019s a rhythm to moving your feet to stay in front of a ballhandler while using your arms to disrupt dribbles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Moody struggled in the playoffs as his thumb injury hampered him during the second half of last season. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades\/The Standard<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a big part of what got me on the floor consistently,\u201d Moody said. \u201cSo if that\u2019s what got me there, I\u2019ve got to keep doing it. Over the summer, I got better at different stuff, too. Being able to have a better idea of what this team needs me to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pat Spencer, Golden State\u2019s backup point guard, often plays against Moody during scrimmages and has witnessed his evolution as a defender.<\/p>\n

\u201cMo works on everything that you see him do out there,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cPeople ask a lot about Steph as far as, \u2018What do you admire?\u2019 I admire that he practices the way he plays. Mo is no different. He\u2019s one of those guys who\u2019s OCD in a great way. When he gets his mindset on trying to figure something out, you\u2019ll see him in that gym, down in that dungeon, hour after hour getting it done. You root for a guy like that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kerr has always been impressed with Moody\u2019s maturity. The guard\u2019s role has been up and down in his first four seasons, but he has never complained. The coach has likened Moody\u2019s temperament to that of Kevon Looney, the Warriors\u2019 longtime \u201cmoral compass.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s role entering the season is as cemented as it has ever been. He knows that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s concrete. He has an idea of where on the floor his shots are going to come, the types of reads he\u2019ll need to make, and how to impact the game defensively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second half of last season was proof of concept. Might this be the year he takes a step up from it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d Moody said. \u201cI\u2019m going to build as much as I can and then look up and see what I\u2019ve built.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the Section…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":287553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3140,1260,62,18767,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-287552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-golden-state-warriors","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-steve-kerr","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115340745096983187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}