SAN FRANCISCO — Before every game, Brandin Podziemski walks across the halfcourt line, forwards and backwards, juggling three tennis balls.
Podziemski got the trick from Steph Curry’s trainer, Brandon Payne, over the summer, to try to hone his hand-eye coordination and body motor function. He thinks it has helped him connect his mind and body.
He’s done it through a brutal shooting slump to start the year, through the injury that sidelined him for the longest time of his life, and now as he turns the corner. It’s all part of a routine-oriented approach for the maniacal worker trying to build on his First-Team All-Rookie season. The only thing that might change is that before the end of the season, he wants to add another ball.
“I just try to make sure my habits and my consistencies are right,” Podziemski told this news organization after leading the Warriors past Utah with 20 points, seven rebounds and six assists. “And if they are, I know — just like my shot — it’s going to always turn in my favor.”
As he tries to apply maxim that throughout his life, he and the Warriors are starting to get a return on his investment. After a bizarre start to his sophomore season, Podziemski looks like he’s building on his impressive rookie campaign. In three games since returning from his abdominal strain, Podziemski has shot 9-for-21 from behind the arc. The Warriors have outscored their three opponents by 50 points with him on the floor in those contests as he plays with the type of pace, poise and confidence he displayed last season.
“He looks like he’s really ready to break out,” head coach Steve Kerr said after Podziemski registered 17 points, five assists, two steals and no turnovers in Sunday’s loss to the Lakers.
In his first 20 games this year, Podziemski shot just 20.6% from 3. Both Steph Curry and Draymond Green pulled him aside, urging him not to dwell so much on missed shots. Kerr called out his decision-making. He was putting so much pressure on himself to be perfect, it was hurting his play. Ultra-confident from the day he joined the Warriors — bordering on irrationally at times, perhaps — Podziemski’s swagger was shaken.
“Early-season struggles can weigh on you mentally,” Podziemski said. “On the flip side of things, percentages are always going to balance out to where they should be.”
His start to the season was bizarre. The team’s leader in plus-minus as a rookie and the NBA’s leader in charges drawn, Podziemski entered his second year regarded as a gem. You’d be hard-pressed to find a scout, executive or coach at Summer League with a negative thing to say about him. Warriors owner Joe Lacob said he has All-Star potential, and the comments didn’t seem ludicrous at the moment. He was the darling of the league, and the Warriors were reportedly protective of him in offseason trade discussions for Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen.
By all accounts, offseason trade machinations didn’t hinge solely on Podziemski. But chatter among the trade base picked up nonetheless. We passed on Markkanen for this guy?
And Podziemski hears the noise.
Like many 21-year-olds, Podziemski is on his phone. A lot. He’s more of a Facetimer and texter, but he’ll scroll social media occasionally. He’ll post, too; earlier this year he clarified a comment about Curry he worried could be taken out of context and over the offseason, he posted still images comparing his footwork to Luka Doncic.
From whatever social media platform, he’ll see how desperate Warriors fans are to go all-in as Curry’s prime dwindles, and he knows what that means for players like him and Jonathan Kuminga.
“We have a lot of expectations for ourselves,” Podziemski said. “We have high expectations for our future and the now. When you hear something like that, as a competitor and as someone who puts a lot into the game, I feel like I’m more than capable of doing it. It’s just like not making Rising Stars. You put that on your shoulders, like, ‘They don’t think we can do it’ and, ‘We need X, Y, Z to do it.’ And so, I think me and JK, we think we’re perfectly capable of helping Steph, helping Draymond win a championship. We definitely hear it, we definitely see it.”
Podziemski started to turn his season around in December, when shots started to fall and the rest of his game followed. He shot 45% from the field and 42.5% from deep in 12 games before getting banged up on a freak collision with Clippers wing Amir Coffey.
Abdominal injuries can be tricky. Podziemski was lucky to have director of sports medicine and performance Rick Celebrini — who has specialized in the core muscle group for years — guiding him through recovery. He had to re-learn how to run properly, making more efficient movements.
Never in Podziemski’s life had he been away from basketball for so long. A month on the sideline was tough, and he said he “started a new journey” in regards to his relationship with God. He regained appreciation for how much joy he has for the game and for competing. The perspective has helped him be more like himself, he said.
Podziemski shot every day when the pain subsided, working with his trainer on being more solid, syncing up his lower half with his upper body.
When the Warriors entered the season, they envisioned Podziemski both starting alongside Curry and also serving as his backup point guard. That experiment early in the season didn’t produce the intended results, as Podziemski is still better suited as a secondary playmaker. He’s at his best pushing pace, catching the ball on the move to attack closeouts, taking catch-and-shoot 3s with confidence and running pick-and-rolls in a pinch.
But he’s starting to look a lot more like what the Warriors had in mind for him. Like the darling of league executives again. Like a vocal, demonstrative floor general who has the coaching staff’s utmost trust.
“That’s just his personality,” Kevon Looney said. “BP’s a talkative guy. I don’t know what word I would use — he can be an a-hole sometimes. But you want that as your point guard. Dennis is like that. They know how to push guys’ buttons, get under guys’ skins. You need that toughness out there. Especially because he’s not the biggest guy, you’ve got to have edge to be good in this league. I think he has that. He’s finding the balance of how to connect with guys, make guys better and push himself. I think he’s really developing in that role, and that’s going to be his future.”
Podziemski is juggling more than just tennis balls, and he’s bound to drop some. Everybody does. But by sticking to his habits, through ups and downs, criticism and praise, Podziemski is taking the next step.
Source: Paradise Post
