McCaw starting to assert himself
The fourth of six kids, Patrick McCaw learned young the merits of observation. Much of his early years growing up in St. Louis were spent waiting to get a word in.
“With three older siblings, he understands you have to listen,” said Jeff McCaw, Patrick’s father.
It is that patient, even-keeled approach that has earned Patrick the nickname among his Warriors teammates of “P Nice.” The problem? In deferring to others, McCaw sometimes hurts the team. Golden State is at its best when he is making the most of the spacing his All-Star teammates afford.
By that measure, McCaw has made important strides this week. Head coach Steve Kerr has encouraged him for months to be more aggressive looking for his shot. After averaging 3.1 attempts over his first 29 games of the season, McCaw has totaled 20 shots over his past two.
In Wednesday night’s 126-101 win over Utah, he forced the defense to stop sagging off him. McCaw scored a season-high 18 points, including 12 in the second half, on 7-for-10 shooting. The highlight came late in the third quarter, when he caught a pass from Jordan Bell on the left elbow, saw a wide-open driving lane, took one hard dribble and hit the layup while taking contact.
As McCaw walked to the foul line, teammate Draymond Green erupted off the bench and unleashed a roar. Green, who has long stressed to McCaw the importance of being aggressive, recognized that McCaw would likely have passed up that layup earlier in the season.
“He’s a defender primarily, in his own mind, and a distributor,” Kerr said of McCaw. “Scoring is sort of a secondary thought for him. We are trying to get him as aggressive as possible. He plays his best when he is looking to score, like he did tonight.”
McCaw learned early from Jeff, a longtime high school basketball coach in the St. Louis area, to let plays develop before deciding whether to pass or shoot. In eighth grade, while many of his peers mimicked Kobe Bryant’s pump fake or Allen Iverson’s crossover, McCaw worked regularly with his dad and a promising junior, Ben McLemore — now a guard for the Memphis Grizzlies — on his footwork at the now-shuttered Wellston High School outside St. Louis.
It was McCaw’s old-school playing style that compelled Golden State to buy his rights — the No. 38 pick of the 2016 NBA draft out of UNLV — from the Milwaukee Bucks for $2.4 million. As a rookie last season, he carved out a rotation spot by playing with a poise that belied his inexperience. A roster stocked with household names freed McCaw to play solid defense, set screens and find open teammates in the flow of the offense.
Two of his best performances came in the playoffs. In Game 3 of Golden State’s firstround sweep of Portland, McCaw had 11 points on 4-for-6 shooting with five rebounds and five assists. Three weeks later, in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against San Antonio, he had 18 points, five assists, three rebounds and three steals in 27 minutes.
It was enough for many to assume he wouldn’t play in Summer League for a second straight year. By his choice, McCaw headed to Las Vegas in July and outplayed some of the 2017 draft’s top picks, averaging 20 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists in five games.
The offseason additions of Nick Young and Omri Casspi made it tricky for him to build off his surprisingly productive rookie season. Now, after yoyoing in and out of the rotation for two-plus months, McCaw has averaged 24.3 minutes the past 10 games with Stephen Curry out with a sprained right ankle.
Hyper-aware that he shares a court with some of league’s best scorers, McCaw has had a tough time deciphering when to pass and when to shoot. His driving lanes have become so open recently that Green, Kerr, Kevin Durant and others have empowered him to take what the defense gives him.
“To have the opportunity to play with them and just find my niche with this team, I think it’s been the biggest step for me,” McCaw said. “When you have guys like Klay (Thompson) and KD telling you to go out there and have fun and play aggressive, I think it’s starting to help me out a lot more.”