Bazemore earns, doesn’t just lead, cheers these days
Even when he was asked Wednesday night specifically about ball movement and unselfish play, which are generally a couple of his favorite subjects, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr twirled the attention to reserve swingman Kent Bazemore.
“I think Baze has been fantastic for us, playing more and getting more of an opportunity,” Kerr said after the Warriors’ 147109 trouncing of the Thunder in Oklahoma City. “… He’s been great. He’s really given us a boost.”
For possibly the first time in his career, some of the smartest people in the basketball community are talking more about what Bazemore is doing on the court than his emphatic celebrations from the sideline.
On a night when the Warriors tied the franchise record with 24 3pointers, Stephen Curry casually scored 42 points in 29 minutes, and Draymond Green posted a tripledouble before the clock ran to the fourminute mark in the third quarter, Bazemore managed to put his stamp on the game, too.
The ninthyear pro started and had 15 points, two rebounds, two assists and two steals. More noteworthy: The Warriors outscored Oklahoma City by 23 points in Bazemore’s 21 minutes as he continued a sneakily impressive season that had teammates reflecting on where it all started.
Green said he still remembers Bazemore, who had gone undrafted out of Old Dominion, reporting to the Las Vegas Summer League in 2012: “Coming in, there wasn’t much there. … He just worked, worked, worked.”
Grinding two hours before and an hour after every practice, Bazemore had a sevenblock game that helped him make the Warriors’ roster. But most of his rookie season, in which he averaged 4.4 minutes in 61 games, ended up being more about cheering for his teammates — celebrations that became so popular they were featured in a video game.
Similar delights seem to have returned following a tumultuous run. After securing a fouryear, $70 million deal with Atlanta, the Hawks wanted out of the deal in 2019, and Bazemore looked lost as he went through three teams in a sevenmonth span.
In September 2020, he went back to work with Curry in Atherton. In November, Bazemore signed a leagueminimum deal with the Warriors. And somewhere in between, Bazemore realized that he had to play his way.
That often means understanding spacing on offense and pressuring every dribble on defense. But it also can mean shooting at inopportune times and hacking opponents when they’re not close to being in position to score.
Or, as Green put it: “One thing that has not wavered is that he’s a wrecking ball on the defensive side of the ball. He was that same wrecking ball when he came into the league, and he’s that same wrecking ball now — maybe with a few more nuances, a few more tricks to the trade that he’s picked up over the years. But he has that same energy and intensity that he came into that first summerleague game with.”
As much as the relentless fouling bothers Kerr, he knows that Bazemore’s energy and intensity almost always positively affect the scoreboard.
Bazemore went into Wednesday’s game as the team’s leader in plusminus, helping the Warriors outscore opponents by 6.5 points per 100 possessions — 4.4 points better than even Curry and Green.
No wonder Kerr wanted the spotlight to be flashed onto Bazemore.