Hield proves to be Steph's complement to the warriors he needs

Hield proved to be the Steph complement Warriors needed originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SALT LAKE CITY — During a timeout in the Warriors' preseason win over the Detroit Pistons, a meeting of basketball minds occurred between assistant coach Bruce Fraser and two of the game's best shooters. While Steph Curry sat out the game in a blue tracksuit, Buddy Hield cheered on the Pistons, going 4 of 6 from three in 14 minutes and listening to every piece of advice from his new teammate.

“We talked about feet,” Hield revealed Friday after the Warriors fired shots before their game against the Utah Jazz. “He was trying to figure out how I caught and shot the ball and what he was comfortable with, what I was comfortable with. We talked about feet and balance.”

Curry and Hield are both elite shooters on the run. They are weapons that cannot be stopped in transition. Automatic three points without perfect defense, and even that is sometimes not enough.

Although he tries to be as poised as possible, for Hield, shooting comes down to feel. When the ball comes out of his right hand, he usually knows immediately whether the ball is going in or not.

“I’m a hand placement guy,” Hield explained. “If it comes off my hand properly, I feel like it has a good chance of getting in. We have done so much work with our bodies and we have already mastered it. So when guys hit hard shots and people go, 'Oh, that was a hard shot.' I'm more like, 'Yeah, but it came right to me – it felt good.'

“I'm just so used to doing this shot all the time. Sometimes it’s not just about balance, it’s about hand placement, and once the ball is in the right hand position, you let it go and you know it’s going in.”

The Warriors acquired Hield via sign-and-trade as part of their massive six-team deal that sent Klay Thompson to the Dallas Mavericks. From practice throughout the preseason to the Warriors' stunning victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, Hield fit seamlessly into Steve Kerr's offense.

Hield shot 48.7 percent from 3-point range in the Warriors' undefeated 6-0 preseason campaign, making 19 of his 39 attempts. In his regular-season debut, Hield was unconscious when he came off the bench and immediately became a problem for Portland's defense. Despite only playing 15 minutes, Hield was the Warriors' leading scorer, scoring 22 points on 8 of 12 shooting and making five of his seven three-pointers.

Replacing a legend like Thompson is an impossible task. Hield immediately made it clear that he wasn't trying to be Thompson, knowing those shoes could never be filled. He can just be himself and everything the Warriors wanted him to be when they acquired him in the offseason.

There may also be no better replacement than Hield. He has made 250 three-pointers five times in his career. This is more than just Curry, who has done this ten times. But while Curry has missed games due to injury and Hield has been an Iron Man, no one has made more three-pointers than Hield over the past five seasons.

Hield made 1,322 three-pointers in 388 games during that span, and Curry, second to Hield, made 1,264 three-pointers in 262 games. But the work never stops for the best of the best, and Hield has already picked up on some of the finer points of shooting from personally observing Curry.

“He shoots the ball up,” Hield said. “He has a great arc on the ball and I’ve been working on that. I don't like having a flat shot. As he kept the ball in the arc, I realized his shot was pure. He has a unique arc that is flowing.

“He’s been working on it his whole life, so I’m trying to keep at it.”

Before becoming Warriors teammates, Curry and Hield played against each other 15 times, with Golden State defeating Hield's team in 13 games. Hield says he didn't ask Curry for advice, just talked a little about how to keep his shot from going too far left or right during the 3-point contest.

Whether it was his four years at Oklahoma or playing for the New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers, Hield always watched Curry from afar.

“But I studied him damn well,” Hield said. “I’ve seen all of his highlights. I saw all his games. Whenever he played, I was the guy that was like, “Yo, I gotta watch him play.”

“The way he moves without the ball and how everyone gravitates to him, I’m just amazed at how he does it.”

Now the two locker mates are at Chase Center, chatting on the bus on the way to away games. All we have is a sample from one game so far in the regular season, and even that shows Hield's history behind the 3-point line and getting tips from Curry can cause defenses to huff, puff and turn Beg for help.

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