For ToscanoAnderson, practice makes a pro
As Warriors playerdevelopment coach Aaron Miles took forward Juan Toscano-Anderson through a repetitive shooting drill last summer, he noticed ToscanoAnderson glancing toward teammate Jordan Poole on a nearby court.
Miles knew that look well. While Poole laced the ball between his legs and drained stepback 3pointers, Toscano-Anderson was working to stay upright on his jump shots. His facial expression whenever he glanced at Poole said it all: Why couldn’t he have fun like that?
Miles reminded Toscano-Anderson that rebuilding his jumper, as tedious as it might seem, would help him stick in the NBA. After a halfdecade on professional basketball’s fringes, ToscanoAnderson — an East Oakland native — was finally on the roster of his hometown Warriors. To blossom from fringe player to a bona fide member of the rotation, however, he’d need to play the best basketball of his career.
Nearly halfway through the
season, ToscanoAnderson, 27, is doing just that as he makes his case for a place in the Warriors’ longterm plans. In 11 games this month, he is averaging 8.5 points on 54.3% shooting (45.5% from 3point range), 5.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 26.4 minutes. With the front court thinned by injury the past 21⁄2 weeks, ToscanoAnderson, who’s 6foot6, has started at power forward.
His combination of basketball IQ, defensive versatility, passing ability and tenacity has drawn comparisons to Warriors forward Draymond Green. But as much attention as Green has received for hearing 34 names called before his on draft night in 2012, at least he was drafted. Toscano-Anderson wasn’t selected in 2015 after his fouryear career at Marquette.
Before he beat out more than two dozen other players at an October 2018 tryout for the Warriors’ G League team, he toiled in such basketball hinterlands as Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico. Those who’ve followed that journey aren’t shocked to see Toscano-Anderson thriving in Golden State’s rotation.
At each stop along his route, he exhibited the makings of a valuable role player: energy, selflessness, sound defense and caring for his teammates. Now with the Warriors, ToscanoAnderson can showcase the full extent of his game.
“A lot of what you’re seeing is what he’s been doing for a long time,” said Miles, who was ToscanoAnderson’s head coach for the 201819 season with the G League’s Santa Cruz Warriors. “But then you put him alongside Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre, and all the dirty work he’s always done is really going to stand out.”
Miles understands as well as anyone that, for a fringe player in the NBA, success is largely about fit.
A fouryear starter at Kansas who led the Jayhawks to two Final Fours, Miles signed with the Warriors as an undrafted rookie in 2005, only to be released three months and 19 games later before his contract was guaranteed. Outside of a brief preseason stint with Golden State in 2010, the passfirst point guard spent the rest of his decadelong pro career in lesser leagues.
To this day, Miles believes he would’ve carved out a sustained niche in the NBA had he landed in a winning organization that prized his court vision. In June, when the Warriors’ players were allowed to return to the practice facility amid the coronavirus pandemic, Miles recounted some of his personal story to Toscano-Anderson.
The message was clear: ToscanoAnderson had found what Miles could not — an NBA team that fits his skill set. Now ToscanoAnderson needed to capitalize. This meant strengthening the parts of his game that Warriors head coach Steve Kerr would call upon.
Given that Golden State had plenty of scorers, it needed ToscanoAnderson to focus on defending multiple positions, kicking out to Curry and knocking down basic shots. Five days a week, Miles took ToscanoAnderson through detailoriented workouts designed to simplify his movements.
On defense, he was taught to stay patient and avoid going after blocks or steals. On offense, Miles broke down ToscanoAnderson’s shooting form to its most fundamental elements.
He tended to push off his right foot on jump shots, which caused the ball to drift left. Hours were spent ensuring that ToscanoAnderson stepped fluidly into his shot and released it a tad sooner — all while staying balanced and upright. Miles also schooled ToscanoAnderson on extending his followthrough and spinning the ball better off his fingertips.
“The workouts were very tedious,” ToscanoAnderson said. “Even now, it’s like, ‘You know what? I want to do something else.’ But I’m seeing a lot of benefits from doing these tedious things, so I’m going to stick with it.”
In the nine years from his freshman season at Marquette through his rookie year in the NBA last season, Toscano-Anderson did not shoot better than 50.1% from the field or 37.2% from 3point range at any level. In 18 games with the Warriors this season, he is shooting 55.4% from the field (43.3% from 3point range).
The result: a shot at longevity with the franchise he grew up cheering. Kerr said recently that he’d support converting ToscanoAnderson’s twoway contract, which allows him to play only as many as 50 of a possible 72 games with Golden State this season, to a standard NBA deal.
To do that, the Warriors would have to waive someone — a sign that they view ToscanoAnderson as a part of their future.
“You can see what a guy’s about by watching him play basketball,” Kerr said. “The way Juan plays basketball is energetically, smartly. He does it in a manner that sort of weaves everybody together. … He’s just a natural leader.”