Brandon Williams Has the Minutes. Now He Needs the Jumper.
Golden State's backup lead guard touches the ball more than almost anyone on the roster, but his jump shot has to catch up to his role this season.
Brandon Williams posted a 24.2 percent usage rate last season, taking over possessions as the second-unit ball handler behind Stephen Curry and Brandin Podziemski. He did it on 23.2 percent shooting from three, a gap between opportunity and return that Golden State's thin bench can't keep absorbing this season.
The Role
Williams enters his fourth season on a one-year, $2.4 million deal, the kind of contract that describes exactly what he is: rotation insurance, not a building block. Last season he played 66 games and 22.2 minutes a night, averaging 13.0 points, 3.9 assists and 2.9 rebounds as Golden State's first guard off the bench. He has flashed this preseason too, scoring 11 against the Clippers on October 4 and 19 against the Kings on October 10, before a late scratch Thursday that Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area tied to left lower back tightness.
The Number That Defines Him
Usage tells the real story. Williams carried a 24.2 percent usage rate last season, a workload that puts the ball in his hands nearly as often as anyone on the roster when he is on the floor. The problem is what happened next: a 47.2 percent mark from the field overall, but just 23.2 percent from three on 2.3 attempts a game. His 57.2 percent true shooting leaned on a 79.3 percent free-throw rate and work at the rim, not the perimeter game a bench guard in this offense is supposed to supply.
What Doesn't Show Up in the Box Score
Williams isn't only a shot-taker. His 25.6 percent assist rate is a real number for a combo guard, and it points to what he does well: setting up Golden State's shooters rather than hunting his own look. The other half of his grade is defense, where a 115.6 defensive rating helped drag him to a -4.4 net rating, among the worst marks on the roster whenever he shared the floor.
What He Needs to Be
With Kristaps Porzingis, Jimmy Butler III and Moses Moody all starting the season out, Golden State's bench minutes are about to multiply, and Williams is first in line for them. The opportunity is real, and so is the math. A guard who uses a quarter of his team's possessions has to make outside shots at better than 23.2 percent, or those minutes get traded for someone else's efficiency. This is the season Williams needs to close that gap, not just occupy it.
What is Brandon Williams's role with the Warriors?
He's Golden State's primary backup ball handler, the first guard off the bench behind Stephen Curry and Brandin Podziemski, averaging 13.0 points and 3.9 assists last season.
Is Brandon Williams a reliable three-point shooter?
Not yet. He shot just 23.2 percent from three last season on 2.3 attempts a game, the clear weak spot in an otherwise useful offensive game.
